23/08/11
Wind down, the cathedral and ‘real’ royal palace of Madrid.
Sunday night was the farewell and thank you soccer match between Spain and The World. The Spanish certainly know how to entertain the crowd. We were up dancing and the mc was encouraging the Mexican wave. They also showed the crowd and I finally got on the big screen – we were waving the Aussie flag and I was wearing my Australia shirt and waving the Spanish flag ; ). Spain scored first and the pace wasn’t too fast with the golden oldies. The World evened up the score and were predominantly attacking all second half and took the lead with ten minutes to go. The crowd went wild and we were up on our feet. Go the world!
Monday-we were finally tourist and not pilgrims! So we went to see the sites. The cathedral was very impressive, even the ceiling was decorated and the side chapel was very beautifully decorated with mosaic images of white and gold depicting some Gospel stories.
After some snaps and quiet time I ran into Chrissy and some of the girls in the line up for the royal ‘real’ Palace. Luckily she told me I needed my Wyd pass to get in for free and some other Queenslanders were walking past at the time. It was very extravagant. The ceiling frescos were breathtaking – especially the 3-D effects. The rooms were very opulent and each one in a different colour scheme and theme. One was even completed decorated with porcelain ornaments. The King’s dressing room was bigger than his bedroom and the throne room was very regal. Would hate to have to dust and clean the place though. We also looked at the armoury which had the armour of 2 kings over their lifespan on mannequins displaying it – they were very tiny, smaller than myself and very slightly built.
The pharmacy was also open for viewing and the shelves were stacked high with draws of chemicals and herbs.
We grabbed some ‘spanish’ churros with dipping chocolate – nice but no cinnamon. Did some more souvenir shopping before heading back and attending to my leg dressings. Teresa was great and patched it up for me and then we headed out for dinner to celebrate our last night of the pilgrimage and being in Madrid. We found this really nice part of the city, a square and authentic Spanish restaurant. The amazing thing is one of the other Queensland groups found it too. Ordered a roast lamb for dinner – although it looked more like a turkey hindquarter and a chocolate mousse dessert. There was a film crew filming the restaurant for an American documentary so we may see ourselves on TV some time. The musicians even played the chorus of Waltzing Matilda for us.
After finally packing and squeezing as much as I could into my bags I headed to the airport with the group and grabbed a taxi to my accommodation – only problem he ripped me off – the meter said 16 euro and he made me pay 29 – go figure!
No comments:
Post a Comment