Ignored alarms, medieval castles, and Golden Age literature (Excursion to Madrid pt. I)

It was hard to believe that our last excursion as a group was already upon me. But such was the case on the morning of March 15th. Because of the drive we had ahead of us, we were told to be at the bus station at 6:30 in the morning-- sharp. We'd left behind late students on previous trips, so I wanted to make sure I got there on time. Because of a late night the day before, I decided to put off packing until the morning of. Factoring in the time it takes for me to pack, and that it takes roughly fifteen minutes to get to the train station (where we get on the bus) from where I live, I set my alarm for 5:30AM. More than enough time. Until I slept through my alarm. Well, sort of. I actually turned it off and went back to sleep without realizing it. When I woke up for the second time, I felt around my night stand for my cell phone (which I use as an alarm). When I didn't feel it there, I felt the beginnings of nervousness seeping through my veins. The only reason it's not there, I thought to myself, is because I've already woken up once and turned it off. If that's the case, then it should be somewhere here in bed with me, I continued. When I felt the shape of my phone underneath my pillow, I knew that I was in trouble. Knowing that I wasn't going to like what I was going to see, I looked at the time.

6:13AM

Keeping in mind the fifteen minutes it takes to get to the station, and that I wasn't even packed, I knew that this was about as close to being completely screwed as I could get. I jumped out of bed, threw everything that I could think of into my duffel bag, pulled on a pair of shoes (wearing the same socks I wore the day before and which I had slept in) and ran out the door. For the first tenth of a mile or so I did a sort of trail run maneuver, jogging along with my duffel bag and backpack pulling at my neck and shoulders. I quickly realized, however, that there were two main problems with this strategy. Number one, I'm not in good enough shape to jog the distance to the train station with that much stuff on me. Number two, even if I could somehow keep up a jogging pace for the entire way, I still wouldn't get there in time. I waved down the first taxi I saw and told him, "estación Santa Justa, pronto." The stars aligned and I got there just in time. My relief at making the bus was short lived, however; just as I sat down into my seat, I realized that I had forgotten something. I hadn't packed any socks. I was left with only the one-day-old pair that I was wearing. For a five day trip. Joy.

We were joined on this trip by a large number of family members. Because this is the longest excursion of the semester and it coincides with spring break in the United States, this has traditionally been the trip to take family and friends on. There are forty four students total here, along with three directors of the center, and three graduate teaching students. However, on that morning we set off with ninety-three people divided between two buses. Although my parents couldn't join us that week (they came a few weeks later, which will be a blog series in and of itself), it was still fun to hang out with everyone else's family. The more the merrier, but I have to say that the extra people, all of whom were on vacation (as opposed to the regular group who are here to study) made it feel like we were in one of those tacky, ubiquitous tour groups. 

I've never been one for tour groups. For me, so much of the experience of traveling is experiencing a different culture. You can't experience a different culture if you create your own microcosm of Americans within a foreign country, which is essentially what a tour group is. It's a nucleus of people like you that's carefully carried from place to place to see selected sights, eat food that's almost always designed to not offend our American tastes, you take a some pictures with some living statues and are escorted to the airport. Indeed, one can spend weeks in a country without ever really experiencing anything. Of course, this is all just one guy's opinion. Millions of people every year (not just Americans; in Spain most of the tourists come from the UK) choose this path, and they enjoy their time. And that's fine-- it's much better than not traveling at all. It's just not for me.

Our first stop in this trip was at a castle called Calatrava La Nueva, a templar castle and monastery dating from the 13th century. Situated atop a steep hill, it offered fantastic views of the Castilla-La Mancha countryside.

View from an archery hole in one of the turrets.

The castle was designed to be completely self-contained. This would've been important because no matter how well fortified, by land and walls, a defense you have, you're completely helpless if your enemy cuts off your food/water supply. To that end, this fortification, which was in use until the 19th century, contained stables for cattle, a granary, and a well. Fortunately for the knights who lived here, the castle was never besieged.


