Day Six - The Park and the Museum

Oh geez, today was a long one.

I woke up late and bolted out the door to get to El Museo Arqueológico Nacional - the National Archaeological Museum. Remember, Spain is a country which, at one time or another was settled by:

• Celts
• Iberians
• Greeks
• Carthaginians
• Romans
• Visigoths
• Arabs
• Modern Europeans

In addition, it's the country which conquered and brought back Archaeological treasure from all of the Americas including the Aztecs, Inca, and all the myriad tribes and civilizations of the Western Hemisphere. I was very ready to see some of the most impressive treasure I had ever seen. So I got there at noon (when the free admission begins on Sunday) and it was closed for renovations. All that the sign says is closed "hasta los finales de 2011" - "Until the last parts of 2011". I was thoroughly disappointed, but I'm going to be even more disappointed if they don't open before I leave.

So I decided to walk around for hours. And I did. A lot. It was the museum district, just south of the embassy district, so everything is really nice.



Extremely nice:



I checked a menu for prices - E40 per plate. That's like $50-60.

So I walked around even more, getting, at this point, exceedingly thirsty, when I finally stumbled upon a tiny convenience store run by an Asian fellow. I went in, got a huge bottle of water and a "sandwich de queso y nuez" - "Cheese and nut sandwich". Yes, I agree, it sounds exceedingly odd, which is most of the reason why I wanted to try it. That, and it was cheap.

I took my food and drink and made my way to the nearby Parque de Buen Retiro - roughly "Park of Good Retreat" but in the sense of "Park that's a good place to get away from it all and relax".

Walking around after my lunch I noticed a couple of people talking in English. Well, let me correct myself: I heard a lot of people talking in English, but two stuck out, and I approached them and asked where they were from. One, named Matt, is from Ohio, and has been in Asia for the past couple of years teaching English and the other, Duncan, is from Melbourne, Australia, is an Audio Engineer, and is just taking some time to explore Europe and visit some friends. We got to talking and it turns out that they were both Couchsurfers. Couchsurfing is a program/network/service thing where you can offer up a room (or couch) in your house and people (often travelers and backpackers) can crash in your place for a couple of nights before they continue on their journey or get on their feet. Both Matt and Duncan stayed at the same house for the previous few night and so they were out exploring the town together.

The park is huge and just happens to have:



Beautiful, free-roaming Peacocks. I don't know how they keep them from wandering away, but there's a flock of several of them at the park.

There's also a place in the park known as El Palacio de Cristal: the Cristal Palace:


We hung around it and went inside (for free) for a while before moving on to another huge pond flanked by a giant statue:


I didn't get a shot with a size-context, but each of those angel things is about twice my size.

At this statue we met up with a girl who was the roommate of Matt and Duncan's couchsurfing host. Her name was Camille and she's from France here studying at a local university.

It was about 5:00 and we decided that it was time to head to El Museo Prado: The Prado Museum - one of Europe's most famous art museums and host to some of the most famous paintings ever. This link on Wikipedia has a list of some of the more prominent ones, but aside form these it has Greek and Roman sculptures including a magnificent funerary urn of one of Augustus's generals from just after the fall of the Roman Republic and the institution of Empire.

Anyway, we didn't get much time in there because we were all starving and thirsty, so we decided to go a place called El Tigre (The tiger). It's a place which is apparently popular among the locals but not very touristy: It is a true tapas bar: if you order two beers at E2.50 each, you get a free plate full of tapas, which included tostas de jamón y queso (ham and cheese on toast), tortilla española (spanish tortilla - egg and potato omelette), patatas bravas ("fierce" potatoes - sort of tater tots with a special "brava" sauce) and these little fried balls of something I truly cannot identify. It was all delicious though, and ~$3 for a beer and half a piled-up plate of food is a pretty good deal in my book.

After leaving El Tigre we went to another bar to play pool for a while - Matt and I beat Duncan and Camille by one ball. After that it was getting pretty late, so Duncan left, and the rest of us went by the Temple of Debod. What's this, you ask? I'll explain when I get some better pictures.