Parks, castles, and rain in Spain's plain

A lot has happened in the past 48 hours, so I'll try to give the highlights without going on for pages.

The orchestra arrived in Spain on Monday morning. After checking into our hotel, Josu (our guide for the trip) gave us a quick rundown of Madrid and then we were set loose for the afternoon.
My first afternoon in Madrid got authentic quite quickly. Instead of going out to eat lunch, a group of us headed to the local grocery store for baguettes, fruit and chocolate. With a Spanish speaker in the group, we even braved the next door charcuteria (deli) for meat and cheese. It took us 10 minutes to walk to the nearby Parque del Retiro (and 10 minutes to decide whether the sign in Spanish *really* meant "Don't walk on the grass"), but we finally settled down on a bench in the shade for a delicious picnic.
After lunch, we wandered around the park. The Parque del Retiro is a huge park in the center of Madrid--a lot like Central Park in New York. Some of the awesome sights we stumbled upon included an amazing rose garden (all in bloom, because it's late May), a crystal-palace-like building next to a lake with a fountain and black swans, and an old-fashioned palace. Being musicians, we immedietely perked up upon hearing sax music, which was coming from a street musician playing next to a large square lake. We visited the imposing colonnade that was opposite said sax player but decided to leave when three policemen got off their motorbikes and started talking to the man sitting behind us on the stairs.
We were exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel, but it was worth the walk.

On Wednesday we were off to Segovia. We got off the bus, walked down the main street and bam! we were in front of one of Segovia's most famous landmarks--a Roman aqueduct. We received a tour through the winding streets to the top of the hill. Segovia is a beautiful little city, famous for its Romanesque churches and awesome carved wall decorations called graffito. The other main attractions are the city's cathedral and castle. I didn't tour the cathedral, but I did tour the castle, known as the alcazar. It's a real fairy-tale castle, with tall round tours and a deep moat. The most exciting part of the visit was probably walking up a very small spiral staircase to the top of the main tower--and then having a horde of Spanish school-children come rumbling down the stairs towards me. We stood still and I heard many voices say "lo ciento!" (Excuse me!) as they climbed down past us. The view from the top was magnificent; we could see the green surrounding countryside and even had a birds-eye view into the stork nests that sit on top of the trees in front of the castle.

Wednesday was also the day of our first concert. And herein lies a tale of (minor) woe. It was rainy. And cold. Our concert was supposed to be outside. We had a rain site at a local hotel, but unfortunately we were not able to rehearse, due to management concerns. The last time the orchestra had played together (and probably the last time many of us practiced) was Friday.
It wasn't the ideal concert situation, but we got dressed, warmed up, ran a few spots and then gave the concert. It's hard to judge the audience's reaction, but several pieces seemed to go over well and despite the general stress and inevitable missed notes, I think the concert went smoothly and sounded good.

That about wraps it up for now. In about ten minutes I'll be getting on a bus with the rest of the orchestra for a tour of Madrid and a visit to the Prado (!!!!!), before we head out to our next concert site later this afternoon.

Until next time, Adios!

Note: I really wanted to include pictures in this post, but don't have anywhere to download them right now...hopefully I'll be able to post some later. *crosses fingers* Also, I am not a Spanish speaker, so I apologize for any horrific mispellings that may have occurred in this post. I'm mostly using my ear and phonetics.