After forty-five minutes of wandering around, everyone boarded the bus again to continue our drive north. Our next stop was the small town of Almagro, famous for Golden Age theater and pickled eggplant. The Siglo de Oro, or Golden Age of Spanish literature began in 1492 with the publication of the first book dedicated to the Spanish language, a grammar handbook by Antonio de Nebrija, and ended with the death of the last great writer of the period, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, in 1681. 

(Author's note: For those who don't care for a mini-lecture about Spanish literature, feel free to skip ahead to the paragraph after the monologue)

Works from this period dominate the canon of literature studied by Spanish students. Don Quijote, Miguel de Cervantes' world-changing novel (the first and greatest modern novel, it is said) is the best-known work written during the Siglo de Oro, but Luis de Gongora, Francisco de Quevedo, Lope de Vega, and, already mentioned, Pedro Calderón de la Barca are also included among the literary giants of the era. The last one, Barca, is perhaps most famous for his play La vida es sueño, or "Life is a dream," which contains one of the most well-known monologues in all of Spanish theater. The play centers around Segismundo, a Polish prince who has been locked away in a tower for his entire life by his father, the king, due to a prophesy made before his birth that the new prince would someday overthrow the king. His imprisonment is the king's way of trying to escape fate (a popular theme in the day). The prince is not entirely alone, however; he has been educated over the years by a tutor who doubles as his jailer. One day, the king decides to do a little experiment in order to test the prophecy that his son would be a tyrant; he has Segismundo drugged and, in his induced sleep, has him carried to the royal palace and dressed as a king, with instructions to all persons present to treat him as if he had always been the king. His reasoning here is that he can always re-drug Segismundo and take him back to the tower and make him think that he dreamed the whole thing. When Segismundo wakes up, he is furious at realizing he has spent his entire life locked away instead of gaining his rightful inheritance. He takes his anger out on anyone who so much looks at him the wrong way-- in short, he acts like the tyrant the king feared he would become. True to the plan, he is redrugged and wakes up in shackles, as if nothing had ever changed. Naturally, this spurs some pretty hefty mental conflict. Was it all a dream? Could've been. But it felt so real. I think everyone who has ever had a dream that they swore was real could empathize. Segismundo's existential confusion is seen in his famous monologue, where he says that life itself is nothing but a dream. Kings are kings because that is what they dream. Likewise, beggars are only dreaming that they are poor. Segismundo concludes that he dreamt that he was a king, and now he's dreaming he's back in his tower:

I dream that I am here

of these imprisonments charged,

and I dreamed that in another state

happier I saw myself.

What is life? A frenzy.

What is life? An illusion,

A shadow, a fiction,

And the greatest profit is small;

For all of life is a dream,

And dreams, are nothing but dreams.

Which takes us right back to Almagro. One of the city's main attractions, as I mentioned above, is its Golden Age theater.

The main stage

This outdoor theater would've been the center of good times back in the day. Plays would run around four or five hours, including interruptions by the rowdy crowd that would've been standing around in the area directly in front of the stage (as opposed to the seated areas in the two balconies and around the ground floor). They'd usually do double features, meaning a full day of dramatic fun!

To conclude our visit, and to give us all an idea of what kind of stuff those riotous crowds would've been hearing, Dr. Scarborough, my literature professor, gave us a rousing interpretation of none other than the famous La vida es sueño monologue that I discussed above. 

After the visit to the theater, we had an hour or so longer in the town to wander about and eat lunch before the last leg of driving for the day. As any of you who have read my previous posts know, I'm a big fan of eating. So naturally, I went to the first bar I saw to get some of their famous berenjenas (eggplant). The damn things were so messy, though, that I wasn't able to use my camera to take a picture of it. Enter stock picture:

 
They're stuffed with other vegetables, mainly tomato, and are served with a skewer of bamboo through them to keep them together. I know, I know, they really don't look like eggplants. I'm guessing that they're baby eggplants (hence the need to pickle them). They're quite good, tasting (I know this will come as a shock) like pickled vegetables-- more like okra than pickled cucumbers, though. For those of you wondering, yes. I do get paid by the word.


After my meal of pickled eggplant, I wandered around the impressive town square, stopping in its various shops to admire the hand-sewn lace which is a traditional craft of the area. Before long, we were back on the bus, headed to our final destination for the day: Toledo. But that will have to wait for my next post...