Prado

 The last two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, were museum days. More importantly, we got to sleep in late. Till 11:00 am to be exact. Which you'd think we wasted the whole day but in reality it the time you wanna start the day in Madrid. On Tuesday we headed down to the Prado Museum which houses some of the world class art of Spain.

Lunch before Prado

Prado Museum

Napping

As always at these museums we weren't allowed to take pictures, but it would've been too many to take anyway. The collection is truly outstanding and I loved every minute of it. We were totally exhausted and we needed a nap. But I really didn't want to go to the hotel when it was such a beautiful day. It was a sunny 65 to 70 degrees. So we decided to take nap outside on the grassy part of the Prado grounds. We weren't the only ones. In fact, it was so awesome taking a nap outside, we decided to go find an even better spot in Retiro Park.

Retiro Park

Retiro Park was once just a park meant for the the royal family. They opened it up to the public and since then its been used for leisurely strolls and siestas. We found a great spot near the pond and took another nap. We had a little snack of coffee and ice cream and then decided to head back to the hotel before had dinner. At the hotel we took another nap and headed out for dinner at around 9:00 pm. We decided to have dinner at one of the "cueva" bars that's right behind the Plaza Real. The Royal Plaza was the main plaza back in the day where they had merchants, bullfights, and executions during the Inquisitions. The southern section of the plaza is a lower than the others so it has more stories hidden underneath the ground. They were called the "cuevas" or caves. So we decided to eat at one of the "cueva" bars and had a really relaxing meal with some music. Tuesday night is a slow night so we were pratically the only guests in the place. It was two waiters named Antonio, the keyboard player, the singer, the owner, and the bartender.

"Cueva" Bar

Dinner - Done

It was actually pretty cool since they sang us a couple of Spanish songs and even sang "El Rey" when they found out I was of Mexican descent. "El Rey" is your classic Mexican standard mariachi song. And girlfriend who sang it did a heck of a job. We headed of to San Gines to finish the night with the best chocolate on the planet and we were back at the hotel by 11:00 pm.  Wednesday Royal Palace.

Toledo

Toledo

Again we woke up early. Ugh. It was hard even though we tried to sleep early the night before. And we discovered what was making JP woozy. She got vertigo from the flight and it's been really messing with her. It's not like she's totally just falling left and right, but it does make her really dizzy. But she's been powering through and she's not gonna let a little vertigo get in the way of getting her history on. This Monday's trip was to Toledo which is about an hour south of Madrid.
Toledo has been around since the Bronze Age, 3000-600 BC, but it really flourished when it was under rule by the Moors in the 8th century after the Roman Empire fell. Ironically, it was under Muslim rule that all the faiths of the God of Abraham (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) coexisted in relative peace for almost 800 years. It was called La Conviviencia (The Coexistence) where ideas, language, and thoughts were exchanged and influenced each faith. But as always, power trips, jealousy, greed, and good old fashioned superiority complexes managed to mess it up. Particularly, the Christian noble rulers wanted to regain southern Spain. So Toledo has a lot freakin' history. It's also a walled city with a grand cathedral so it's also on the UNICEF World Hertitage list.
Now Toledo was the capital of Spain after the Christian reconquest and during the Spanish golden period of 16th century. But it was moved in 1561 by Charles I, grandson of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand (who helped Columbus sail the ocean blue). Now the Catholic church, being the Catholic church, wasn't fly with that. They told Chuck, "Whatevs!", and basically continued to treat Toledo as the capital of the Catholic faith of Spain. Which they still do to this day. So the Gothic Cathedral of the city is outta control. Why? If I thought the Segovia Cathedral was ornate, this one blew it out of the water. Again, couldn't take pics inside but they had a treasury room with all the religious and royal regalia. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, gold, silver. The alter was absurd. It was almost too much to take in. They also had the "Painting room" where world famous religious paintings of "El Greco", the Greek, are housed. Not just El Greco, but Rafael and other famous painters that I cannot recall right now. So when the Pope rolls into Spain, this is his stop. Not Madrid.

