Traveling (in general)

We're on our way to Rome!
(sort of.)

We're actually.. quite literally.. on our way to Madrid via bus. Via very-expensive-yet-comfortable-express-bus. Via very-expensive-yet-comfortable-express-bus-which-has-wifi. (Nice.)

Not much to say. It's 11:30 pm. Another half an hour before we get to the bus station, and another very-slow-metro-ride to get to the Airport.

I never properly gave an account of the stresses involved in my return from Paris last week. I wanted to forget about it. I'll give one now, on the subject of traveling.

I was in Paris all alone- quite content. I had 6 hours at my leisure and planned on regressing to my Hostel to pick up my backpack about 1.5 hours before my bus was to leave to take me to the airport.
I got lost on my way, of course, and went out of the way to get a crepe so that I was feeling a bit antsy by the time I was on the METRO that would take me to the Paris Bus Station.  It was one metro line. Metro Line 1 to be percise. But it was a slowwww Metro line. Much slower than I bargained for..and I began to stressssss and stresss. I still needed to by my bus ticket for the proper bus that would take me to the airport 2 hours early for my flight.  And I had no idea if there was another bus- they time the buses to coincide with the airlines. I was sure I'd figure something out if I missed it... but I would have rather not had to worry.

I started counting the seconds between Metro stops. About 1.5 minutes from one stop to the other. 90 seconds, give or take a few.  This counted the opening and closing of doors. I figured I would have time. I *did* have time.. i got to the bus station and got my ticket and was scolded a little bit by the ticket-man for being kind of not-early but i had 5 minutes to spare once on the bus. No biggy.

And I get to the airport, go through bag checking and security (Takes an hour) and worry about getting a good seat on the plane and low-and-behold it's been delayed.

Let me put this in better context:
My flight was to leave at 7:10 pm from Paris and I was to arrive after 9 in Madrid.  I was then, it was planned, to go to the Bus station in Madrid (A metro line away) and make the earliest bus possible to get to Salamanca. I had 3 plausible bus lines I could easily make: a 10:00, a 10:30 and an 11:00.   I had prepared for this.  I gave my self more than an hour to get to the station in due time.

This is what happened:
My flight was delayed. UBER delayed. Uber-over-an-hour-delayed. Which would put me in Madrid right before 10. Which would give me about an hour to navigate myself out of the airport and into the Metro and then to the bus station where i would by my ticket and get on the bus.
Major Stress.

I got on the plane. I sat near the front so i could get out in due time. I figured I was safe. I had an hour. I could do it in an hour.

I bolted off the airplane. I flat-out-sprinted down the terminal complete with backpack and heavy coat. Sprinted. Gasping-for-breath-kind-of-sprinting.

You know who I simply can't abide by? People who use the cool airport-moving-walk-way-things  but who decide to just stand on it and chill. They block the pathway so i have to break my sprint.

You know what's pretty cool? Sprinting down the cool airport-moving-walk-way-things. You go SO Fast. But  I was too stressed. I arrived at the METRO and put my coins in the thing... took too much time for my liking, but I got on the first train and was horrified as I saw the number of stops were between that station and the transfer station.  I started counting seconds again. It did not bode well. The Madrid METRO trains are rather.... insufferably slow.

As soon as the door opened, I sprinted down the station to find the tunnel that connected the two lines. It was longer than I could ever have imagined it to be. (Longer than I had remembered it being 2 days ago, that is.) And escalators and stairs were conquered with record speeed... and I probably looked like a frazzled and crazy person.. but I felt the pressure to make that 11:00 bus. If I didn't make that 11:00 bus, I would have been stuck in madrid allll night by myself.

I arrived at the New METRO pickup and waited. I waited a painful amount of time. I had so many.. unpleasant thoughts go through my head along the lines of ... "you know... this probably isn't going to work. You always think that things are going to turn out just fine, don't you? It's like.. optimism. But it's dangerous to be this optimistic, because... things don't always turn out perfectly. They really don't. There is every chance in the world that you won't make this bus, and you'll be stuck in Madrid.. and you really just have to deal with this."

