So much has happened since I’ve arrived. I think I’m just going to give you all the highlights… I arrived in Madrid Tuesday at 8 in the morning. The plane ride wasn’t as long as I had expected but I probably slept less on that flight than any others I’ve taken in awhile. Us Beckers have this talent where we can fall asleep anywhere… but I try to hold back when I’m in the aisle seat because I know how cute I must look when I’m sleeping in an airplane chair with my head tilted to the side and leaned back and most likely my mouth wide open. So… I didn’t sleep very much. I did sit next to these two guys from Barcelona who were in their mid 20’s and on their way back to Spain from a wedding. I kept to myself until about dinnertime but once I started talking to them we didn’t really stop until they served breakfast in the morning. We were even shushed a few times because we were laughing so hard when everyone was sleeping. They told me about all the different places and people in Spain. It was nice to be able to ask them questions about the area and that kind of thing and they gave me a list of different foods that I need to try. They also ranted for about 20 minutes about how stupid they think tipping in the U.S. is and after being here a few days I’m going to have to say I agree. But I will mention that most waiters here are nowhere near as friendly as in the states, they’re very no nonsense and just do the minimal amount of work possible since they aren’t working for a tip.
I had an easy enough time getting through customs and getting my bags and everything. I only looked really out of place once… I had all my bags on this cart where you push the handle bars down to roll the cart. So imagine this… There was an escalator type ramp from the second to the first floor (in essence – just a moving ramp) and I’m going from the second to the first floor and I have ALL my luggage on the cart, and I see a icon picture type thing that says to hold down the handlebars on the cart – so I’m going down the ramp holding down the bars and my cart starts going faster and faster and faster… and so I’m literally running down the ramp cause my bags were so heavy and I’m like trying to pull back on it and not go so fast but since the icon said to hold them down the bars I didn’t let go. I think I looked somewhat like a 4 year old being pulled by their golden retriever or something else really foolish but I pretty much ran down the entire ramp about to drop all of my stuff then realized they just told you to push down on the handlebars a you’re getting off the ramp so your cart can roll off the ramp.
After that little episode I went outside and waiting for the shuttle to the hotel. Our hotel was called Tach and it was in an area of Madrid called Barajas which is essentially just an area near the airport with lots of hotels and what not. The concierge at our hotel let me put my things in me and Emily’s room and then I set out to walk around all day. I spent some time on the computer at the hotel and as I was talking to them on Skype or Facebook I was telling everyone how beautiful it was and how much it reminded me of New Orleans and how much I loved it. Well later when Emily got there (Emily is the girl from Seattle who let me share her room with her because she also booked her flight a day early as well – she’s a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University and is really sweet. She is really into music and works at a radio station at school and just seems really cool and down to earth) and after Emily arrived, she was talking to me and mentioned how ugly it was here and asked if I’d been to Madrid yet and of course I had thought I was in Madrid all day… when really I was just in an apparently very ugly suburb.
For dinner we went to a really low key (and honestly kind of gross restaurant) where she had a Spanish Omelette - which is essentially an omelette between two pieces of bread and I had a hamburguesa which was a very sketchy looking hamburger that was not very good, but it was fun just being in Madrid eating out by ourselves. We decided not to make the trip to Madrid to go out at nighttime because we were just so tired.
On Wednesday we woke up around 9 and took the shuttle back to the airport where we met the ISA group and took a bus to our hotel which is RIGHT next to el Museo del Prado. Everyone seems very cool and they’re from all over which is cool. There’s another girl from Austin, Texas that goes to A&M here who is really sweet, her name is Rachel. Me, Rachel, and Emily went out to eat here in Madrid once we unpacked our bags. Emily spent Spring Break here last year so she was somewhat of our personal tour guide. She took us to La Puerta del Sol which was gorgeous and very busy although it gets much more crowded at nighttime.
At La Puerta de Sol we saw one of the street artists who paints their body bronze and stands there for pictures and Rachel told Emilly to go stand with him. He was dressed like a fireman so she walks up to him and wraps her harm around the firehose he was holding and leans on it because she didn’t realize he was REAL! Hahaha I think she almost had a heart attack when he started to move.
After sight-seeing a little more, we went around this little square and read every restaurant’s Menu del Dia. Menu del Día literally translates to the Menu of the Day and most nicer restaurants have them. With the menu del Día you choose a first and second course from a list of like 2 to 5 options and then choose a drink and usually you have to choose between coffee and postre (dessert) after your meal and it’s all for a set fee – usually around 10 euros. We ended up just choosing the last restaurant we looked at, probably because we were so hungry by then.
That night everyone was really tired so we ventured out in groups and mine just went to a few bars and then came back home. We ended the night at a bar that was also a restaurant and it felt like we were sitting in a Burger King. It wasn’t exactly the cool Spanish bar scene I had imagined but it was nice to get to know some of the kids on the trip.
