Guest blogger Alex on El Escorial

Last Friday Mom and I went to El Escorial. El Escorial is where King I'mImportantForSomeReason (and descents) lived in the 17th century. At the time, the building was the biggest in the world. It has over 10 miles of corridors, a massive basilica (special church, see more farther down) and lots of big towers and rooms and other cool stuff. It was also the first building in Hispanic Baroque building style, also known as Herreran (after the builder, or really, the guy who took over after he died). El Escorial took 21 years to build. Being its size, it gets really cold. So cold that I got a candle in the basilica and warmed my hands up over it.

There's no point in boring with all the normal stuff: the servants lived here, the king here, this is the dungeon. Really, after being to several castles (see previous posts on the Rhine valley, Germany), it's all the same. I don't mean to say that it isn't interesting, just that it's like a Christmas joke, and only funny the first few times around.

So, to the point, there were 3 main things that I found worthwhile. If you want to know more about castles, ask your resident 12/13 year old boy. I'm sure he knows way more about them than you really want to hear.

The first thing is a strip on dark stone laid in the floor. It is laid out at exactly the angle the sun comes up. There is a tiny slit in the wall above the window near it. One day every month at high noon the window got closed, and the slit opened. The stone has the markings of the zodiac on it. Each month, when the light that came through the slit, and hit exactly the right zodiac mark, they would know it was high noon. It was with this information that the old and not very accurate clocks were set.

The second thing is a semi-fancy, modern crypt in which the 12 most recent kings and queens are buried. There are two caskets with no names on them, waiting for the current kings parents. One thing that both my Mom (proper noun) and I liked was that all of them were treated in exactly the same way: a pretty nice casket with a metal plate on the side with there name. Apparently there is also a room somewhere else in which the bodies are put while they decay. (huh?). It was pretty cool.

The third thing is a massive basilica. I don't really know what makes a basilica different than a normal church, but both that I have been to, the other was in Zaragoza, were really big. And something about them being especially important religiously too. I really liked this basilica because of how it wasn't the uber-ornate, sensory overload, agghIwanttopullmyeyesout old church. I know that not all churchs are like this, actually only a few, but, when you are a tourist, you kind of forget that. Anyway, I liked the church because of its relative simplicity and size. Looking up at the top dome of this thing was like insane. Just seeing the sheer amount of cold, grey stone looking down at your as you stared up into what looked like the capital building's dome (I hope you get a chance to do that something to do that too. I had the luck of living in DC for a year and half when my dad got a temporary job offer there with NSF, when I was 5-6 years old. I don't remember that much, but I still remember enough.) Massive amounts of stone are cool. Probably more so when your wondering if they're all about to coming fall down on you. Not much more was interesting about the basilica to me, although I'm sure there were priceless paintings, masterpiece wood carvings, etc. ( You can be sure about these things because the king used to live there. I mean, what do you think rich people do with they're money, stuff beds with it?)

Not much more was cool, but I did manage to break my audio guide (dropped it).

It’s just life

Eventually you figure out that whatever you are in the middle of, really, it’s just life. The living in some other city, trying to learn something new, the kids’ new phase (it is just a phase, right?). All of it is just life. We still have to eat every day, go to school or work, and clean the toilets. Who cares if the city is Madrid, the new thing this year is speaking Spanish, and the new phase is adolescence. While I get wrapped up in our details, others face deaths, illnesses, births, earthquakes, foreclosures, new loves, old loves, troubled children and the dismantling of institutions. And that’s just this week’s news from home.

I feel honored to be able to talk to a new Madrileño friend, Esperaza, about her concerns. She has a lovely book shop that she is struggling to keep open. She lies awake at night worrying about having to talk to the bank. She is going to church to ask God for help because she doesn’t know where else to turn. It’s a notable point in our stay that I can hear the stories of people I care about here and be reminded of how small my own challenges are.

In the beginning of our year here, every hour of every day was an adventure. Every day was filled with goals and obstacles. Everything was novel. It was overwhelming and exciting.

Today Alex and I went on an outing, and I realized that it was fairly interesting, but not quite an adventure. We bought bus tickets, we arrived at the palace, we toured it, we had lunch and return home, all without a stressful or embarrassing moment. It was a pleasant excursion. A nice day in our fairly mundane life – regardless of where we are.

It’s like returning home, this realization. Sigh. It's just life. But a beautiful life at that.