And the METRO came, and it was SLOWER than the one before it. The minutes disappeared. 5 minutes left by the time it arrived at the station. I sprinted Faster, getting anxious and hysterical by now, down the tunnel following the AUTOBUS signs. I arrived at the gate and put my ticket in it, trying to get out to go to the bus station.  It wouldn't accept my ticket. I was freaking out by this point, speaking horribly incoherent spanish.

Katherine: "It won't work!!"
Guard: Tranquilla. what do you want.
Katheirne: I need to get to the bus station.. i'm going to miss it...
Gaurd: what? what where?
Katherine: I'm late, i'm going to miss it.
Guard: *points in opposite direction. that doesn't have an exit gate*
Katherine:Oh.

I took a picture of it while on the way to Rome. Lol.

SO i have to climb uber stairs, and I see my bus! and I run up to it, 2 minutes left by now, and say "Please please please wait for me to get a ticket, where do I buy tickets?" and the bus driver shrugs and points at his watch. And then points up more stairs.

I sprint up those stairs, to the ticket man.. am practically crying by now because I want so badly for it to work and i'm so close.. and the ticket man.. is incredibly difficult. He tells me there's not time. I tell him to please hurry. He is insufferably slow. Glacierly slow. Molasses on a glacier kind of slow. And he asks for my card.. i give it to him all the while saying "Please hurry"(in spanish) and he says "This doesn't work" after a minute, in a very rude and unsympathetic sort of way. I then realize that i can give him cash, do so, take my ticket and run downstairs (past departure time by now.)

I get turned around, can't find my bus.. start runnign to every bus asking for the one that goes to Salamanca.. they point. There are 2 buses and both are about to leave. I go to one, they won't accept my ticket. (The ticket master of death gave me one for the next morning. :Lkajsd;lfkjasd.) and I go to the second bus, and he takes pity on my sad and pathetic face and lets me on.

It wouldn't have been a huge deal if I hadn't come from france that day. I was exhausted. I had not eaten much at all, had walked all day, had been on my own, was just... so tired. And i got to Salamanca at 2am and the kitchen was closed and I ate crackers that I had in my room and thought about how lucky i was.

It turns out that my travel buddy was in the same situation as me: She was suppose to catch a flight out of paris 9 hours earlier than my flight. She didn't even make it to the first bus station in Paris. She got lost on the Paris metro. I felt horrible, especially considering I had no idea of this until 2 days after. My travel buddy ended up getting on MY flight (The late one) after paying 100 Euros. And then she didn't make it to the Bus station in time and... had to stay in Madrid over night. I didn't see her at all.

Traveling. Scary and stressful. I'm with 4 others so i'm not worried this time at all. If i get stuck in Madrid this time, I'll be in good company.

Anyway. that's that stressful story. I'm going to Rome, though, so expect more later.

Madrid/El Prado

Madrid, Spain: Sunday October 18, 2009:

(I think you can click on the Pictures to actually see the whole frame)

We toured Madrid on an a bus and saw the Royal Palace an Egyptian "Temple" called Temple of Debod which was rebuilt in Madrid for some reason. (?!?) Actually, I know why. Wikipedia is the best. It was built because of Spain helped Egypt preserve some other temples, and it was a gift of gratitude from Egypt to Spain.

Anyway... I spent 4 hours in The Prado Museum, and while I saw ..... 4 hours worth of paintings (Nearly every single room in this 3 story museum. . lots and lots.) I took notes when we were on our tour, and will explain here what I was taught.

