{"id":205,"date":"2006-04-17T10:57:52","date_gmt":"2006-04-17T10:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=205"},"modified":"2006-04-17T10:57:52","modified_gmt":"2006-04-17T10:57:52","slug":"the-pain-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2006\/04\/17\/the-pain-in-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pain in Spain…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Our trip to Spain did not begin under the best of circumstances. Even with careful planning, we could not foresee a flight delay which caused us to miss our connection, leaving us stranded in the Paris airport for 7 full hours. Despite losing most of day one, we caught the last portions of the Sunday evening bullfight shortly upon arrival, and even took a stroll around the touristy El Centro and Plaza Mayor<\/a> before returning to the hotel<\/a>. Our second day began with equally poor luck. A combination of outdated guide books and recent changes in train services led us to lose another morning to useless commutes, leaving only enough time to visit the Palacio Real<\/a> that afternoon. Determined to overcome our fate, we ascended the slopes of Toledo early Tuesday morning. Though the main attraction<\/a> of the small town was closed (of course), we nevertheless scored some souvenirs including a pair of Damascan earrings for Melody and some handmade marzipan for myself. Upon returning to the city for lunch, we were blessed with a most delicious Spanish stew which brought a smile to both our faces. After the meal, we ventured through the halls of the famous Museo del Prado<\/a>, perusing the many works of Velasquez, De Goya, and El Greco among others, followed by a tour of the adjacent botanical gardens<\/a>. Our stay in Madrid concluded with a visit to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia<\/a>. Unlike the Prado, this hospital-turned-museum focuses instead on 20th-century art, with works by Dali and Picasso, as well as some ridiculously eccentric pieces which can only be described with one word: weird. As we flew out of Madrid on Wednesday, it was hard not to compare the city with Paris<\/a>, which we visited 2 years ago. Despite the many palaces and museums in both capital cities, we felt that everything in Madrid was just a little less impressive, leaving us only a mediocre opinion of the city overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our trip to Spain did not begin under the best of circumstances. Even with careful planning, we could not foresee a flight delay which caused us to miss our connection, leaving us stranded in the Paris airport for 7 full … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}