Madrid Day 1
The flight from Boston to Frankfurt was interesting...half the people on the flight spoke English and half spoke German. For the first time in my life, I wasn´t able to communicate using words, which was, quite honestly, quite a challenge for me. I watched Dan in Real Life on the flight, took a long, long nap, and arrived in Frankfurt at 6am local time, or midnight EST. Dinner was decent - some chicken, veggies and rice. I ate a croissant for breakfast (midnight snack?) and some OJ - the total was €6 (six Euros) or about 10 dollars! Wow.
I met up with the group after transferring to Madrid, and having the experience of attempting to speak with people who didn´t know English. This was difficult, and really gave me a sense of what it must be like for others who don´t speak the native language, as well as the understanding of how essential it is to learn the native language of one´s country. We met up with Luis, our tourguide, who is fluent in both English and Spanish (thank goodness), and had some
paella and headed to the Prado Museum, where we saw classic paintings from El Bosco, Goya, El Greco and Velasquez.
Finally, we headed to Guadalajaro, where we are staying in a hotel for two days. This is quite a distance northwest of downtown Madrid. We are staying in a very nice hotel, but something interesting stuck me about Guadalajaro: it is a city with high-rise buildings surrounded by fields and orchards. We did not have time to venture into the city itself, but instead went to an adjacent mall for dinner at the food court. We had small sandwiches, kind of like tapas, that we shared. We had shrimp, cured ham, chicken, salmon and cream cheese, bacon and cheese and plain cheese. Delicious! It is 9:40pm in Guadalajaro and the sun still has not set...so different than Boston. Due to, of course, the higher latitude on the globe - more hours of daylight and fewer of nighttime during the summer so north on the globe.
Tomorrow, we head back into Madrid and then head south to the coast of the Mediterranean. Until tomorrow...pictures are not uploading tonight, so I´ll try again tomorrow or at the next hotel.
I met up with the group after transferring to Madrid, and having the experience of attempting to speak with people who didn´t know English. This was difficult, and really gave me a sense of what it must be like for others who don´t speak the native language, as well as the understanding of how essential it is to learn the native language of one´s country. We met up with Luis, our tourguide, who is fluent in both English and Spanish (thank goodness), and had some
paella and headed to the Prado Museum, where we saw classic paintings from El Bosco, Goya, El Greco and Velasquez.
Finally, we headed to Guadalajaro, where we are staying in a hotel for two days. This is quite a distance northwest of downtown Madrid. We are staying in a very nice hotel, but something interesting stuck me about Guadalajaro: it is a city with high-rise buildings surrounded by fields and orchards. We did not have time to venture into the city itself, but instead went to an adjacent mall for dinner at the food court. We had small sandwiches, kind of like tapas, that we shared. We had shrimp, cured ham, chicken, salmon and cream cheese, bacon and cheese and plain cheese. Delicious! It is 9:40pm in Guadalajaro and the sun still has not set...so different than Boston. Due to, of course, the higher latitude on the globe - more hours of daylight and fewer of nighttime during the summer so north on the globe.
Tomorrow, we head back into Madrid and then head south to the coast of the Mediterranean. Until tomorrow...pictures are not uploading tonight, so I´ll try again tomorrow or at the next hotel.
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