Painting 1:

Ok. This one is by Goya: It's a portrait of the royal family of King Charles IV and Family. Interesting thing about this portrait and Goya: He didn't like the royal family. The King, he felt, was not a good King so he did not flatter the portraits. None of his portraits of the royal family are painted with flattery- he drew them as they were: slightly deformed. They Bourbon family, for instance, had big noses. Another family had elongated necks, which Goya always was willing to expose. (The Royal families in Spain were very inbred, sickly, and slightly deformed.) About the Queen in this portrait: She supposedly looks hideous, but she was pleased with the Painting even though he painted her exactly as she was. She was vain enough to think it beautiful.

Goya also did this one: it is part of his dark works. It's a painting of Saturn eating his sons because he heard that one of them would usurp him as ruler. Dark..... in the Prado it's located in a Dark room and is amongst many other gruesome paintings.

Valazquez is another extremely famous Spanish Artist:

This one of the crucifixion scene is probably one of the most beautiful:

Out of the hundreds (well, maybe just 100) crucifixion depictions... this one is probably my favorite. Against the black it's simple, ominous and at the same time rather unearthly. Ironically, this Painting was commissioned as a bribe-gift. The King of Spain had tried to seduce a nun in a local convent, and the nun went to her sisters for protection. The King was scolded and he felt guilty, so he asked Valazquez to paint this for their convent. odd.

Other than Religious scenes and portraits, another subject for many painters were Greek Myths.

This painting depicts the moment when Apollo (glowing one) tells Vulcan that his wife (Venus) has had an affair with Mars. I don't know. It's obvious once you look at it, but I wouldn't have thought that this is what was going on in the painting unless I was told. I like the expressions on the faces of the observers. The one in the background looks as if he already knew. The others look shocked. And of course, Vulcan is rather appalled.

Valazquez's most famous painting is Las meninas:

This work is said to be the most famous painting for execllence in composition. There are many ways to inturpret it: What is basically going on, however, is the Infanta Magarita with her ladies in waiting. She is in the Royal Palace of her father King Phillip IV of Spain. It also has, in a mirror perhaps, a depiction of the King and Queen. They are sitting at their thrones, and perhaps the princess is visiting them. It is, therefore, a family portrait. It's interesting because the painting depicts Valazquez perhaps painting it. Meta-painting. Another interpretation is that the Valazquez is actually painting the King and Queen on their thrones and we are watching a snap shot of the scene. Confusing.

Madrid

Sunday the 20th of September:

We arrived in Madrid via AIFS Bus and got dropped off in the city center. I was in Madrid for about 30 minutes when we flew in 4 weeks ago from London, but not the actual city part.

We arrived with only an address of our reserved hostel, and immediately went in search of a map. I felt as if we were on.. what's that show called? Oh yeah. "the Amazing Race" in that we were also dropped off with 3 others from our AIFS group who were staying in a different hotel, flying to a different city. Anyway, we separated into two directions, piled with our luggage (one bulging backpack a piece), and sort of sped walked in search of information. The METRO failed us, but the Mall Tourism Office did not.

We headed off in the direction Kelley told us was correct, and about 20 minutes later discovered it was the wrong direction. (This is when I established a new group rule: always double check each other's instincts). We were all very toasty and exhausted and overwhelmed at the end of our search.

We found our hostel, located to the left of a star bucks building in a sort of narrow building three stories up. After buzzing in to open the door, we ascended the millions of stairs, panting, regretting that we were afraid of the sketchy elevator.

It was my first independent Hostel experience. I was a bit aprehensive, I must admit, especially when I saw how small the facility was. It was an interesting process, passports required at the desk, only cash accepted, shared bathroom and kitchen. Our room slept about 14 people and was co-ed. We put our things in a locker, at the expense of 2 Euro. (Luckily my laptop Quodlibet was small enough to fit in it, aww).

Picture of different kinds of moneys, displayed on Hostel wall:

The first night, we went out to dinner (mexican food! we finally found some! it was awful! but it somewhat sated our craving. We found the restaurant serendipitously because we decided to follow an accordian player around the city in case he was going to a gig. He lead us to a McDonalds where he played at people until they paid him to go away. We didn't want to go to McDonalds, but there was the Mexican restaurant right next door, and Kelley was very disappointed in the spiciness scale of her food. (not at all spicey.)