Yesterday (Thursday) has been my favorite day thus far. We went on guided tours of both El Museo del Prado and El Palacio Real. I couldn’t even choose which I liked more because they were both so amazing. At El Museo del Prado we had this really sweet tour guide who led the tour for us in Spainglish so we could practice our Spanish a little. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to wander around cause we only got to see three artists but it was so interesting hearing about the paintings and realizing things about them that I would never have known but just looking at them. For every painting and artist she gave us so much background information about their lives, the painting, and the time period – I was very impressed by her. The three artists she focused on were El Greco, Velazquez, and Francisco de Goya.
El Greco was the only artist we focused on that was not Spanish (obviously “El Greco” = the Greek). His real name was Doménikos Theotokópoulo and I imagine if that was my name I’d take the nickname as well. We saw many paintings by him and I really liked all of his paintings, I think he was my favorite painter. I’d have to say my favorite painting was the one one we saw today (Friday) at the Cathedral in Toledo called The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. I really liked seeing the painting on the wall in the cathedral rather than in the museum. I also really like that he painted himself as one of the nobles in the painting (7th from the left) and he is the only one of them looking at the audience looking at the painting. He also painted his son into the photo (bottom left)
I also really liked Velazquez’s paintings as well. My favorite painting was “The Borrachos” – I actually got 2 postcards with this painting one it because 1. I’m in Spain and I figured sending anyone a postcard with a painting called “The Borrachos” seemed appropriate. 2. It reminds me of when Charlie dressed up as Bacchus in the 8th grade during Greek Mythology week or whatever at St. Cecilia’s. ( I really wish I could post a picture of that below here right now) and 3. I couldn’t find any other postcards of paintings I’d actually seen. But I also really liked this one where Apollo is telling the man in the painting Vulcan, that his wise is cheating on him with Mars. Mainly because I think the guy second from the right looks like he could walk out of the painting he looks so realistic and because apparently at the time this was painted, gods were always portrayed as strong and well built men but Velazquez purposely painted Apollo to look completely ordinary to somewhat rebel from the norm.
Next we went to El Palacio Real. We weren’t supposed to take any pictures here but I snuck a few. This was the official residence of the King of Spain until 1962 when the Royal Family moved to Zarzuela. Now the Palacio Real is just used for very special occasions, state ceremonies, and tours. The whole building is made of really beautiful stone and almost every inch of each room is very intensely decorated. It’s absolutely beautiful. There are tons of rooms – the kings bedchamber, the queen’s bedchamber, the throne room, the chapel, a billiards room where the king would entertain guests with an adjoining “smoking room” for more serious conversation, a grand dining room, a porcelain room, and an armory room which is as large as a ball room and once served as the ballroom until it was then deemed too close to the entrance hence unsafe for the royal family to have balls or great events there due to safety reasons.
My favorite rooms were the “throne room” (shown below – I didn’t take this picture) and the dining room with the longest table I think I have ever seen (also shown below – I had to sneak this one – hence the weird angle) It was very cool to go from El Museo del Prado and hearing all about the lives and works of Velazquez and Goya to the Palacio Real where we got to see their actual works in the places they were meant for. Our tour guide also pointed out all the influences of other cultures present in the Palacio Real – for example, a sculpture at the entrance of one of the kings portrayed the king as a warrior with a very large and built body because that was how the Romans envisioned their kings and made their sculptures. There was also a lot of Asian influence which kind of of surprised me.
After the Palacio Real we were given free time and we went to this amazing Italian restaurant where I made the mistake of jokingly telling the waiter the food was “horible” and he proceeded to pretend I didn’t exist the rest of the meal. But he did give me tap water for free cause I didn’t want to pay for a bottle which was nice. We couldn’t finish our food so we got to-go boxes but we decided we should go to the Reina Sofia museum and so we gave our food to 2 homeless men. Everyone was too nervous to do it so I did it both times… good deed of the day.
The Reina Sofia museum was all pretty much contemporary art which I’m nowhere near as interested in but we did see some Picasso and Salvador Dali works which were amazing. At first I thought you couldn’t take pictures of La Guernica - Picasso’s work about the Spanish Civil War, so I of course had to sneak one cause I wanted a picture (look below). I was really proud of how well it turned out seeing as there was a guard behind me and 2 on either side of the painting… if only that man hadn’t been in the way. But it turned out that you could take pictures… just not in the room the painting was in so we stepped back into the next room afterwards and waiting a solid 10 minutes for this tour to go through to take this picture.
Last night we decided to go to a bar to watch Real Madrid play Madrid Atletico. We all went to the busy area of Madrid near la Puerta del Sol and split up between these two irish bars next door to each other. Real Madrid won and then we headed to a club called Joy where we stayed until about 5 in the morning. It was so much fun and I managed to get in for free which made it even better. We met a lot of fun people from all over like Australia, Brazil, and Ireland. There was also a hilarious Lady Gaga-esque performer that came which was a blast as well. We walked back to the hotel and me and one of the guys on the trip named Brad who goes to Auburn and is actually really good friends with one of my good friends from highschool Victoria decided to go get tapas because we were hungry so we walked a few blocks and had what was probably the best ham and cheese sandwich I’ve ever had and while we were there we met and talked to some girls who were studying abroad in Madrid.
