Thursday was at one point going to be spent in Toledo, but one of the girls I was going with had a surprise birthday party for her boyfriend set up for the evening, so I didn’t exactly have much planned—except that I was going to go to the temple. It ended up turning out well, though, because Wednesday night, Calvin texted me to say that he was leaving for Pamplona and the running of the bulls a bit later than he expected, so he was free to chill for most of Thursday. He had been staying at the edge of the city in the temple alojamiento, so we met up in near there after I was done at the temple. From there, we decided to go back into the city and check out the free archeological museum of the National Library, followed by checking out the statues comprising the façade of the library itself. At the museum, I chanced upon the Dama de Elche, a super-ancient stone figure of a woman left from the Iberians who once inhabited this peninsula, and while looking at the library, I realized that the construction had hidden statues of more than one famous Spanish author from my view, including Cervantes!
She's only 2400-ish years old. Give the dama a break!
I don’t remember anything really life-changing that we did, but we did walk and talk a lot. As a result, I have a better grasp on the inner city’s layout and a bit better of a grasp on my country’s politics—or at least Calvin’s view of them as shared over a Chinese lunch in Spain. Soon enough, his ride to Pamplona was ready to hit the road, so we said bye for real this time and I went to the Prado again to check out some works one of my professors had told me were there and Calvin had reminded me of. Thanks to Calvin, I found works like the Jardín de las delicias, other works by El Bosco, and works by Goya other than the ones I saw my first time through.
At that point of the day and of my trip, I’d just about had it. I was tired, my feet hurt, I was alone in a foreign country, I still had what seemed an eternity left of my trip, and I just wanted to talk to my family and go home (both the Madrid one and the USA one). I also knew that a way for me to get past the feelings was to make friends, and I remembered that there was that surprise birthday party I’d been invited to. I wanted either a call from home or a call about how to get to the party. Right in the midst of all my despairing, one of my friends called about the party. In fact, she had even tried to call a couple times right when I entered the Prado. In short, I ended up going. And it turns out that my family had emailed me at about the same time, thinking of me. Heavenly Father knew that surprises such as those found at the museums and library were one thing, but that I needed a couple more personal surprises to help me keep going.
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