Spanish Senate building
Where the Spanish started the War of Independencia vs. Napoleon
Me in front of the Palacio Real
Madrid's first Plaza Mayor, built in the 1500's
My friend Liz and I decided today that we were going to spend the night "chilling" in Madrid. I met her at her house a few blocks from where live. She lives with a family of two older Spanish woman, a mother and daughter. That's usually a common set-up in Madrid, the "senoras" rent out rooms to make money as most are widows who are too old to work. Rather than give you a detailed description of our night, I'm going to try to do it in a "touristic" sort of way so you learn a little about the city. First, we headed south towards the "downtown". Liz and I live in northern barrios of the city so our area is newer (think last 200 years). The "downtown" is really the central/southern part of the city in relation to us. The "downtown" is centered around the Plaza Mayor, a lot of government buildings, old churches, and basically "old Madrid" in general (think 500 years ago). It is also where many of the night clubs, bars, etc. are now. We ended up grabbing dinner around 10pm at a place called "pans" (much like a panera..."pan" means bread, get it?). Dinner here is usually around 10pm for everyone and it's common to see little kids out on the street at midnight. Here, afternoon doesn't start until 2pm or later and "night" doesn't start until after dinner. Often people will say "good afternoon" to me at 8-9pm and it is totally dark outside! Anyways, after that we headed a few blocks west and we were in the "governmental" area of town. We took a look at the Palacio Real (royal palace), the local basilica, and even the senate building. It was really neat to see so much history in one place. The royal palace doesn't house the royal family anymore. In fact, the king is starting to lose face with the Spaniards as much of the youth don't believe in an inherited governmental position. After Franco's reign ended in 1975, the government became a "parlimental monarchy". This means decisions are made by congress and the senate, there is still an elected president, but the king is more of a political figure of support. He has no power, in reality, but exisits more as a tradition. Today, Spaniards are calling for a complete republic, meaning everyone will be voted into office (hence, no monarchy) as they don't like their tax dollars paying for his lifestyle without being voted into office. On a side note, the palacio real was also the site where Napoleon tried to put a French king on the throne in 1808, but the Spaniards rebelled and rushed the palace. It inspired Goya's famous paintings, The 2nd of May 1808 and The 3rd of May 1808, both of which I saw at the Prado museum last week. Wow, so there's your Spanish history lesson for the day :) It seems like everywhere you go here there is some historical meaning behind the location which is really neat.
In sticking with the tradition of having a sense of humor:
Funny story: As you may or may not know, Spanish men are known to be a "bit" forward. This could inspire like a million other stories but I'll keep it simple. Sometimes it can get annoying, but most of the time I have no idea what they're saying anyways when they make their "peliropas" (like cat-calls?) so I could care less, especially since 60% of them have a mullet...keep it moving, buddy! Well, I got a wrong-number phone call the other day and could barely understand what this guy was saying. When I got off the phone, I was telling the girls that he actually sounded nice, I thought he said he worked with blind people! The convo went somethin like this: "Bailey, what exactly did he say?" "Well, I couldn't tell for sure, but something about "disfuto las citas a ciego" which I could only roughly translate as "enjoying something with blind people." Turns out the dude "would enjoy a blind date!"....I must have laughed for an hour at myself after this one. Just knowing the word "blind" doesn't help too much! LEARN SPANISH ALREADY, Bailey! haha
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