There was a book I needed to consult that was only at the Palace Library, so I went over to the Royal Palace. Quite cool. For one thing, I was the only one there. The security people radioed from the entrance "uno para la biblioteca". Then they gave me a badge and usured me through.
It´s fun going places where regular tourists do not get to tread. The reading room is roomy, with a lofty baroque ceiling. Bookshelves line every wall. When I went to pay for my photocopies they sent me to the secretary, who kept being through one more set of doors, around another corner, over squeaky floors and past rooms and rooms full of old books. I felt like I was entering the inner sanctum of some Arturo Perez Reverte novel (who is, after all, merely a Spanish knockoff of Umberto Eco).
Here´s another observation that might get me crucified by the 20th century types among you: After watching Un chien andalou and part of L´age d´or at the Reina Sofia museum, I have decided that surrealism is B.S. I mean, I get that Bunuel was a genious, but the thing played like the bad home movie of a precocious and overly self-conscious high school drama geek.
I guess I belong where I am: in the middle ages.
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