The Sun is Shining

Well, I made it. 

It's been nearly a week since I left home and I'm still exhausted. Here's a quick recap of the logistics:

Flight was fine... from Philly to Madrid was quite empty, so I had an entire row to myself. Once in Madrid, one of our instructors (Kepa) picked us all up at the airport and took us to the hotel in Madrid. I had two roommates for a few days, Haley and Kate, from California and Massachusetts, respectively. We all went into a sleep coma and kept real low key on the profile for the first night. 

Our first full day in Madrid was comprised of visitations to the Palacio Real and the Museo del Prado. The Palace was HUGE - we had a walking tour and saw a reasonable amount of the supposed 2,000 rooms that make up the palace. We also got to tour the royal armory and the royal pharmacy. The Museum was pretty intense... we had a guide who was very animated and loved talking; although she did a good job pointing some interesting information out, I kind of wish we would have just had free time to explore because we really only got to see about 6 or 7 pieces. 

The next day we took a bus trip to El Escorial - a super historic residence of the King of Spain (Phillip II) that still functions today as a monastery, a school and a library that is second in the world to only the Vatican's collection. We got to walk through the palace and see all the rooms, but what I thought was the best part of the trip was the Pantheon of the Kings. I guess like every important monarch of Spain for the past 500 years has been laid to rest at El Escorial. We walked all the way down this long stairway to the crypt where the kings and queens are held in tombs. Huge sarcophagi are stacked on shelves about five high and four across in a circular rooms, and the spouses are lined up with one another from across the room. Our guide Victor told us that somewhere near the Pantheon there is a type of rotting-room where all the monarchs are put to rot and dry out for about 20-25 years before they are sealed in the tombs. Currently, the parents and grandfather of Juan Carlos, the current king, are hanging out to dry. 

The next morning we packed up and left Madrid, stopped in Toledo on the way to Sevilla. We took a huge walking tour and it was nothing too exciting. My favorite parts of the trip were El Greco's piece at the Church of San Tome and The Cathedral - which I hear is the best in Spain. Our guide told us it took over 500 years to completely build and decorate the Cathedral, and I believe it. I always forget how amazed I am at the sight of such things -- that people would work so hard and long to create such beautiful things in the name of and for God. It was really a privilege to see it. 

I feel like I just wrote a travel brochure, but I had some catching up to do. We'll see if I can get on a routine here....