Also, we wanted to go see an opera, but no tickets were available. There was, however, a Spanish version of Spamalot... which we almost saw. We decided the puns wouldn't be funny enough in Spanish.

.

After a late night out (getting back around 3am.... ugh.. ) we didn't really sleep in. We were up for our included "breakfast" consisting of Toast and coffee. Spainiards. Sigh. There was a Turkish man in the Hostel too.. (amongst many others) and I found him in the kitchen looking through the fridge. I said "hola" not knowing he was Turkishand he looked at me and said ... "I am looking for the Cheese." Except "cheese" was pronounced "ches" and I was very confused, because I thought he didn't know english and so i only spoke Spanish at him until it was figured out that he did, in fact, know English. He is looking to get a job in New York eventually (or did I make that up? so many new people ...) and he is going to send me his research he's done in foreign studies (maybe).

Anyway, in Madrid, we were trying to be historical tourists and go to museums but they were all closed because it was Monday. (ughh. poor planning!). So we went to this lovely lovely park, called "Parque de Retiro" i think, and we went in a boat around the lake.

That day, we also discovered that we would probably not make our train trip to Venice, and we discovered that there was no way to refund and rebuy. I was all for trying to get a later ticket, but it was eventually decided that it would be too expensive, so we CANCELLED all of our hostel reservations with the new plan that we would play everything by ear. IF we could BY THE SMALLEST CHANCE make our train ride (which was unlikely because we had 1 hour 20 minutes to get off the plane, go through boarder check, get on a bus that leaves every 20 minutes which takes an hour to get to the station.... ) then we would play it by ear. As soon as we knew for certain that we would not make it to Venice (Ie, our flight being delayed, us getting to the airport to find that we missed the first bus to leave...) then we would directly make reservations in a place in Milan.

Stress levels and Disappointment levels were very high, and we needed some serious down time. So I decided to go back to the park to read, and Kelley and Ester decided to go shopping. Kelley and Esther got separated while shopping, and didn't make it to the meeting spot until 45 minutes after they said they would. I was very worried and was only consoled by the fact that there were very charming British people to talk to. (i think i wrote about this already.)

Anyway, this is where I waited :( also in the Park)

That night, we went out for dinner in a Turkish Restaurant and I ate hummus and bread. It was glorious. Then on the way back, I had my wallet stolen out of my pocket, immediately after I had taken it out to give some money to a cellist playing on the street. -__-. Panic ensued, of course, but I dealt with it in such a way that I was called "admirable" by my friends. It mostly involved me stealing Esther's phone, calling my parents so that they could cancel my credit card and forward me money via Western Union. I was up until 3 in the morning that night as well, even though we fully intended to go to sleep early that day. Also, I was still voiceless.. not the best of days.

The next morning, I went in search of the Western Union bank... walked about 6 blocks to the addressed building and walked up 5 stories only to find (after a lot of awkward Spanish) that it had moved to an unknown place. -__-. So I went next door to an exchange place to get cash from my travelors checks, just so I could pay for food in Italy in case I couldn't find a WU. It was a dreadfully stressful morning, in that I knew I had to figure things out before my 4:00 flight to Italy. Luckily we had an afternoon flight! After I had given up and started walking back to the Hostel to check out and look online for a WU, I found one only a block away from our Hostel. Silly me. It all worked out, (thank you padres.)

In the afternoon we went to the not-the-prada museum and we sped walked throughout the 3 stories of art. I liked the Flemish portraits the best. I was surprised by this fact.

We then METROd to the airport (were surprised to find out how cheap the tickets were, cursing the hours and hours spent walking across town) and had 3 hours to spare in the airport.

Es todo para Madrid :P

PHOTO ALBUM UPDATED: Access HERE or go to the right of the page and find it amongst other albums.