Madrid 5/14/08

I woke up in the morning early enough to get over to the station to catch my train. Liz and Xavi told me of an easier way to get the main station than the way I'd originally planned on, so I was able to sleep an extra half hour and still be waiting at the platform with plenty of time to spare. After I took a shower and got ready, I said goodbye to Liz and Xavi, and headed out. I found the metro station they told me to look for, and got off at all the right stops, relying on some direction from people passing on the street and my compass, once I got into the general vicinity.

The main train station in Barcelona was built like an airport, and had people checking luggage, sitting in terminals, and a bunch of bureaucratic crap you're not supposed to have to do in a train station. The whole thing really just made the whole situation more complicated. I had to buy a special reservation to sit in a particular seat which I had to book at the ticket office, then get a boarding pass before they would let me through security. The greatest thing about train stations has always been that you just find where your train is and hop on. They're not supposed to be turned into little wannabe airports.

When I finally did get down to the platforms (which were just normal platforms without all the fancy makeup upstairs) and onto the train, I found my seat, and stored my carry-ons neatly in the overhead compartment. A stewardess walked down the aisle handing out headphones for the "in-rail" movie, and my seat had all the gadgets of an airline cockpit. At least it was comfortable here on this airline train, although I kinda wished this sort of treatment was saved for a longer train ride. This whole trip was only going to take a little over 3 hours. Where was this on my 12 or 16 hour trip? I know I've got a long trip ahead of me going to Portugal. I'm probably going to end up on another dilapidated "retire me now" rusty excuse for a train.

The ride ended too fast. I slept through most of it, and the rest of the way I watched pieces of "Hairspray" in Spanish. The dreams created from the mixture were, I'm sure you can imagine, interesting. I got off the train, and talked to the Wallace's whom I was going to be spending this night with, and then leaving for Portugal tomorrow. They'd be out of town for most of the day, but they said they'd still be happy to accommodate me for the night. We decided that I could check in my luggage at a locker here at the train station, and then later that night when they were home, I'd catch the city train to their house out in the suburbs. So the first thing I did was store my luggage in a train station locker for the day, and then while I was here, I figured right now would be a good time to figure out how I was getting to Portugal tomorrow. I found the ticket counter, and took a number to wait in a line which was so long and frustrating that I don't even want to talk about it. Then when it was finally my turn to speak, I booked a reservation on a night train going to Lisbon tomorrow night at 10:45, ending up in Lisbon station at around 9 in the morning. They asked me if I wanted to book a seat for 6 euros, or a bed for 30 euros. I toiled over this for a moment, and then picked the cheaper one. I might regret that decision later, but depending on how nice the train is, I might actually be ok in a seat.

It was now around 1:30pm and I was free to explore the city for the rest of the day. I got myself a map from the tourist information window, and then set out to explore Madrid. I walked for a little bit through the streets, and around a few very beautiful squares. However most of my time I spent in art museums. Madrid has some of the most famous art museums in the world. I visited 2 of them, The Museo Reina Sofia and The Museo Del Prado, and that's pretty much where I spent most of the day. You could literally spend several days in each of those museums, especially The Del Prado which is enormous. All day I walked from room to room gazing at original works by Picasso, Rembrant, Rafael, Rubens, Van Dyck, and several others I can't remember the names of. In each room I came across so many famous works of art. Even though I couldn't remember the names of the artists or what they were called, I remembered seeing them in textbooks and on pages of art books, and t-shirts. It was awesome to think that here I was staring at the originals, seeing the brush strokes and imperfections on them. It was interesting to see the Picasso paintings especially. You can see that as time went on, his paintings just got weirder and weirder. That guy was amazing though, because he could paint the same picture on a piece of canvas the size of a saltine cracker, that he could on one the size of a whole wall, and they would look exactly the same.

I stayed in the Del Prado walking around every which way, looking at priceless works of art until the museum closed. I hadn't even realized what time it was until one of the attendants ushered me out, and I discovered that I was one of only like 5 other people still wandering the building. From there I went back to the train station, picked up my bags, and tried to figure out how to get to where the Wallace's lived. I wasn't used to this whole intricate transportation system that Madrid uses. There's a metro (like in most major cities), but there are 10 different lines (most cities have 3 or 4) going in all different directions. There's also a special city train that moves similar to the metro but goes out to the suburbs and surrounding areas, and there are at least 5 other lines of those. Then finally you have the intercity trains which are what I came here on. I thought, when Richard Wallace told me to take the train to his street, that he meant to take the metro, so I got a map of the metro system, and spent forever trying to find the street he was talking about. I got the ticket manager involved as well who was assured that I was entirely crazy. It wasn't anywhere on the metro map. I called Richard back, and he told me about the special city trains. So then I had another fun time trying to explain to that ticket office where I wanted to go, and which train I should take to get there. The ticket counters all have maps with them of the stops the train makes throughout its route. However, they refuse to give any of them out, so I can't figure out where I am, and which train to take to get off at the right stop. Finally, the woman at the desk wrote down on my ticket which train to take, and sent me off down the platform. Eventually I did make it where I was supposed to, and Richard came to pick me up. He showed me the guest room where I was to stay that night, and told me to help myself to what I needed. I thanked him, and he went off to bed. I filled up my water jug in the kitchen downstairs. I heard from Xavi that Madrid has the best tap water in Spain. After enjoying some quality tap, I too went upstairs and got to sleep.
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