That’s right, I joined my first protest while in Madrid. No idea what I was protesting, but I figured I couldn’t let all the Spanish have all the fun so I joined in! More on that later, though.
Seville first. Wow. I try to compare cities I see with others to give myself/others a Sam-centered idea of what a city is like, and to me Seville is a mix between Barcelona and Paris. The architectural style was a bit Parisian with many high-rising buildings in a bit of a crowded fashion, yet the “feel” of the city was like that of Barcelona. As I’ve said, I think Barcelona is my favorite city I’ve visited thus far, and Seville still falls under that like due to the lack of a beach. While there is a river, it’s just not the same as a beach.
Still, Seville is quite beautiful! I think the crux of its infrastructure is banking (aside from churches as is obvious with every European city) due to the ridiculous number of banks I saw. But, I also saw several Starbucks (which I couldn’t skip due to my missing of it in Trier) a KFC, so that was nice. I’m not going to lie: I was tempted to go in. Man, I miss fried chicken.
Luckily for my sunburnt self, most of the city was shaded, with vias (streets) that had no greenery shaded by large sections of canvas hung between buildings over the streets to create shade. People in the city are beautiful as with the rest of Spain, too, albeit not as pretty as in Cadiz; the Moor influence creating darker skin tones just make Southern Spaniards beautiful.
That aside, who would have thought the cathedral in Seville is the 3rd largest in Europe and largest in Spain? Wow. It’s quite odd, too; my first glimpse of it was apparently from the back side, and from there I was not really impressed. I mean, it’s massive… but what cathedral isn’t? At that point, though, I hadn’t read through the history booklet I got at the tourist information office, so I didn’t realize it was Spain’s largest and Europe’s 3rd.
Later in my journey, though, after seeing numerous churches, beautiful streets, and something called the Plaza de Espana, or Spanish Plaza, along with its gorgeous park roughly 3 times the size of Forsythe Park in Savannah, I came along the front side of the cathedral. Ok, so that’s a bit out of order… I saw the Plaza de Espana first and last on my trip, but details. Anyway, it’s certainly massive. I think it would look bigger if there weren’t other buildings crowded around it; the cathedral in Ely, England, impressed me more, but it was standing all alone in the middle of… well, nothing.
Speaking of parks: in my travels thus, I believe that in terms of parks, Cadiz takes the cake on what I would call “small to medium” parks. Those are the random green spaces beside the roadways and those small parks overlooking the ocean or some of the squares. Seville, though, must take the prize for the best large parks. The park outside the Plaza de Espana is simply gorgeous. It’s almost a jungle of mazing beauty, and it’s absolutely perfectly maintained. I was impressed.
Next, I must note: I had yet another epic win of a meal in Seville. I got a whole serving of Paella, a FULL glass of white wine, a coffee, and bread for a whopping 8.50 Euros. Win. Not the best paella by any means, but the fact that I could get all that for so cheap makes it not matter in the least. It still can’t beat Cadiz’s meal, though.
Impressively, I noticed my Spanish coming back to me the longer I was in Spain. That doesn’t mean for a minute that I could understand the people when they spoke, but I could pick up on key words, read road signs, and express what I needed/conversational Spanish to some degree. Naturally, this occurred just before I was to leave Spain. Story of my life.
Anyway, Seville is truly beautiful. Everything in the city is over the top; parks, buildings, bridges, even sidewalks all seem as though infinite time and money were put into them. Monuments were everywhere, all parks were exquisitely maintained, the city was clean, all buildings ornately decorated… all in all, it’s just a beautiful city. People always say Seville is beautiful, and they are absolutely correct.
Something amusing I’d like to note: when reading the history booklet, I read of a charity hospital. The founders of the hospital wrote an interesting inscription on the building to capture the feeling of the dead as is to be expected of any such establishment: “Here lie the bones of the worst man the world has ever seen.” How’s that for charity? HA! I love Spain.
Something else I noticed while in Seville: safety is not a top concern. In Spain and many other places throughout Europe, the mentality I’ve noticed is thus: if you’re dumb enough to get hurt, it serves you right. Examples of this: lack of lines on the roads (not the case necessarily in Spain), no handrails in places you would expect (hello Greece), lack of barriers around dangerous places such as train platforms, and significantly less “don’t do this or you’ll die” signs than we are forced to suffer through in America. I like the mentality; if you get hurt, it’s your own fault.
