Culture Overload: Madrid

Hello Hello Friends and Family!

I haven´t updated in a while, but I was mainly waiting until after this weekend, which was devoted to an excursion to Madrid, Spain´s capital. We didn´t have class on Friday, so we spent the entirety of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday traipsing around the lovely city.

Might as well do this in a day by day fashion, so here goes:

Friday
We started off the day by heading straight to El Prado museum, which is famous for its extensive collection of El Greco, Goya and Velazquez paintings. Namely, El Prado houses Las Meninas, indesputably Velazquez´s most important work, and arguably one of the most important paintings in the history of art! It was pretty fantastic seeing it in person, I was so excited to get a look at it and listen to our program director explain a little bit about the symbolism. Its hard not to be interested in the painting...its pretty bangarang. After a 2 hour romp in the museum, we settled in to yet another SWEET hotel to eat the lunches our madres packed for us. JMU has been putting us up in some awesome hotels lately, I can´t complain one bit about the accomidations, haha.
Next we headed to Museo Thyssen, which I was unfamiliar with. It is a private collection owned by the Thyssen familly, and contains paintings from early Italian all the way to the contemporary art of Lucian Freud. I really loved this museum. It had work from all of my favorites: Mondrian, Derain, Matisse, Degas, Pollock, and more. Lots of impressionism, lots of modern art..and free time to roam around the entire museum. It was relaxing and really a pleasant surprise. If you´re ever in Madrid, I suggest a visit!
To round out our day, we all went back to the hotel to get snazzed up for a group dinner. We were served tomatoes with mozzarella and basil, duck (my first experience with it! EEP), and a delish tiramisu. Again, I can´t complain one bit about the accomidations...we´re pretty darn lucky! After stuffing ourselves indecorously with these treats, we all went to see Bella y Bestia la musical (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST!!!!!). Seeing a musical in another language was sort of surreal...and on top of that it was Beauty and The Beast, a very familiar, well-loved Disney classic in my book. It was fun keeping up with the music, noticing the differences, and guffawing at a Spanish attempt at Gaston. All in all, a great time.

Saturday
We started our day at Palacio Real (royal palace) which no longer serves as a home for the royal family, but still holds banquets and political events. It was huge with over 3,000 rooms! Each room was as decadent as the last, marble floors, silk walls, a gigante table with at least 70 chairs in the dining hall. Yeah, it sort of reminds me of my appartment back in Harrisonburg...haha.
Next was el Museo Reina Sofia, which is a collection of Modern and Contemporary art. Most notably it houses Guernica by Picasso, a muy grande canvas painted in his cubist style that documents the bombing of the small Spanish town Guernica during WWII (i think..) The scale of the canvas was mind-blowing it took up an entire wall! and seeing the work in person made me appreciate all of the symbols and significance much more. We basically went through a warp-speed tour of everything Picasso did during his career, and although I really really enjoy art (esp. of the modern persuasion), I was too exhausted and full of culture to even look at another work by the time we were done with our tour.
Afterwards, A group of us headed to a famous shopping area, Puerto del Sol. Going there made me realize (and appreciate) how small and comfortable Salamanca is. Or perhaps how accustomed to it I have become. Madrid was a bit overwhelming for me, with all of the great aspects of a big city (tons of museums, lots of shopping, big buildings, public transportation), yet lacking the sense of home a smaller city like Salamanca seems to have. Regardless, we had fun shopping, and no surprise, ate Gelado..a new weekly requisite for myself, haha.
Me and a few of my friends got a chance to experience a bit of Madrid nightlife as well, which was fun and interesting. I swear the men in Madrid are more attractive than the ones we meet in Salamanca...but hey, I think the most guapo guy of all lives in Harrisonburg, VA.

Sunday
After very few hours of sleep, we all peeled ourselves out of bed for yet another cultural force-feed.. El Escorial. It is a giant palace built for Felipe Segundo (Phillip the Second) and served as a royal home, monastery, semenary, and burial ground for the royal family. There is also a church. This place was unbelievably big. Yet it was decorated in a very simple, humble manner unlike the Palacio Real. Our program director told us this was the case because Phillip the Second was a very devout, religious man. The most highly decorated area is the Church for this very same reason. It was a miserably cold and rainy day, so none of us were too keen on exploring the outdoors of the Escorial, but the gardens were extensive and beautiful. All in all, we were tired and ready to return to our Spanish home away from home.

As March rolls around I have tons of exciting things to look forward to that I can´t wait to tell you all about: This week Alex is visiting from Los Estados Unidos, the next weekend we spend in Barcelona and then Spring Break in Valencia and Málaga!

Cariño a todos,
Lindsay