This past week was spring break and I took advantage of my current location and went to Madrid for the week.
It was beautiful and I loved it. I have never spent more than 24 hours in Europe (and most of that time was spent in airports, so it doesn’t really count) so this was an entirely new experience for me.
My friend from Boston, Tom, is studying in Madrid right now, and he had a long weekend two weeks ago, so he and a few friends came to Morocco for four days and I showed them around Rabat, and then we flew back to Spain on the same flight. I showed them around the medina, the kasbah, and the beach, and I brought them to my house for tea and to meet my host family. My 7 month old niece was over, so they had fun playing with her and seeing my roofless house.
We flew to Madrid last Sunday and I went with my friend Monica and two other girls from our program. We stayed in a hostel near Puerta del Sol, which is a big plaza in a kind of touristy section in the center of the city. It is near the Plaza Mayor as well as a bunch of museums and there is a lot of shopping and tons of places to walk around near Sol, so we were in a great location. We took the Metro from the airport to the hostel, and learned how wonderful the Metro in Madrid is. It is huge (12 lines) and runs everywhere. It’s also probably the cleanest subway system I’ve ever seen. Trains also come every three minutes, so there’s also almost no waiting time. It’s also pretty cheap: each ride is one euro, or you can buy 10 rides for 7.40€. We ended up taking the Metro a lot because it was so convenient.
By the time we got to our hostel on Sunday night, it was around 7:30 and we were really hungry (I hadn’t eaten since that morning), but we had to wait a while to get dinner because in Spain they don’t eat dinner until after 10.
At around 9 we couldn’t wait any longer, so we decided to walk around and see if we could find any cheap restaurants that were open. Our goal was to get a meal for less than 10 euros, so we walked around for a while, but then we found a place called Maoz, which is a vegetarian falafel bar that is a popular chain all around Madrid. You can get falafel with humus, guacamole, or feta cheese and then there is a salad bar with tons of different kinds of salads and noodles, and you can put as many as you want in your falafel. In short, it is delicious. Plus, it only costs 6 euro (and that is with extra stuff, if you get it plain it’s costs less than 5), so we were ecstatic. After not eating for so long, it tasted heavenly and we wolfed our dinner down. Then we walked around Sol for a little while, but we were pretty tired, so we went to bed kind of early.
On our way there, we passed a huge cathedral and it was free to go inside, so we decided to check it out. It was called Cathedral Nuestra Señora De la Almudena, and it was ginormous and gorgeous. We were really happy that admission was free because it was a beautiful cathedral and you usually have to pay to see things like that, so it was a pleasant surprise.
Another one of our friends who is studying with us in Morocco, Hilary, was also in Spain that week, and we had made plans to meet with her, so after lunch, that is what we did. There is a museum in Madrid that is made specifically for the blind, and it is completely hands on, which we thought was super awesome, so we planned to meet here there. Unfortunately, it was Monday, and what we didn’t know when we made our plans was that all the museums in Madrid are closed on Mondays. By the time we figured that out, we didn’t have any way of contacting Hilary, so we went to meet her anyways. We took the metro and then were wandering around for a while because the part of the city that we were in wasn’t included in the map that we had, so that was a little confusing. We finally got oriented and were only about a block from the museum when we ran into Hilary. Instead of going to the museum we walked around for a while. It was really nice to spend time with her and it was fun to explore a part of Madrid away from the touristy section our hostel was in.
My friend Tom finished class that day at 5:30, so I met up with him and got to see the Instituto Internacional where he takes classes. Then we walked around for a while and hung out in a café until I met up with Monica and the others again for dinner.
The next morning Monica and I met up with Tom after his class, and we went to El Escorial, which is a small town about half an hour outside of Madrid. There is a monastery there that was constructed in the 16th century by Phillip II who was king at that time. It was giant and because it was constructed of stone it was also freezing. It was kind of an austere place, which makes sense because apparently Phillip II was against the lavish lifestyle that a lot of kings lived, so he decided to build the monastery and live there. However, he really liked gardens, so he constructed a bunch of them around the monastery and had the rooms situated so that he could sit inside and still enjoy the gardens. We also saw his bedroom and the bed that he died in, which is still in the same place and position that it was when he died, which is a little bit creepy, but kind of cool at the same time.
