Más o Menos: Field Trip To Madrid And Segovia

Despite my terrible struggle-fest in the Coruña airport, my “field trip” to Madrid and Segovia was great! Spending time with family (Granmami, Paloma, Cris and Tia Cece) was not only a lot of fun, but much needed since I’ve been in a minor homesick slump.

On Tuesday evening, I was welcomed with open arms and quickly settled into Paloma and Cris’ piso which is located a little outside of Madrid’s center, or downtown area. After I got situated, we headed to a typical Madrid restaurant and feasted on ham, cheese, shrimp, bread, potatoes, fried eggs and a jar of sangria; I think it’s safe to say we ate enough on Tuesday night to cover the rest of the week, but that really didn’t stop us from enjoying food on this trip!

Wednesday afternoon, Granmami, Tia Cece and myself took a three hour city tour bus that circled all around Madrid. The double-decker red bus was certainly a great way to get to know the city because not only did we zoom past beautiful sites, but we also had automated audio-guides to explain important historical facts. However, I had the best seat in the house since Granmami was siting next to me. My grandmother spent her later youth in Madrid, so its home to her university, the church where she got married, her first apartments with my grandfather, and the hospital where my mom was born. Wednesday afternoon was probably my favorite part of my visit to Madrid since Granmami had the opportunity to point out some important locations in our family’s history; the really cool piece is that she explained everything to me in Spanish, which truly maintained the authenticity of the conversation.

After revisiting these sites on Thursday afternoon, we decided to spend Friday in El Prado, Madrid’s fine art museum. We spent five hours in the museum and I absolutely loved every single second of it. After taking an Art History class at Holy Cross, I’ve become weirdly obsessed with museums and I love analyzing works of art. From the beginning of our visit, we established a challenge to see how much my Spanish improved, a challenge that turned out to be quite difficult and really amusing at the same time. I was the only one to order an audio-guide, in English, so my responsibility was to translate everything back into Spanish to explain it to the others. Suffice to say, it was sort of a failure since I’m not an expert on art vocabulary, but it was still fun to try.

On Saturday afternoon, Paloma and Cris were kind enough to take us to Segovia to visit the city’s Ancient Aqueduct. The aqueduct was truly awe-inspiring (pictures below), not to mention sitting down for lunch right under it; life’s not too shabby here in Spain.

All in all, the trip was very enjoyable and we shared many laughs. Just like any ordinary family reunion, there were countless fights to pay the food bill (don’t worry Dad and Mom, I offered too, but from your part!). Although it was tough to say goodbye to everyone at the airport, I was really excited to get back to beloved Coruña!