Avila and THE FINGER

Selfie in front of the Royal Palace!

On Sunday, after our day-trip to Toledo, Theresa and I decided to explore the lovely city of Madrid together.  Because we are hoping to travel around Europe during most of the weekends this semester, it is important for both of us to explore Madrid as much as we can during the weekends that we are actually here.  Our first stop was the Palacio Real, the Royal Palace, which is actually fairly close to our apartment.  As expected, the Palace was gigantic.  I wasn't particularly impressed.  While each room was decorated in a different color, the furniture, the curtains, and the walls were all covered with an identical silk fabric.  Theresa definitely enjoyed her time wandering around the halls of the Palace more than I did, but we did get some decoration inspiration for our apartment! (Just kidding!)

SO BIG.

After spending a couple hours at the Palace, Theresa and I found a supermarket and grabbed some lunch for a picnic in a nearby park.  BREAD.  It is so incredibly delicious here in Spain.  Spaniards eat bread with almost every meal and every supermarket sells fresh-baked bread throughout the day.  To save money, Theresa and I have been buying a loaf of bread (0.39 euros), a pack of cheese (1.50ish euros) and 2 pieces of fruit (0.60ish euros) for our lunches.  1) It's delicious, 2) It is filling, and 3) We have saved a ton of money so far.   

Cinco montaditos (5% of the
challenge completed!)

There's also this super great restaurant called Cien Montaditos (100 small sandwiches) that we visit frequently because there is one near SLU and one close to our apartment.  They have super cheap and yummy tinto de verano (summer red wine) and on Wednesdays and Sundays, all sandwiches are 1 euro.  The first time we ate there, we decided that between the two of us, we were going to try all 100 sandwiches during the semester.  Well...we are only halfway through the semester and we definitely could still meet our goal, but I don't think either us care enough about the challenge to eat the 25+ sandwiches that have either goat cheese or anchovies on them.  We also visited San Gines again because...well...chocolate and churros.  Do I need to say more?

Selfie at San Gines! 

After another full week of classes, well, not really full because we both have Fridays off, Theresa and I decided to take another day-trip, this time to Avila.  We both wanted to visit Avila because we are both inspired by the life of St. Teresa of Avila.  We looked up train times online and headed to the train station a solid hour before the train departed to purchase tickets only to realize that we were at the wrong train station.  So, in perfect Theresa and Sarah fashion, we sat down on some random chairs, had a life conversation, reevaluated our plan, and decided to go to a coffee shop to get some homework done so that we could actually travel to Avila the following day.

 

We made it!

After doing a little bit more research about what train station Theresa and I were actually supposed to go to, we prepared to actually make the journey to Avila.  When we got off at the metro stop, Theresa and I were utterly confused about where to purchase our tickets and catch our train because the metro stop and the train station were somehow connected in one gigantic building.  After attempting and failing to purchase tickets at one kiosk, a woman who obviously recognized that we were panicking, pointed us up an escalator to where we actually needed to be.  Looking at her watch, Theresa remarked, "Sarah, I don't think we are going to be able to catch this train."  We had 6 minutes to purchase our tickets, find our platform, and hop on a train.  Miraculously, I clicked on the right button on the kiosk, inserted my debit card which actually worked, and we ran to the platform to literally get on the train 30 seconds before it departed.  Laughing and shaking our head in disbelief, Theresa and I found our seats and started to plan our day using our Rick Steve's Spain guidebook.

While Theresa was reading all about the "must-see" and "must-do" things in Avila, I happened to briefly glance at the map included in the guidebook and exclaimed, "HER FINGER!?"  "What?"  Theresa respond, obviously confused as to why I had just blurted out those two words on a fairly crowded train.  "Look," I said as I pointed to a location on the map that literally just said, "St. Teresa's finger."  "WHAT!?" Theresa retorted as we both started laughing.  We weren't exactly sure what that meant, but we knew we were going to have to figure it out by seeing it for ourselves!  Avila was an incredibly beautiful city.  We entered the old city wall through an extraordinary arch and immediately made our way to the cathedral.  Because we have seen so many incredible cathedrals and churches during our time in Europe, I found this one to be rather average.  Honestly, the churches in Germany were so unbelievable that we set ourselves up for a little bit of a letdown since we saw those first.

After the cathedral, we had the longest lunch of our lives at an outdoor restaurant.  Really, I think we sat at the table for around two and a half hours.  We both ordered the menu del dia, the menu of the day, where we had our choice of a drink, a salad, an entree, and a dessert or coffee.  The salad was phenomenal.  Our entrees however were a completely different story.  I ordered what I thought was steak and Theresa ordered what she thought was ribs.  They were so strange looking that it took us both eating half of the other person's meal before we realized that we needed to switch plates.  It was strange, and neither of us were feeling that great afterwards.

Chapel where St. Teresa was born.

After our strange and long lunch, we decided that it was time to visit the Convent of St. Teresa and see her finger.  WHAT.  The convent was actually really cool.  We visited the church and got to spend some time in the side chapel that was built on top of the exact location where she was born.

SIDE NOTE: The "candles" in the churches that I wanted to light in memory of my grandma are now electric in almost every church that we have visited so far.  Such a disappointment.  You literally stick a coin inside of a machine and the light in a plastic candle turns on. ):

After the church, Theresa and I may our way to the gift shop where the finger of St. Teresa was proudly on display along with other relics.  It was a rather small room, but I told Theresa that I was going to make my way very slowly around it in order to prepare myself for seeing an almost 500 year old finger.  I honestly had no idea what to expect.  I didn't know if the finger was actually going to be visible or if there would just be a sign with a black box that said something like "here lies the finger of St. Teresa of Avila."  Well, it was definitely a finger...a real, physical, visible, OLD finger with an emerald ring on it.  Her finger was encased in a a glass cylinder on a gold pedestal and all we could do was look at each other, look at the finger, and repeat.  We left feeling incredibly odd and slightly slap-happy from seeing the actual finger of St. Teresa.

The last room of the Center.
SO BEAUTIFUL.

Next, we made our way to the Mysticism Interpretation Centre, a suggested destination by our trusted friend Rick Steves.  When we walked in, I attempted to talk to the woman at the information, and although there was a challenging language barrier, she was able to communicate to us that the entire center was in Spanish.  She then offered us a large packet of information that described each room and each piece of art from the center in English.  After deliberating with Theresa, we decided that we would use the packet and make our way through the center.  What happened next is probably a "this-is-only-funny-to-Sarah-and-Theresa" kind of story, but basically, we absolutely lost it.  We were the only ones in the entire building (other than that woman at the front desk) and we thought we would take turns reading paragraphs from the packet of information.  I can't even tell you what sparked the hilarity of the situation because I don't remember, but after less than two pages, we were both crying from laughing so hard and unable to make it through an entire sentence without loosing it again.  We both felt like complete failures because this was supposed to be an extremely moving and spiritual journey to achieve greater knowledge of ourselves and a closer union with God.  Luckily, we gained our composure by the time we reached the second room and the rest of our time there was beautiful.  Actually, the laughing was really beautiful too.  I definitely think that laughing is a spiritual exercise that brings us closer to God and to those in our lives.  My favorite part of the center was the room where we are challenged to action and to return to the world.  At the end of our journey, we were left with this quote:

"The world waits for us below.  We are reminded that Action, not Transformation

is the ultimate end of mysticism.  Transformation is the penultimate requirement 

step that enables us to transcend our experience into works."

More blog posts coming soon!  I'm slowly but surely getting caught up!
Peace and love to you!
Sarah