Wednesday
Wednesday was a Spanish national holiday, and thus a day off at the Embassy. The Spanish day of "La Virgen de Almudena" celebrates the icon of the Virgin Mary who is the patron of Madrid. According to the legend, a medieval Spanish knight prayed for a sign in the recently-reconquered-from-the-Muslims city of Madrid, and a stone wall crumbled before him, revealing a statue of the Virgin Mary, and this particular sign of Mary became the patron of the city.
On this day I didn't really have any Almudena-related festivities to partake in myself, but I did have some stuff planned: first, I headed to Retiro to get some shots of the now-colorful trees:
After the park I headed to another meeting of the language exchange, this time absent teacher-Ana but still included the the other two, other-Ana and Alberto. This time we went to a coffee place and talked about things somewhat all related to geography, weather, and natural disasters. We discussed how Oklahoma already had tornados but now also had terremotos in the past month; Spain sometimes gets tornados but certainly not as strong as Oklahoma's.
Nothing much else to exciting happened this week except that Friday was Veteran's day, which meant I got a day off, which meant I was heading to Andalucía. After severe trouble booking all my stuff, I finally got my tickets and hostels, and so staying up, I waited on Thursday night for my bus to depart at 1:00 AM. Alone and not knowing what vast wonders awaited me, I braced for a weekend of discovery. And did I ever find it.
On this day I didn't really have any Almudena-related festivities to partake in myself, but I did have some stuff planned: first, I headed to Retiro to get some shots of the now-colorful trees:
After the park I headed to another meeting of the language exchange, this time absent teacher-Ana but still included the the other two, other-Ana and Alberto. This time we went to a coffee place and talked about things somewhat all related to geography, weather, and natural disasters. We discussed how Oklahoma already had tornados but now also had terremotos in the past month; Spain sometimes gets tornados but certainly not as strong as Oklahoma's.
Nothing much else to exciting happened this week except that Friday was Veteran's day, which meant I got a day off, which meant I was heading to Andalucía. After severe trouble booking all my stuff, I finally got my tickets and hostels, and so staying up, I waited on Thursday night for my bus to depart at 1:00 AM. Alone and not knowing what vast wonders awaited me, I braced for a weekend of discovery. And did I ever find it.
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