Back From the Prado

So now it is five o’clock, and I have nearly reached all of my goals for the day. I have done my walking tour, gone to the Prado, gotten my magnet, and now all I have to do it go to the Parque del Retiro.

My thoughts on the Prado?

Honestly it was not as exciting as the Reina Sofia. Everything was exactly how I expected it to be. There was the Goya paintings, the Velazquez paintings, the El Greco paintings… I guess that makes me sound really spoiled and ungrateful, but there was no wow factor to the Prado. I guess the fact that I was kind of tired and hungry added to this unimpressed attitude. By the end I was pretty ready to get out of there. But maybe it was just because I was hungry and tired.

Something I did appreciate is that the Prado has captions by all of the paintings. The captions not only comment on the artistic value of the painting, but they also comment on what is going on in the painting. For example, there were several medieval paintings where a “surgeon” was removing a stone from someone’s forehead. But apparently this was a trick that people did to get more money? Like, there wasn’t really a stone in their forehead, they just said there was. Honestly, I didn’t understand it entirely, but it gave me a little bit of background, something to go off from.

I really liked the walking tour, but our guide was a little wacky. He took up through all of the city, and I go to see the first restaurant (ever supposedly), and the Royal Palace, the Plaza de España, the Plaza Oriente, the Puerta de Sol, I don’t even know what else. Unfortunately we did not go to the Templo de Debod, but that’s ok… I’m so tired. I’m so ready to go home. I’m ready to get on the plane and go home. Tomorrow I’m going home. I can’t wait to have a little bit of control in my life. I feel like the whole past month I haven’t been able to eat what I want, do what I want when I want, I’ve been living around other people for too long. Being around other people and trying to be courteous and work around them, and their daily actions. It’s always too cold, or I can’t find something I want to eat, or I can’t relax and do what I want because I’m always around other people. Ugh.

But I really appreciate what I’ve been able to do here. I’ve learned Spanish from professors in Spain. I’ve traveled by myself, and I feel a great sense of accomplishment. To add to this, I still haven’t been robbed! (Knock on wood…) Everyone told me that it would happen, but it hasn’t.

I think I’m going to take a long siesta. I really need to reorganize the things in my duffel and figure out how I’m going to return to the airport. Ugh. I hate how heavy my packs are!!!!