Madrid

The weekend of April 29th to May 1st was another CASB weekend excursion... this time to Madrid!  This excursion wasn't originally in the books, but one of the kids on my program realized we all wanted to go so he asked the program coordinators if we could go as a group.  Our program coordinators are awesome, so of course they said yes!  Originally their plan was to go to Palamos and La Costa Brava for the weekend, but they switched it up with Madrid.  I thought that the Palamos/Costa Brava weekend trip would be cancelled, but no! they've just rescheduled it for the 20-22nd of May.  Whee!

On Friday I woke up at 6:15am in order to get myself to the train station at 7:45am.  Our train was scheduled to leave at 8:30am and arrive in Madrid at 11:13am.  Yes, that's right!  It only takes 2 3/4 hours to get from Barcelona to Madrid!  We traveled by high speed train-- so much fun!  Although I probably wouldn't have noticed it was a high speed train if someone didn't tell me beforehand because it's not like we were going so fast as to break the sound barrier.  The highest speed I observed (they had a indication of our speed right next to the time in every cabin) was 300 kph, which is about 186 mph.  And they also showed a movie... Toy Story 3!  In Spanish! Both dubbed and subtitles-- although sometimes the dubbing and subtitles were different... apparently dubbing and subtitles are done by different companies?  I was also interested to see how they would handle Buzz's "Spanish Mode" because they were all speaking in Spanish.  I thought they handled it very well because they gave him a very thick Spanish accent with a lisp and Jessie called it Buzz's "Romantic Mode".

We all hopped off the train and into a bus to take us to our hotel in the city center.  The rooms weren't quite ready so we dropped our bags and had some free time to wander and go for lunch.  I got a way overpriced salad that was decent.

And then we went back to the hotel, to officially check into our rooms.  Apparently they didn't have enough rooms with double beds so some people (who volunteered) shared a full bed.  My room was on the first floor and the closest to the lobby.  That didn't bode well for potentially uninterrupted full nights of sleep for the next two nights.  Also the room smelled like smoke, but my roommate and I opened all the windows to air it out so when we came back later in the day the smokey smell was gone.  At 3:15pm we met in the hotel lobby to walk to the Museo Reina Sofia, where Picasso's famous Guernica is held.

There was a Picasso or Miro behind every corner!  I spent at least 20 or 30 minutes in the room with Guernica (unfortunately no photos allowed there) and 3 hours total in the museum.  It kinda felt like a flashcard game where I'd try to guess the artwork and artist before reading the information card next to each piece.  For the most part it was a flashback to two of my art history classes at Cornell: Intro to Modern Art, and U.S. Art from FDR to Reagan.  I recognized a Lichtenstein sculpture out front:

a Calder piece in the courtyard:

Miro

Rothko

David Smith

Robert Morris

Rauschenberg

plenty of Picasso's

and a Barnett Newman.

There were plenty more artists that I recognized- Kandinsky, Morris Louis, Dali, Robet Smithson, Paul Klee, but I actually found myself guessing the wrong artists for most of the works because there are actually more Spanish artists in the Reina Sofia than American ones (surprise! not).  I know more American artists by name and work, so I would guess American artists before reading the info card and seeing that the work I was looking at was actually done by some Spanish artist or another international artist who I had never heard of before.  I guess I have a very American-centric view of the art world in the 1900's.  And it makes me wish I had taken an art history class on the Spanish avant-gardes rather than all the avant-gardes here in Spain.  But even if I wanted to I couldn't have taken any because no classes that specific are offered in the art history department at the Universitat de Barcelona.  Boo.  After the many hours of slow museum walking, I meandered back to the hotel, taking some pictures along the way.