Moving on. The bus ride there took about an hour and a half from Rota, not too shabby in my opinion for a 9 Euro bus ride. Coming back, though, took closer to 2 and a half hours. First of all, the bus was 15 minutes late, which is to be expected; time is not exactly Spain’s top priority. Then, we hit a wreck or something on the interstate, causing time to seem to take forever. I almost thought I was in Atlanta!
One final thing to note on my Seville trip: it’s interesting to see how much the countryside in the little bits of Spain I’ve seen differs from the beauty of the cities; the rural areas are laced with unfinished projects, rusting equipment and garbage, and truly arid land merely a few notches above a desert. It’s a bit strange, really, considering how beautiful and lush the cities are as a whole.
After getting back from Seville, I had a good 4 hour long conversation with my cousin about politics in America, something I very rarely do; typically, I could care less. But, being that my cousin is in the Navy, he’s stuck with politics all the time, so I pulled back into my high school years and had a jolly good discussion.
The next day, I honestly was a knot on a log. My cousin took me onto the Navy base to print out all of my boarding tickets and whatnot for the remainder of my travels, and we visited the base supermarket. That was one of the most eerie experiences of my life; having been in Europe since March, I’ve seen a fair deal of Americans. However, I have not been totally surrounded by Americans since I left Savannah, and that’s exactly what happened at this base store. It seriously was weird to be in the middle of Spain (rather, on the coast), and have nobody around me save Americans talking English. Seriously, it was almost unnerving, and puts me into a perspective that I’ll likely go into a bit of shock when I land in America in a few weeks.
Prior to going on base, I never realized how self-sufficient these military installations are. They have their own… everything. Stores, restaurants, bars, movie theaters, beaches, hotels, housing, hospitals, golf courses… and these aren’t even including the military buildings. Wow. And to think this base in Rota is merely rented from the Spanish! Just think what may exist on US owned soil…
Later on in the day, around 8pm and after doing somewhere south of nothing for the rest of the day, I arrived at Jerez de la Fontera airport (about 20 minutes from Rota). It’s a cute little airport, and quite nice for a RyanAir hub. Well, I won’t say hub; RyanAir only flies a few flights there. Either way, it’s smaller than Savannah’s. Come to find out, I got there almost 2 hours early on accident (this 24-hour time is killing me STILL), then ended up being more like 3 hours early after my flight to Madrid was delayed. Gasp! I’ve heard flying through Madrid will almost always delay you, and I must confirm that suspicion.
Cleverly, I repacked my book bag in a way that it would barely pass RyanAir’s strict bag dimensions test (you must place your bag in a holder and if it doesn’t fit, you pay 40 Euros). Tip: when backpacking for 3+weeks, wear the clothes that take up the most room on flights. Wear more than one pair if necessary. Otherwise, your travel will be expensive and your clothing supplies will STILL be short.
So, I finally landed in Madrid around midnight. Fun fact: Madrid is Europe’s 4th busiest airport and the world’s 9th. Who would have thought? It’s quite a nice airport, and has a great connection directly to the Metro into the city. Just as in Barcelona, Madrid’s subway system is impeccably clean and new-looking; the Spanish have a thing for making pretty subways apparently. It runs until 1:30am, too, so you’re in luck if RyanAir delays you by an hour coming into Madrid! Win.
After a few train changes and walking a little further than I should have, I found my hostel. It was quite nice! I was quite tired from traveling, so by 2am I hit the sack in my room with 11 other people. If you stay in hostels, just remember: Everyone sleeps at different times and with different levels of noise and drunkenness. Welcome to hostels! Luckily for me, I sleep like a dead brick. For those of you who are light sleepers, though… beware.
I woke up just early enough to grab a Spanish coffee the next morning (Sunday the 24th of July), and headed off to the free walking tour of the city which I have come to grow fond of in cities that offer them. Once again, great decision; I met a lot of cool people, saw the highlights of the city, and made some good contacts.
Madrid itself, in my honest opinion, isn’t really much. It’s a city you can see in a day if you aren’t interested in seeing the multitude of museums and art galleries… like me. The city is quite pretty, feeling new in the way that downtown Atlanta does, but there isn’t really anything special about it in my opinion. It has some cool history, but not as much as Seville or Barcelona. This was ok to me, though, being that I wasn’t expecting much out of a capital city away from the coast anyway. The monuments are beautiful, the parks well-maintained, and the buildings well-to-do, but nothing in Madrid really stands out as special to me.
