Cassidy Cox

Today in Spain our amazing Purdue Promise group did so many things. We started off the day at 8:30am by eating breakfast at our hotel, NH Zurbano. After breakfast, we met in the lobby and got ready to go on our walking tour of Madrid. We took a huge luxury bus to the Royal Palace of Spain and began our tour. When we arrived, we met up with our dear friend, Mario, who was to give us a wonderful walking tour of Madrid. The first important piece of information Mario told us was that Spain is a mix of all cultures and actually has a lot of Arabic origin. The first piece of art we looked at was an amazing bronze sculpture of King Philip IV of Spain. He was known as the womanizer and is featured in the photo below. This statue was the first ever to feature a horse in the upright position and was actually planned out with the help of Galileo Galilee!

Me in front of the King Philip IV statue

The walking tour was very long, but it was worth every second of it. Our guide, Mario, did an amazing job of showing us the culture and explaining how each little part of Spain is important. We saw the Royal Palace, which is made of stone and is super heavy, and features 3,000 rooms! The Palace hosts multiple workers and is also the unofficial home of the king of Spain.

Royal Palace of Madrid

We were also lucky enough to see the emblem of Madrid, which features a beautiful tree and bear, the Cathedral of Madrid, as well as La Puerta de España, the heart of Spain.

Statue of the Bear and Strawberry Tree (with Peyton)

Almudena Cathedral

After our walking tour, we were able take a break for lunch where me and three others (Peyton, Isabel, and Troy) ventured off of the scene to a beautiful tapas bar. It was nice to see the side of Madrid that was not so busy and touristy. The people outside of this bar were so welcoming and it seemed like they really enjoyed our presence.

After we ate, we went to meet up with our group again and went to Museo Nacional Del Prado, which is the famous Prado Museum. This museum was enormous and absolutely gorgeous. It hosted famous works by Francisco Goya, Hieronymus Bosch, and El Greco! We spent a lot of time talking about Charles IV of Spain and his Family (painted by Goya) and The Descent from the Cross by Van der Weyden. The Descent really spoke to me. While we were not allowed to take pictures, I really encourage looking it up. It is beautifully constructed and shows so much emotion. It is almost as if you can reach out and feel the tears falling from the character's cheeks.

Once we finished at the Prado, we split up to experience the culture on our own. We finally made it back to our hotel where we had our debriefing session about Madrid, because this is our last night here for a while. Even though this is my second day in Spain, I have learned so much about the culture and I see how different it is from America. I continue to see the skills that the people in Spain have are much different than the skills I have (example: they have the ability to read a map and I do not because I am so reliant on technology). I enjoyed today so much and I am sure it will show in how sore my legs are tomorrow!