March 13, 2014
By Lydia
In the morning, I went to a religion class with Kate and Amalia. The class was learning about the rituals, symbols, and calendar of Buddhism and making presentations that day. The teacher was a nun (“munja”) who lives at the school, but I didn’t know that until someone pointed out the special cross that she was wearing on her necklace discreetly with her civilian clothing. After class, the group of Americans got on a bus to Aranjuez, a town outside Madrid. We took a tour of El Palcio Real de Aranjuez, one of several royal palaces in the area. This palace was one of the oldest and most magnificent, dating from the 1500s. We were especially impressed with one room in particular that was made of many porcelain pieces, which could be taken apart and rebuilt somewhere else, held together with about 11,000 screws. After the tour, we ate lunch outside and walked around in the royal gardens just outside the palace, which were very beautiful.
Afterwards, we got back on the bus and went to the Palacio Real de Madrid, which was equally beautiful, but close to the center of the city. This is the palace where the royal family comes for official royal ceremonies, although no one has lived in it since 1930. The royal family now lives in another palace 10 km outside the city. Here were several of the past princesses’ wedding dresses, an official throne room, and Francisco Goya’s official portraits of the royal family in the 1800’s.
After this, we walked around the palace grounds, including an armory with samples of the armor historically worn by the royal knights and horses. Then we walked around the oldest part of the city, El Barrio Antiguo, which everyone loved. We went to a town square to get crafts from local artisans and traditional Spanish food in the market. We even got to pass the oldest restaurant in the world, which has been continually operating since 1725. After our snack (merienda) in the market, we walked through the Calle Mayor and did a bit of shopping in the Plaza Mayor, similar to Times Square.
The day had a lot of walking, but it was quite fun! The Foxcroft girls got a chance to get to know the kids from Pennington, the other American school that Jesús Maria is exchanging with in New Jersey. We have also been making an effort to speak Spanish all the time, even with the other Americans.
Where’s Foxcroft? 