I couldn't help but to compare Barcelona and Madrid because they are Spain's two biggest cities.  Here are the three largest differences I quickly noticed:
1)  The center of the city feels more like a city-- there are lots of large streets and everything seems concentrated.  The buildings are also taller (although still not terribly tall).  I guess you could say Madrid gives off a more cosmopolitan vibe.
2)  People look different.  The clothes are brighter and people are dressed less European-like.  (I didn't see as many dark clothes, leather jackets, jeans, and funky shoes-- the typical Barcelona outfit).  Although the different appearances observation might be skewed a bit because we basically stuck to the touristy zones while we were there.
3)  It rains.  People who live in Barcelona are spoiled by excellent almost-always-sunny weather year-round.

So I walked back to the hotel, and sat on the bed watching figure skating on a Germain tv channel until dinner.  Incredibly exhausted, I thought that the Reina Sofia is one of those museums you need more than one day to see.  I went down to meet the group for dinner in the hotel which consisted of bread, salad (tomatoes, mozzarella, lettuce, basil, pine nuts, and mountains of olive oil), 2 chicken legs with cold sliced potatoes, a small square slice of chocolate cake, and tea.  Then I went straight to bed because I was totally exhausted. And luckily I was so tired that nothing woke me up!  (So much for the potentially awfully located room ruining a night's sleep! Haha!)

I woke up to my alarm at 9:30am the next morning, went down for a breakfast buffet with everyone at 10:00am, and met in the hotel lobby to walk to the Museu del Prado.  Instead of seeing mountains of Picasso's and Miro's there were mountains of Goya's and Velazquez's.  It was predicted to rain, so I dared to wear my rainboots.  We got to the museum at 11:30am and I stayed there, walking around very slowly, until about 2:00pm.  I was actually quite surprised that my feet weren't killing me by the end.  Unfortunately there weren't photos allowed anywhere in the museum.  There were plenty of works that I recognized, the majority of them being Goya's because he is one of my favorite artists.  Of his works, they had The Parasol, The Naked Maja and The Clothed Maja, Family of Charles IV, The Third of May, 1808, and Saturn Devouring His Child.  I also recognized Durer's Adam and Eve and, of course, the Prado's most famous piece, Velazquez's Las Meninas.  There were also works by Raphael, El Greco, Rembrandt, and hoards of other famous European artists, the rest of which I had never heard of.  Even though there were no pictures allowed inside, I got a few of the outside (clearly much less impressive).

After the museum I went into a touristy restaurant with a few people from the program.  The waiters were a little too friendly and enthusiastic about us being Americans and being able to speak Spanish.  The menu was a mess.  Everything was overpriced.  What on earth could be in a salad that costs 15 euro??  I ordered a bocadillo de tortilla espanola with cheese, and turns out I didn't get an egg sandwich, but rather 2 slices of tortilla (omelette) with lettuce, mustard, and something that tasted like a Kraft single.  Not worth the 6 euros I paid for it, but it still worked as lunch and I saved myself from all the other potential rip-offs on the menu.

After lunch, everyone met at the bus for a 45 minute ride to Palacio Real de El Escoral located just outside of Madrid.  At this point everyone was super tired because some people hadn't gone to sleep right after dinner the night before and the bus ride was just long enough to begin a nap.  Nobody felt like going on a guided tour.  I heard someone say "I wish I could fast-forward time right now to dinner."  In addition, the weather wasn't looking too great-- lots of cloud cover and a bit of drizzle.

But our guide ended up being really funny so the tour wasn't all bad after all.  Half of this place we visited is a school and the other half is a monastery.  There's a palace in the middle where one of the kings of Spain would come for 3 months of the year in summer (apparently it's cooler here than in Madrid).  And of course this was another place where I couldn't take pictures inside, so I only have boring outside photos, which weren't impressive at all.  There was a library whose oldest book was from the 5th century, it was full of illuminated manuscripts (I love those!), and housed the very first book written on chess.  In other rooms, there were lots of cool-looking old maps.  If you want to hold your wedding in summer in the big cathedral they have, you have to book it 3 years in advance.  Underneath all this is a royal crypt (creepy).  I guess the body of Don Juan was in another room and the guide made a joke that Don Juan was a real "Don Juan" (i.e. a lady's man) and the number of rings depicted on his fingers in the statue above his grave represented the number of women he had... he was wearing 16 rings...  Couldn't really tell if the guide was serious on that one... There is also a "secretary room" (more like secrecy room) where you can go to opposite corners and talk to each other facing the wall.  You can also stand in the very middle of the room, talk normally, and hear your own voice bounce back at you in your ears.  (Kinda fun to play around with!)