After walking around the monastery for a while, we were hungry and wanted to get lunch. But here’s the catch, it was around 3:30 and this was in a small town in Spain, where they really enjoy their siestas. In fact, most shops and many restaurants in Spain are closed between the hours of 2 and 5. So we wandered around for a cheap place to eat that was open. It took us about 20 minutes to find a place that fit both requirements and it ended up being a kebab restaurant. For some reason, kebab and felafel are both really popular in Spain, but neither of them are found in Morocco, which is think is kind of strange… Anyway, we ate lunch there and then took the bus back to Madrid.
We spent the afternoon in the Parque Del Retiro, which is the biggest park in Madrid. It has a bunch of fountains and gardens and statues of obscure kings everywhere, and it’s a nice place to hang out.
In the evening, Tom had to go back to his house for dinner with his host family, but we met up with Lauren, Monica’s roommate, who is also studying in Madrid. The next morning, Lauren was going to the Canary Islands (which are ironically located next to Morocco) for a short vacation, so it was good that we saw her before she left.
The next morning we woke up early because we wanted to go to Toledo, which is about an hour outside of Madrid. The guide to Spain said to take a bus from Madrid’s Estacion Sure de Autobuses (the bus station) and when I asked Tom, he said the same thing, so we figured that was the way to go. When we got there however, there were no buses to Toledo listed. So we asked someone at the information desk and she said we had to get back on the Metro and go to a different stop, where there was another bus station, and from there we could catch a bus to Toledo. So that’s what we did. We ended up making it just in time, and through our very broken Spanish (we basically asked “Tickets, where?”) we were able to find a ticket machine and board the bus just before it left.
We took a direct bus, so it only took us 45 minutes to reach Toledo, instead of the hour and 15 minutes that we were expecting. So even though we had to go to two different bus stations, we reached Toledo at around the same time we had been planning on originally.
Once there, we walked around the town and went to the Museo de Santa Cruz, because it was free and because it had a big El Greco exhibit. El Greco lived in Toledo during the 16th century. He painted a lot of pictures of Toledo and it was really cool to see his pictures and then the actual town for ourselves. After that we went to the Toledo Cathedral. You are supposed to pay to go inside, but somehow, we managed to get in for free. The entrance we went in put us in this fenced in section, but we could still see most of the cathedral and we didn’t really want to pay the 7€ entrance fee, so we were happy with what we saw. It was bigger than the Cathedral that we saw in Madrid and so ornate it was unbelievable. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but it was absolutely beautiful.
After that, we walked to the Jewish quarter of Toledo and to the Sinagoga del Transito, which was built in 1357. There is the Museo Sefardi in the synagogue, which houses traditional costumes of Sephardic Jews as well as old Hebrew books, and general Jewish objects, like seder plates and Torahs. Everything came from Toledo and all of it was really old, dating back to the 14th century. Toledo used to have a sizable Jewish population, before they were all expelled in 1492, but as we walked through the streets of the Jewish quarter, we saw a lot of shops that were selling menorahs and magen davids, so there has been a really big push to bring back the Jewish history and background of Toledo. The Singoga del Transito was beautiful and I enjoyed visiting it a lot.
The day before, we had gone shopping at El Corte Ingles (a huge store that sells everything and includes a grocery store in the basement) and bought food for a picnic, so we found a park to eat lunch. Our picnic included bread, cheese, strawberries, and apples and it was delicious. We split up the cost, so it only ended up costing us each 2 euro, so it was also our cheapest meal.
After lunch, we walked to Alcazar, which is a fortress that is now a museum. It was closed for renovation, so we couldn’t go inside, but we saw the outside of it, which was still cool.
