Vacation Response II

So, I'm going to spend the weekend in a faraway place across the sea, and I'm SUPER EXCITED! Yes, I just used capital lettres because I am that excited.

I've been rather sparing on the pictures in the last few posts, but I hope this weekend will make up for it.

A lundi!

Lizzle is in London!

Written yesterday.

I’m in London! And I have successfully managed to convince my parents to stay here an extra day so we can see some of the London tourist hotspots we missed today. After getting up ridiculously early without any alarms, we started our day by taking a red double-decker hop-on/hop-off tour bus. Whoo, breathe after all those modifiers. While on the bus, we passed by the Marble Arch, Grosvenor Place, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben and Parliament, the Eye of London, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London.

We got off at the Tower of London and toured it for a while. Our tour guide did not spare us the gory details of several of the notable executions – like William Wallace’s death where he was half-hung, drawn and quartered. We skipped the Bloody Tower where the instruments of torture are kept and went on to something much more family-friendly, like the Crown Jewels. The Light of India and the Star of Africa are inconceivably huge – say three-quarters the size of my fist.

After the Tower of London, my father went back to the hotel to make a conference call, and my mother and I proceeded to Buckingham Palace. We took a tour of the Royal Mews, which unfortunately only houses horses, carriages, and cars – no falcons. However, it was worth spending time at the Mews to see the Carriages of Scotland, and Australia, as well as the Coronation Carriage. It is a gigantic carriage, and makes Cinderella’s shimmery, effervescent fairy carriage look like the pumpkin it is. The Coronation Carriage looks like it is the offspring of an Italian Renaissance fountain and a German rococo church. Bathe it all in gold and you have the Carriage. It weighs about four tons, and it takes eight horses to pull it.

I was disappointed with the Mews for a second reason – I only saw three horses, two of which were the rumps as they were led outside to be exercised. There were more than three dozen stalls that could be occupied by horses. I suppose they must all be on holidays.

Buckingham Palace itself was fantastic. The rooms were opulent and gorgeous, and if I were an ambassador to Great Britain, I certainly would be impressed. Everywhere I looked, there was white and gold, and the colors of the rooms were so vibrant. Buckingham Palace trumps the Belgian Royal Palace in terms of grandeur, but I still have tender feelings for the Belgian palace because it is small(er) and charming. I liked Buckingham for the same reason I liked the Belgian palace: it felt modern and like it was used.

Not long after leaving Buckingham, my mother and I ventured to Piccadilly Circus, got something to eat, and then meandered through London back to our hotel.

All in all, a good day. Tomorrow: Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a museum like the Tate or British Museum.

Casas and Spanish Dining Hours

Today was mostly filled with work, although there was a change of pace because I transitioned from research to actually writing about my topic. Also, I had a buddy working at the other desk in the same room! We didn’t talk much, however, because I think she is Italian and she was busy doing her own work. Our desks are in the front room of the company's building, a casa, near the kitchen and by the entryway. I get to see all the comings and goings of the company. It gets great light in there, too, and it has high ceilings which minimize how hot it gets.

The company is located in a decently-sized casa in an older part of Madrid. The casa is located on a quaint, one-way cobbled street, and the sidewalk is barely big enough to admit one person. It’s a little forbidding because all the casas have fences to mark the property, but a lot of them are lattice, which is great. I can see some of the houses and the lattice provides a great anchor for climbing plants, so vines and flowers hang over the fences while providing shade, too. No matter the time of day, the white cobblestone streets in that part of town always seems filled with light.

For lunch today, I navigated my way to the Alcampo. It is a big superstore similar to Target, but since it is European, it is naturally superior. I purchased some food and ate it in the office’s garden. Really, I am spoiled.

I feel like I move in half-time in Spain. Everything takes a lot longer than I think it will. Today, I got home from work around 8 p.m., went to the Lidl (a local, smaller grocery store) for some food and got back around 9 p.m., and didn’t have dinner until about 10:30 p.m. when the mother of the family had returned from work. A friend of the mother’s had come to chat and she stayed for dinner. Dinner lasted for almost two hours, yet it felt nowhere near that long. I can’t speak Spanish and the time passed amicably with the daughter translating what her mother and mother’s friend said. The later and later it became, the more pantomimes I did, the more relaxed I became, and the more comfortable I felt as I tried to communicate with the mother and friend, who do not speak English. These are people with whom I can really get along. And today, at least, it felt like my Spanish comprehension improved a little bit.

Tomorrow I have off – huzzah for Spanish holidays! I suppose I should invest some time to discover which holiday it is… But on more pressing matters, the family and I are going to spend the morning at the Madrid temple, and then we will be off to do something touristy. Oh, I am so excited! It’s my fourth day here and I have yet to visit Puerta del Sol or the Royal Palace or the Prado Museum. Also - special shoutout to my brother whose birthday it is today. I promise to get you something nice while I'm in Spain!

I like Spain.