We got ready to get in the check in line, and I grabbed my passport holder as we need our passport to get our boarding passes. As I pulled it out of my bag I panicked...it felt very light. I opened it and realized that my passport was NOT in it. I looked through my bag but I knew exactly where it was. In my purse back in Caceres. When I was in Lisboa I took my passport out of the holder to use the holder as a wallet. I didnt' want to carry the passport around. When I got home that sunday, i put both my passport holder and passport in my purse, but didn't put the passport in the holder first. I talked to a lady and she said it wasn't possible to fly with RyanAir without a passport. So I decided to try going up with erin remembering that Casey, another member of our group, had flown through ryanair without hers when we went to palma mallorca. Still they said they could not give me my boarding pass. So I talked to the manager who more or less called me a liar when i told her about Casey. So very infuriated i went to another desk. The man told me there was nothing he could do but that i could report my passport lost to the police and they could write a report and the manager would mostly like let me board. So I talked to the police and they told me to talk with the manager to see if they would let me on with a police report. Well i knew how that would go, and of course, she answered very rudely that it wasn't possible. So now on the verge of tears knowing that I had exhausted all options, I told erin i would pay her for the ticket, and then we used the 5 minutes of battery i had left and spent five euros for the internet to find a hostel in Madrid for the weekend.
We found one and went to the metro which wasn't even open yet. We found the hostel but it was full. So we wandered until we found a decent looking hostal. We went in and they had openings for a good price. We then slept for about 5 hours, and got some food to eat for lunch. We then visited the cervantes monument, the gardens around the royal palace, and the royal palace, pharmacy, and armory. After that we headed to the Christopher columbus monument, and visited the national library. Then we walked down back by the palace and went to a restaurant we had seen earlier in the day called Fosters. I had been told my Carolina, one of our spanish guides, that they had awesome hamburgers and american food. It's the european american restaurant basically. Erin and I were really craving some actual meat so I had a 3/4 lb chili burger and she had a steak. We were very satisfied afterwards and headed back to the hostal for a good night's rest. WHen I arrived to our room, I checked my email only to find a message to my mom saying "sorry honey, when it rains it pours, your credit card is blocked in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and...Spain" Apparently there were some cases of fraud in the those countries so they blocked everyone's card that goes through that company. So guess what? Erin's from Wilton so her card got blocked too. Could it get any worse?
Saturday we tried to go to the museum of the america's but it was about to close. Then we tried to go up the tower de faro which was also closed for a long time. So then we went to the museum of national archeology which was under renovation and so we got in free. Unfortunately a very small part of the collection was still on display. It was still very interesting to see ancient artifacts from the Iberian Peninsula some of which were from Caceres. Then we went to the museum of natural science which ALSO was under renovation so though we got in free we didn't get to see much of the collection. We did see some of the animals native to Spain. I wonder if any of them still really exist on the peninsula because they've more or less ruined any habitat for animals over the past centuries. Since we really didn't get to spend much time in the other museums we had time to see the Prado that day. But first we had to go back to the hostal and get our heavy coats because it was freezing, windy, and rainy. So yes it could get worse. We went to the Prado which was very cool. It's like a mini version of the Louvre. By mini I mean 3 floors with 86 rooms. We then decided to warm up and wait out the rain in an extremaduran bar on the way home. We had the most fantastic potatoes that were literally served in a bowl of olive oil and garlic. We went back around midnight and slept very well.
Sunday we went to the Rastro, a huge gypsy market where you can get almost everything you can think of from hunting knifes to scarfs to underwear to gas masks from the american army for very cheap. We then walked to the Reina Sofia museum of modern art. There is housed Picasso's "Guernica" as well as many other famous paintings from Piccasso, Dali, and other comtemporary artists. That was probably one of my favorite things. We then went to the train station to the see the monument to the victims of the bombings. Then it was time to head to the airport to meet Erin's dad who was flying in from Egypt. He had been working in Kuwait for the past 4 months and had a week of vacation before he had to return to work in muscatine. So he visited egypt and then came here. We got there and his flight was delayed 20 minutes which isn't too bad. We waited for 50 minutes after his plane had landed. He never cam out so with a very upset Erin we had to head to the train station so we wouldn't miss our train. Well we still missed it. While we were in the middle of trying to find another train home, her dad called from his computer that he had made it to the train station. We met up with him and his flight didn't land until 40 minutes after the computer at the airport had said he'd landed. So there was no way he would have made the train either. So after going to 3 different customer service desks we finally found the one to get a later train. We asked for the next train to caceres at 7 pm. It was full. I asked when the next one was...at 10:30pm from another station in Madrid that would arrive in Caceres at 2 am. With no other option we bought those tickets and headed to a cafe for a bit. We then relocated to the other train station, and ate supper at a restaurant there. From there on it was pretty uneventful. We got home at 2 and I still had things to take care of. So i got to bed at 4 and 2 hours later got up to head to my internship.
At my internship, I kept dozing off while translating a patent. After my 12 hour day I took a short nap, and maren and I met erin and her dad for dinner at Big House. I had pad thai and fried rice. It was erin's dad's treat.
Yesterday was our group trip to Merida, the capital of the autonomous community Extremadura. It's an old roman city. We saw the ruins of a roman theater, amphitheatre, neighborhood, forum, aqueducts, and chariot race track. We also saw the museum of roman art. It was very cool. Who knew I would get to see these types of monuments 70km south of Caceres.
Today I attended classes and will be heading to my internship shortly. I ended up enjoying myself in Madrid, but I lost a lot of money through the whole deal. I do know I won't be making that mistake ever again.
Below are slideshows from Madrid and Merida.
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| Madrid |
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| Merida! |
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