For the first
puente (long weekend) in my stay here I decided to head to Madrid to visit Marina, a good friend who just moved there from Barcelona, and to drop by the Philippine Embassy to register as an overseas voter. It was the last day too for registration, so it was perfect. Lyle took the bus in from Granada and we met at the metro near the embassy. It was fairly simple and we got it done in under an hour.
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| Success! |
After the embassy we headed to Tetúan so Lyle could grab some filipino goodies at the Asian store, then we went to Bar Vi-Valdez for lunch. Filipino food is always yummy, though the taste was a bit different from the last couple of times we ate there (change of cooks perhaps?).
We had a couple of hours to kill before Lyle's bus back to Granada so we headed to check out the Rosaleda and the Templo de Debod. It wasn't the season though so the Rosaleda was pretty much empty, with only several roses here and there.. I could imagine though what a beautiful sight it must be in the spring.
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| View of the palace from the Templo de Debod |
The
Templo de Debod was an ancient Egyptian temple that was dismantled and relocated to Spain. (Why, I do not know.) It's free to look inside, but there's a line which the guards control to make sure there aren't too many people at a time. We just hung around on the outskirts, and waited for the sunset.
Saturday morning started off with Marina and I trying to fly a kite at Retiro Park. First of all, assembling the kite was
much harder than it sounds. The instructions weren't the clearest thing, and they didn't seem to match the pictures. Nevertheless, we were able to built the kite (what we think was) properly, and test it out. It was semi-successful; there wasn't much wind and we had no elevated points to run down from, but we managed to get it up in the air... for a few seconds. Haha! It was still quite a fun morning. We looked a bit silly, but we did manage to pique the attention of a little girl who asked if she could try flying our kite. She had more success since she was shorter, and I could hold the kite higher than her, which helped lift it off.
After our kite flying stint, we had lunch and then for coffee we met up with Bea. Bea, Marina and I shared a flat in Pamplona from 2008-2009, and it was a lovely afternoon of catching up.
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| Me, Bea, Marina |
We spent the rest of the evening walking around Madrid, and we ended the night with a drink at a jazz club before heading home.
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| Plaza Mayor at night |
On Sunday, Marina and I went to Ávila to check out an exhibition, and also so I could pick up a maleta that a friend's family graciously held on to me for the summer.
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| Our walk to the train station. Such a beautiful day! |
Ávila is probably most famous for its medieval walls and for being the birthplace of Santa Teresa. We arrived just in time to hear mass at the Convento de Santa Teresa.
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| Convento de Santa Teresa |
It was quite cold in Ávila (I later learned that the city is one of the coldest and windiest in Spain, perhaps because of its elevation), so for lunch we warmed ourselves up with some soup and a hearty meat dish.
We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting the exhibits of
Las Edades de Hombre, a religious foundation that aims to promote religious art, particularly from Castilla y León. Every year the exhibit moves to a different town or city in the region, and promotes a different saint. This year, it was of Santa Teresa and was located in Ávila city and another town nearby.
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| Pretending it's not insanely cold |
In the evening, I met up with my friend's parents to get my suitcase (and for some coffee), then it was back to Valladolid for me, and to Madrid for Marina. A quick trip, but I'm loving how accessible cities are from Valladolid.
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