Lighthouse-Library

It is windy outside. I am sitting in the Classics Library – whoo libraries and spending time in them – while the wind howls above. Though the library is located on floor 2M, I’m really on the fifth floor, as we would reckon it back home. The walls are light blue with white trim; I feel like I’m in a lighthouse.

Let us go to the lighthouse, "to the the lighthouse," they say – but I am already there. Like any true library-in-the-sky, the ceiling is mostly one bright big skylight, and I can see the changing and the shifting of the clouds like through a viewfinder on a vintage camera. The color of the paint on the walls almost matches the color of the sky; I think it might be a little too dark. I am in a light-house camera, like the camera obscura on the Royal Mile, only my eye opens up.

And now to descend, descend, from my tower on high, back to lecture and routine and mundane life.

I should be reading and researching, not writing about non-sensical things that don’t matter to anyone but me.

Adventures in Scotland: Edinburgh

After two weeks of journeying throughout the United Kingdom with my parents, and after arriving in Edinburgh four days ago, I have finally begun my program! As everyone else arrived, jet-lagged and disgruntled, I was pretty chipper and wanted to go out and take a few walks around the city, all of which I got a little lost on and had to "wing it" (though I got lost on purpose the third walk I took with my orientation roomie and a friend we met during dinner - whoo making friends).

Although I love my parents very dearly, and I am very grateful they took the time to fly out to the UK and to have the patience to deal with me, it was like a breath of fresh air to be on my own again. The evening I first met my parents in Frankfurt, I couldn't stop talking to them, and I was so happy to see them. The following two weeks were filled with sightseeing and traveling by car with them, after which everyone gets a little cranky. We were with each other all day, and although we had some very good conversations, I readily accepted my regained freedom.

Along with settling down into life in Edinburgh, it has a few striking differences to Madrid and America. For the first time in more than three months, my clothes don't stick to me with sweat. No more cold showers at 12:30 a.m. or leaving most of the water on my body to evaporate. No more waiting until the "hot part" of the day has passed before I can start doing errands on a Saturday.

The "downtown" of the city is actually pretty small. There are very few tall buildings, and there are tons of winding streets which are easy to lose yourself in. However, most of these streets go through, so it's not a problem. All in all, I think I'm going to like Edinburgh, a city which is big enough without being overwhelmingly huge.

I'm tired, so there will have to be more tomorrow.

Also: too much SEO makes me fizzle and fall apart and have haunting memories of Germans with keyboards.

The Journey: El Escorial

Saturday I practiced my capacity to be alone by going to San Lorenzo de El Escorial. My LDS family had other errands to do, and so I thought I would go on this journey by myself. I did bring Rick Steves along with me, but purely for point of conversation I was alone.

At about 1 p.m. (it was really late to start a day trip, I know), I hopped on the Metro, switched trains at Sainz de Baranda, and rode all the way to the Moncloa station. Finding the 664 bus to El Escorial was a breeze - I almost happed upon it by accident (quay 11, 1st platform of the bus station). On my way to Moncloa, I had thought it might be easier to go to El Pardo, which was Franco's summer palace, instead of El Escorial because it's closer. However, I changed my mind because the 664 bus was right there and leaving in another 10 minutes. It seemed as if the bus were pulling me toward it, inviting me to take the journey.

A pleasant 50 minutes later, I was hopping off the bus and hoping to catch the 3:15 bus to Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen). You may know it for its gigantic cross towering into the sky, under which is a big basilica. It is where Franco's remains are kept, and the basilica looked really pretty in my guide book. However, the Valley was closed. Due to no fault of my own, I was not able to see it.

I did, however, make it to the monastery, which is huge and beautiful. San Lorenzo/El Escorial is a pretty small town, and it's difficult to get lost. It is quaint in the same way all European towns are: swept cobbled streets, wrought-iron balcony railings, street lamps, planter boxes. This was Spanish, so things were a little more crowded and a little louder than France or Germany. Then all of a sudden on your left you see a big dome that could easily crush the houses around it.

Welcome to the monastery.

The monastery plaza was huge, with big flat flagstones paving the central plaza. If the day had been any warmer, it would have been unpleasant with all that rock and sun. As it were, the day was lovely and I proceeded into El Escorial just fine. The guards at the coat-check were incredibly nice, and when I didn't understand what a consigna was, the guard pointed down the hall and said with a smile, "The cloakroom is just over there." At the ticket counter, I tried to ask for one unguided tour, but the man was really nice and asked if I wanted to speak English. Did I! He told me that today was free, and he pushed a little yellow sticker through the window, along with a ticket. Whoo, free entrance!

I wandered over to the architecture museum, where I saw lots and lots of drawings and models of El Escorial. Great. It went on unnecessarily long, and then I found myself in a series of painting galleries filled with religious themes. Felipe II had built up El Escorial, and he and his wife (?) had their own rooms at the monastery. Most of the rooms have been converted to displaying Felipe II's extensive collection of religious works - walking through it, I thought that there are only so many ways you can paint the Penitence of St. Jeremy or the Nativity.

Now on to the good stuff: the tombs. The tombs were probably my favorite part of the experience. They charged me (3 euro) for going to see the ruler's chambers where Carlos V, Felipe II, Felipe III, etc are buried, but it was worth it. Walking down the red marble and jade steps, I felt like I was going into the vault of some very, very expensive hotel or bank. When I arrived in the chamber, it really felt like a tomb for royalty. There were bronze and gold fixtures everywhere, and there were 26 caskets, 23 of which held the remains of former rulers of Spain (although the only queens who were there were those whose sons became kings). It was strange to be in the presence of the remains of people who swayed nations and influenced the lives of millions of people. It didn't quite strike me at the time; it just seemed like hollow grandeur to me.