At the end of the tour it was pouring rain.  Most people got soaked walking back to the bus.  Not me, though, I had my rainboots, rain jacket, and an umbrella!  We had another 45 minute ride back to the city and about an hour before dinner at 9pm.  A few people decided not to come to the group dinner in the hotel because they wanted to eat out in the city.  I regretted staying at the hotel because the food really wasn't that great.  There was a strange cheese ravioli (with cheddar on the table instead of Parmesan), salmon with cold gooey mashed potatoes and 1 red pepper (the salmon wasn't that bad, actually), and a small square of strawberry shortcake for dessert.  For some reason, the vegetarians got a different dessert-- canned fruit.  Made me wonder if the strawberry shortcake had meat in it... (No it really didn't.  But still odd).  I went back to the room, took a shower, watched the last 30 minutes of The English Patient on tv, and went right to sleep.  Unfortunately this night wasn't as peaceful as the previous night because some full-year students on my program were in the room next to me and making noise at all hours of the night.  (Woke me up once, eugh.)  But oh well, that was the last night we would be there.

On Sunday I woke up again at 9:30am for a 10:00am breakfast buffet in the hotel.  Expectations weren't really high for the day because 1)It was a Sunday, and usually not many things are open on Sundays and 2)It was a holiday-- equivalent of Labor Day in the US so all the museums and normal tourist attractions were closed too.  Also there was a slight chance of rain (so I wore my rainboots again).  We had the entire day free though, which was a very nice change from the usual tightly-scheduled routine CASB makes us do.  Someone had heard of a bagel store in a northern neighborhood in the city, so a few of us (see group picture below) decided to walk there.  It was really nice to walk because it was another good chance to see the city.

So I guess this cafe we were heading to was owned by someone originally from New York City.  So far, they are the best bagels I have tried in Europe.  Although I'm not sure that's saying much, because I've only tried bagels one other time in Barcelona and that time the bagel tasted like focaccia.  These bagels were good enough to satisfy a craving (a little too much butter/oil) but of course they're nothing much compared to Einstein's. Yum.  I ordered my typical-- an everything bagel toasted with lox and cream cheese.  And look at their menu-- in the shape of a bagel!

Then we took the metro down to a market our program coordinators told us about.  The metro is brighter than Barcelona's and tickets are only half the size (more economical, perhaps?)

The market is called El Rastro and is a gigantic flea market.  Mostly junk, of course, but we certainly realized where everyone went on this Sunday when everything else was closed.  I mean, where else would you go to buy a 2 euro shirt?? And of course the day ended up being sunny-- so it was quite nice!  (Except for trying to get by the throngs of people).  And they sold everything! There was even one stand that sold nothing but rubber bands.  I ended up buying a simple bronze ring for 8 euros.

Then I walked to Plaza Mayor, about 2 blocks away from the flea market, with one of my friends.  Obviously the group got separated in the big flea market.  Again, there were loads of people everywhere, and everyone was outside eating in the lovely weather because it was lunch hour (about 2pm).

As we were walking back to the hotel to meet the group, we stopped for some gelato, of course.  We all hopped back on the bus, got to the train station, and enjoyed another smooth high speed train ride back to Barcelona.  It rained a little on the train ride back so we got to see a rainbow outside of the window!  The movie they showed this time was something from France, so I decided not to watch it.  Instead I read a little of El Hobbit (The Hobbit in Spanish) and watched some episodes of The West Wing on my ipod.

And of course here's a picture of me.