What was totally awesome, though, was the protesting I began this entry with. Surprisingly enough (seriously), by mid-afternoon I was literally bored. I spent time walking around the streets, resting on random benches to kill time… really, looking for something to do. Then came the protests. I’m not talking about a few hundred people out to complain, either; these Spaniards had gathered from many parts of Spain in Madrid this particular weekend (especially, as I later found out, due to the fact that the next day [Monday] was a national holiday). Many of them proceeded to camp in many public green spaces, walking around carrying signs, shirts, and war paints of protest. That, and the Guy Faulks (did I spell that right?)—the one from V for Vendetta—masks on the backs of their heads. Amusement.
I didn’t think anything of them early on in the day when we were going about with the free walking tour, but come about 5pm, things got interesting. Don’t worry, absolutely no violence, no obscenity, not even really any drinking. Well, not compared to Germany, anyway. But, funny enough, the police literally closed off the main veins of the city and thousands of protesters marched through the city for a good two hours, finally ending up in Sol Square, the city’s center. The fact that the police closed off the streets for anti-government protestors made me smile. People were literally sitting on top of red lights, bus stops, and anything else tall they could find to photograph and video the protests.
Imagine, if you would, police shutting down Peachtree Street in Atlanta and part of I-75 through downtown for thousands of people to march around and scream, play random drums, and wave signs about? It wouldn’t happen, first of all, but mainly… the city would shut down. Madrid wasn’t far from that. Keep in mind, though, that Madrid is relatively small when compared to Atlanta. Still.
I, for one, couldn’t resist the urge to join in. What was I chanting and singing along with them? I have no idea. What were they all so pissed about? Not a clue. Was I amused? Immensely.
The Spanish, in my opinion, are a bit like the French: let’s just find a reason to protest, thereby party. Apparently it’s commonplace in Spain. You’d never see that in America; no one seems to care enough to bother. If partying were introduced alongside protesting, though, I get the feeling Americans may join the European bandwagon. Wait—that wouldn’t work. Most cities in America would arrest you for drinking in the streets. My bad.
At this point, once the march was over, I won’t lie: remember me mentioning seeing KFC in Seville? Well, I found another one in Madrid. Yes, I went. Yes, it was worth it.
So, after my highly entertaining afternoon, I headed back to the hostel. Within the hour, the 10 Euro pub crawl started, and I joined several of those I had met on the free walking tour for three bars and a club. Well, maybe not the club… I think I skipped that. But, let’s just say I got my party on with a Russian, some Danes, a few Brazilians, and two Americans. The first hour at the first bar? Epic win. Why? Unlimited beer and sangria for an hour. Seriously, unlimited beer and sangria. That was a good start.
Let’s just say the night ended well. The next day, though, I was t-totally done for; mixing tequila shots with unlimited beer is never a good idea. So, after I managed to wake up 5 minutes before I was due to check out from the hostel, I literally bought a water and went to sleep in a random park for the remainder of the day prior to having to leave Madrid. This wasn’t an issue with me due to my boredom with the city from the day before, so it worked out well!
The worst part of the trip thus far, though: when I got back to the hostel after my nap to get my things (they’ll keep your stuff after you check out for the day for you), I realized that the room I had been in (which previously had all bunk beds) now had all single beds, and my Sony battery charger and spare battery had been charging in an outlet by my former bed. Well, now it’s gone, and I have no way to charge my good camera. Hopefully I can find a store that has a charger, but it really sucks being that the battery I lost in it cost $50. I have no idea who would take that and a US power adapter, but I’m not thrilled.
I arrived at the Madrid airport early, again, and surprise of my life: my flight was delayed an hour. So, a few hours on the Madrid airport floor and a crowded RyanAir flight sitting next to screaming children later, I landed in Rome and found my hostel outside Rome Termini train station. It was odd to be back in Rome, but quite welcome. The hostel owner even had stayed late for me to let me into the home-like hostel! I felt a bit bad, though, being that when he walked me around the block to the hostel (inside a hotel, oddly enough), he switched the light on in the room I stayed in, waking up the two girls already asleep in the room. Oops.
My train to Formia, the town just outside Gaeta that I was to meet my family (whom I had never met), left around 8:30 the next morning, so I got up bright and early to take a shower only to find no hot water. No matter; hopefully Florence has that. So, after an included-in-my-hostel-price Italian coffee and doughnut, off I went to Gaeta!
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