Santa María la Blanca Synagogue

Along with the Cathedral we visited the oldest known synagogue still standing in Western Europe called the Santá María la Blanca synagogue. Why the name Santa María for a synagogue? I mean that's straight up Catholic. Well, it was built as synagogue in the 10th century by Moors in the Jewish quarter of the city and after the reconquest of the Christians it was then used as a Catholic church. So the building has all the architectural and design elements of all three faiths inside the building. Very beautiful. It's no longer used as church and there is no longer a Jewish community in Toledo (the Inquisition) so the building is just protected and preserved by the Catholic church.
Once again I feel overwhelmed with all the freakin' architecture and history of this place. I mean really, who can even remember all this stuff!! I was having serious information overload and when we got to the Monestario de San Juan de los Reyes I was thinking it would totally suck to have to do a cultural resource survey of this place. The monastery was amazing. Thankfully we could take photos, but my pics cannot do it justice. But I did do a small video. Hope it doesn't make you dizzy.

We moved onto visit El Greco's museum which housed his masterpiece, The Burial of the Count of Ordaz and then the house of some famous Toledo artist that I never heard of. We had lunch as part of the tour and again I was disappointed. Seriously don't ever include the lunch if you ever do day trip tours.
After lunch we went to an artisan's shop that specializes in the art of Damasquia which is inlaying gold on metal. That was our last stop thankfully before heading back. At this point I was straight up tired. The past three days were starting to take a toll. We got back to the city center and decided to pep ourselves up with the famous San Gines Chocolate. Holy Toledo (hehe) it was delicious!!!! It was like chocolate soup. Seriously good. I mean slap yourself good. We've decided to come to San Gines everyday until we leave. Tuesday...sleep in!!!

Ávila and Segovia

Paseo de Castellano

We visited two UNESCO World Heritage Sites on Sunday. Both are located north of Madrid and are about an hour drive from the city center. We walked to the tour office from our hotel to the center which was about an hour itself. There's a convenient promenade along the main street running north to south to get to Sol. It was drizzly and foggy and it was a bit eerie since it was pretty silent and lonely at 8:00 am on a Sunday.

Ávila

The first city we visited on our tour was Ávila, which is a city within intact medieval walls built from the 9th through 14th century. It was pretty amazing to be honest with you since the only thing that can compare with it in the New World are the Pre-Columbian intact sites such as Tikal or Palenque in my opinion. The modern city is located further outside the walls, but the older part is still a living city with homes, shops, and restaurants. Just outside of each of the nine huge gates, are churches or basílicas, which we visited only one. Within the walls is a beautiful Gothic cathedral that is integrated as part of the defensive wall during the 12th century. Ávila is also known for being the birthplace of St. Teresa who was a nun who revolutionized the church. How? Since she was promised to become a nun by her wealthy father trying to prove his conversion to Christianity (he was a Jew when Isabella I proclaimed Spain as a Catholic country), she made the best of it and tried to reform the church. How, again? By making sure all nuns learned how to read and write. Girlfriend then hit the road and opened 16 additional convents after opening her first in Ávila in 1562. And when I say hit the road, she literally hit the road as she walked to each and every single location by foot. The sole of her sandal is in the museum as well as her right ring finger. Yes, her complete ring finger with rotting flesh and all. If you ain't Catholic, you gotta know that they LOVE their saints. Every bit of 'em. We then hit the road, by bus of course, to the next stop Segovia.

Roman Aqueduct

Segovia Cathedral

We had lunch in Segovia as part of the tour. I admit I was a bit disappointed as it was mediocre at best. It was supposed to be the famous suckling pig of Segovia, but was certainly lacking in taste. Well, the city itself made up for it as it had amazing architecture. The first being the Roman aqueducts that can be seen within the "newer" part of the city. Where they are exposed used to be the country side as the old city of Segovia was located up further in the mountains. They are about 2000 years old. Yes, 2000 years old and no mortar was used. The stones are just stacked one on top of the other. And what we see is only about 10 percent of the entire aqueduct, which is 15 km. That's about 9 miles people! The rest is underground. It really is an engineering feat and pretty incredible when you stand right underneath it. Besides the aqueduct, Segovia has a beautiful Gothic cathedral and the Alcazar, or castle of Segovia. We were not allowed to take pictures in the cathedral but believe me it was beautiful. The detail is just astounding. We moved onto a bonofide medieval castle. My first actually so I got to see a real moat.

My girls Patience and Babi will know why that's important to me. As a former reader of trashy historic romance novels it really put things in perspective. I could put an image to all the rooms and details these books would describe, and realize the importance of tapestries. They were used to help block the drafts that came in when it was cold. But walking around in there, I can tell you those suckers don't work. At least they didn't seem to while I was in there. Overall, the trip was fantastic and my head full of information that I will immediately forget. There is just so much history and detail and drama with all of the architecture of the two cities that my blog in no way can do it justice. But at least I can highlight what I thought was interesting for you to try and appreciate. Truth is we could have easily stayed two days in both cities to explore them even further. But the clock is ticking down and my week seems like it's almost up. Tomorrow is Toledo.