After walking around all day, we were exhausted, so we decided to go back to Madrid. We got back at around 5, so we decided to take a siesta before dinner. Everyone in Spain goes home for lunch and a nap at around 2, and then goes back to work at around 5 until about 7 or 8. Then they go out for tapas and then back home for dinner at around 10 or later. And then they go out. The early people are out at 11:30, but most people aren’t out until after 1. We hadn’t managed to fit a siesta into our busy schedules yet that week, so we were really excited about it. It made all the difference, I felt so much better after my siesta, I really wish I could have one everyday in Morocco and Boston.
At El Corte Ingles we also bought pasta, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, so Monica and I made pasta for dinner. It was both of our first time cooking in months, so we felt very accomplished, even if it was as simple a dinner as pasta. We loaded it with cheese, which neither of us get very much of in Morocco, so we enjoyed it immensely. It was great that our hostel had a kitchen that we could use because it saved us a bunch on meals. The guy who ran our hostel was an older man who was really nice. He spoke Spanish and Italian, and we spoke English, French, Arabic (and in my case, Turkish), so communicating with him was interesting, but we really enjoyed staying there. It was a large apartment that had been made into a hostel and it was really comfortable and homey.
Thursday was our last full day in Spain, so we decided it was going to be our museum day. We went to the Museo Nacional del Prado, which might be Madrid’s most famous museum. It is huge and has so much incredible art. I saw work by Raphael, Goya, El Greco, Rembrandt, and Velazquez. Last semester, in one of my classes, I studied art by Rembrandt and Velazquez and some of the paintings that I studied are housed in the Prado. It was amazing to see them in real life. We spent four hours in the Prado and saw everything. After that we went back to the hostel for lunch and a quick rest and then Monica and I went to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, which is Madrid’s most famous modern art museum. We saw a lot of Picasso and Dali as well as works by a ton of other artists. We spent 3 hours there and really enjoyed it, but by the end our feet were aching from walking so much.
Next, we decided to spend some time in the Retiro before dinner. Tom had told me about this restaurant, Casa Mingo, that his señora (that is what all the students in Spain call their host mothers) recommended. Because it was our last night in Madrid, we were fine with paying a bit more for a meal in a real restaurant, so Monica and I decided to go there for a real Spanish dinner. We ordered sheep cheese, salad, and Tortilla Española, which is like an omelet with potatoes and onions. Everything was delicious and totally worth the 13€ each that we paid. Considering we had spent less than 7€ on every other meal that week, we felt justified in splurging a little. When we got there at 10:15, the restaurant was packed, and there were still people there when we left at 11:30. I am going to have a hard time getting used to eating before 7 when I get back to Boston. Even here in Morocco, I eat dinner between 10 and 11 every night.
The next morning we went the airport for our flight back to Morocco. We got into Casablanca at around 2, but Monica’s mom was coming to Morocco to visit for a few days and her flight was supposed to get in 45 minutes later, and I didn’t want Monica to have to wait by herself, so I decided to wait with her. The only problem with that plan was that Monica’s mom didn’t show up 45 minutes later. We waited and waited and Monica walked all over the airport, but we didn’t see her. It had taken us 45 minutes to get through passport control after our flight (because the guy checking the passports decided that he needed to know everyone’s life story before he would let them into the country), but after waiting for an hour and a half, we figured she must not have been on that flight. Monica’s mom finally made it to Morocco at 6:30: she was flying from London and had missed her connecting flight in Paris, so she had had to wait for the later flight.
After she found us, we all got on the train, because they were going into Casablanca for the night and I was going back to Rabat. To get back to Rabat I had to change trains, and by the time I boarded my second train, it was already after 8. The second train looked really old and slightly sketchy, and wouldn’t you know it, 20 minutes after we pulled out of the station, there was a really scary noise and then the train broke down. We were stuck for an hour in the middle of nowhere. It was 9 o’clock before another train came by. This one was a very new, double-decker train and we all got off the sketchy train onto the new, shiny one. By the time I finally made it back to Rabat it was after 10 and I was exhausted. I went back to my house, ate a little dinner and fell asleep.
So there’s my account of my break in Madrid. My trip was really amazing. If you haven’t been to Madrid, I highly recommend it!
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