Next were the burial chambers of the royal family members. There were a lot of filled tombs - but then there were a lot that were empty. The most interesting to me was the mausoleum where they kept the remains of the children who died before they were eight and could have their first Communion. They were kept in a structure that Rick Steves adequately describes as a wedding cake:

The basilica was next on the list, which was thoroughly impressive the way all large Catholic cathedrals are. I love feeling dwarfed by buildings and spaces like that, and I was certainly dwarfed. Notably in the cathedral was the altarpiece. In the very center is San Lorenzo, for whom the area is named and the patron saint, who was martyred by the Romans via being grilled to death. He is reported to have said, "I'm done on this side, you can turn me over now." I thought that was amusing.

I may have more to say about El Escorial later, maybe not. But this post has gone on long enough.

Note: I was not allowed to take pictures in El Escorial, but I did buy postcards! (All the pictures which I am not in are actually postcard pictures; that's why they're so good.)

Old People: They Make Me Pensive

I've been thinking about old people. Magi's grandmother is visiting, and she had to go to the hospital. I don't know why, but I started looking at pictures of old people. I think they're beautiful.

I want to be old one day - after plenty of years of living. Then again, that begs the question of what I am really doing right here. Am I living? I've been in Spain almost three months. My 85-odd days of being here are almost up. What have I done? Have I even been to Casa del Campo? No. The Thyussen-Bornemisza Museum? No. How many times have I been to the Prado or the Reina Sofia? Both just once. Then again, how many times have I been to Sol? I don't know, quite a few. How many times have I been walking around my apartment area, off to the park to the south? Once or twice. How many times have I been to Pio XII Alcampo, Lidl, the LDS Church? A lot.

What have I been doing with my time here? I know the answers - working, and unfortunately, blogging. Trying to get to know my Spanish-speaking ward, even though every time I go I'm almost glued to Magi's side because I hate being alone and not understanding what's going on around me. I haven't even learned how to speak Spanish, shame on me.

This was not meant to be a depressing post; none of my posts are. In fact, last night I went out with two of my co-workers for pizza at a real Italian restaurant just near Sol (and talked with the American-Peruvian-Caribbean waiter and the Italian owner), and then afterwards saw La Latina's street fair. The Spanish certainly know how to throw street festivals...

And now for pictures of old people. Yes, I did take them from Flicker without asking permission.

"Hamal" - Vedats

"Navsari" - CrassCadence

"Untitled" - Anatcefne

"Waiting for the Bus" - Rosquillo

It's interesting how photographs can make any life seem almost Romantic. Or enviable, anyway. Enviable for these people's simplicity, their wisdom, their compassion distilled through suffering. Yes, compassion distilled through suffering, not wisdom.

Beethoven in Plaza Mayor

On Thursday I went to a Beethoven concert in Plaza Mayor sponsored by Madrid's "Veranos en la Villa." The concert started at 10 p.m., and due to transportation issues I arrived at Sol right about the time the concert was supposed to start. The now-familiar street, Calle Mayor, was not as crowded as I expected, and there was not as much light as I remembered from earlier nocturnal excursions. I was alone, which made me glance around a little more warily than I would have had I been walking and chatting with a friend of mine.

The sounds of a symphony greeted me as I turned down the alley that leads to the Plaza, and there was a huge crowd of people standing around barriers, beyond which an even larger crowd was sitting. The symphony itself was in a gigantic box, and from my vantage point near one of the barriers, I could only see two of the violinists' right arms. No matter. The music was beautiful.

They played selections from Beethoven's sixth and seventh symphonies (I believe), and as the music played I saw story-scapes from Fantasia flit through my head: a young pegasus testing out its wings, centaurs celebrating summer, Zeus hurling thunderbolts. Then all of a sudden I was taken aback once again by the tones of his seventh symphony. Whenever I hear it, I inevitably think of The Fall, which is one of my favorite movies, and the images that correspond with that movie.

I was a bit disappointed because I saw the same images from the movie in my head, felt the same things I had felt before (admittedly they are pretty fantastic). But they weren't my own. I would rather I had exercised my creativity and supplied my own - which takes a bit more effort. I can make the paltry excuses that I was tired and didn't have the energy, that I had to keep minimal concentration not to fall over.

Truthfully, I kept getting distracted. In the Plaza's buildings, there were some people who were there that evening and opened their French doors to listen to the music: silhouettes leaned against the balconies or sat in chairs while light lit up the room behind them. I thought of how at that very moment, I was in one of the centres of Europe, that word us Americans say in hushed voices as land of sophistication, of history, of our imagined origins. Were I younger than I am now, all the cells in my body would have thrilled to even think of Beethoven, Plaza Mayor, night, lights, Madrid, all together. Nevertheless the music and the evening was very beautiful, but behind it all was the sordidness that comes with knowing how dirty the city can be, with knowing how the magic can fade if you stay in one place too long.

I have lived long enough that I can't imagine new things when I listen to music I've heard before - or I'm so out of practice with my imagination that I must put forth effort to use it.

Plaza Mayor

"How to Be Alone"

I'd like to thank one of my readers for sharing this video with me. It's called "How to Be Alone," by Tanya Davis and Andrea Dorfman. I would post it without having to download it, but I can't figure out how to do it. Please trust me and follow the link.