Cultural Extremes

Talk about a world of difference. Before I traveled to Spain, I was in Yukon, Oklahoma during it's coldest winter yet (-4 degrees) and experienced my first snow storm. And made my first snow angel as well. The weather got significantly better with sunny skies and warmer temperatures throughout the week. Now Yukon is a suburb of Oklahoma now and the hometown of Garth Brooks. Our hotel was on Garth Brooks boulevard, in fact. It's only about 30 minutes away from OKC. We didn't venture out much and our highlight was hitting the casino for my birthday. When I say casino, you may have Vegas in your mind, but delete that. It's totally not like that. It still has the slots, the booze (luckily since some Native American casinos don't), and a few table games. But they only sell beer and its really bright in there. No decor and folks pretty much come in right after work which may include construction, ranching, or farming. Yukon itself is also known for Grady the cow. Grady got trapped in a silo when she was pregnant and it was a big deal. And the oldest thing you'll find around there is late 19th-century farms and buildings.

Pulpo

Madrid, Spain on the other hand has been a city since before Christ around 200 BC. Their "antiques" are literally medieval. The architecture in the city spans from the 16th century to now. Madrid is not typically a tourist destination, but it's getting there due to its reputation for its tapas. Our first night (which was the same day we arrived) we took a tapas tour. Although me and JP were exhausted (even after two naps) we trucked it through the rain downtown, Puerta del Sol or Sol, the city center. It's called Puerta del Sol since a medieval gate with a sun atop of it once marked the entrance to the city. We met up with our guide, Kayo an Irish dude and the rest of our group. Kayo, which later changed to Kyle, Kale, etc. as the night drunkenly progressed was fantastic. We went to really local tapas bars as we were the only non-Madrileños there. We gave him total control and her ordered everything we ate.We hit four tapas bars and he gave us a bit of a historical tour of the central city between each one. We had so many delicious things and it was fast-paced too. Arrive, order drinks, get 1-3 tapas, order another drink, get another 2 tapas, pay, and move on. And for the most part, you're standing up the whole time. Everything was soo good but my favorites were the chorizo, blood sausage, and octopus. Yes octopus. It was crazy good. So tender it was ridiculous. By the time we were done with our tour it was only 11:30 pm. We started at 8:00. And being that it was a Saturday night, the streets were busier than earlier. Everybody, all types of young and old were out. Going from one place to another.

Blood sausage

Madrileños are hard core. They work from 8:00 to 1:00pm, take a huge lunch and nap from 1:00 to around 4:00, sometimes 5:00, work again till 8:00, go out for a drink after to several bars till around 10:00 then they have dinner around 10:30, move on to various bars for tapas till around 2:00, then have another "night cap" of "copitas" of gin-tonic or vodka soda till four, then finish off with churros and chocolate at 5:00 am. And they start this on Thursday. Well we bailed after we were done even though Keel was ready to keep going as he was now officially "off" the clock though. But we were fading fast and JP was still feeling a bit woozy from the plane that morning. But it was a great introduction to Madrid. One of these nights..... we're doing churros at 5:00 am.

New Year, New Goals, New Look

So I've decided to update my blog for the new year. The plan is to inspire me to keep up with the blog and maybe change direction. With that said, I'm gonna try and focus on my actual travels in the field and travels for fun. Lately, it's just been about me with no direction or really purpose. Instead I'm gonna try, and I do stress try, to add more that just where I'm going, but why, what's there, some history, and personal insight. I've been reading other friends blogs and they're so good, I just gotta keep up.

To start off 2011 on the right foot, I will be going to Spain for a week. It will be the end of February. Hopefully it won't be as miserably cold as it is here right now (um, like 20 degrees). My friend and I were able to get an amazing deal on www.travelzoo.com that included airfare and 6 nights/7 days at a 5-star hotel in Madrid. There was no way I was gonna pass that up. It's Spain! I will have to brush up on my Spanish 'cuz I doubt Tex-Mex will fly there. As always, I will be revolving my experiences there around food. And Spain is definitely known for its food. Tapas of olives, seafood, meatballs, pork, pork, and more pork. It may be wrong to love piggy so much, but I don't care.

The words and pictures will soon follow. In the meantime I have another stint in the beautiful countryside that is Oklahoma. Unlikely as it sounds Oklahoma can be quite lovely. I'll try to make sure and post about that. Just so you'll believe me.