Madrid

Saturday, July 26th

We left Salamanca early in the morning to spend the day in Madrid. Our first stop was at the Museo del Prado, an art museum. We spent 90 minutes in there with Dr. Torrico leading us around and pointing out things I would have never noticed. I'm not very art savvy. The main artists we focused on were Velazquez and Goya, but the place was just huge with art everywhere.

Madrid is so big, we really couldn't wander around too much over our lunch break because we didn't want to get lost. Our next planned visit, however, was at the Palacio Real, or the Royal Palace. I really enjoyed walking through the rooms at the Palace. They were each uniquely decorated with different color schemes and extravagant detailing. Some of it almost seemed gaudy with all of the gold and ornate chandeliers, but it was neat to see nonetheless. It was a rather quick trip, but we were all very tired after being in the hot sun.

Sunday, June 27th

Salamanca (or Spain in general) doesn't offer a lot to do on Sundays, but my host lady had told me about the 'rastro' that happens every Sunday by the river. A rastro is a flea market, and apparently this one was really big. Blake and I decided to check it out, so we caught a bus down to the market since it would have been a long walk. People were right, it was very big, it had rows and rows of tents with merchandise from shoes, clothes, underwear, purses, sunglasses, chainsaws, and even what is best described as garage sale leftovers. It was basically a whole bunch of crap. It was all very inexpensive, but nothing worth buying. It was crowded though, and Feli told me to make sure and hold onto my bag tight, because a friend of hers had her bag stolen a week or two before. While there, some guys called me Barbie, that was a first in Spain, I gave them points for creativity.

I ate lunch with Feli and her daughter-in-law and two grandsons, her son died from pancreatic cancer several years ago. I guess they eat there every Sunday, but I had been gone on excursions and hadn't met them yet. They were very nice, I had forgotten about the European greeting of the double cheek kiss, but I caught on.

Later on, a couple of us walked down by the river to and sunbathe and read our books, it made for a relaxing Sunday afternoon.