¡Madrid y más!

After a full week of class and more learning of all Segovia has to offer (and then some) this weekend brought something new for the entire group. Saturday morning began with the entire group meeting up to walk to the train station, where we boarded the train (ironically enough) and went on a two-hour journey from Segovia to Madrid, despite how a drive by car or bus would have usually taken about one hour. We stopped in multiple different cities along the route, and saw a lot of the beautiful, mountainous, Spanish countryside. After the two hours were up, the restless group was in Madrid!

Unaware of what we would encounter in the Spanish capital city, we started with a tour of “La Reina Sofia” which is, I think, the largest contemporary art museum in Europe, if not, the world. I may be wrong with this fun fact, so feel free to let me know if I am indeed incorrect. Fortunately for us, the museum was right behind our hotel, so not much walking was needed. I’m not going to say that I’m the world’s biggest fan of visual arts exhibits, but there was actually some neat stuff here. There were works from Picasso and Gaudi, which I have studied. The most impressive for me, was Picasso’s “La Guernica,” which I haven’t had a whole lot of experience with in my past, but that was really neat. Later that afternoon, we headed over to the “Prado,” which is another visual arts museum of more classical arts, containing works of Velazquez, Goya, and Rembrandt. I found this museum more impressive because I was sufficiently more familiar with a lot of the artists and their works. We saw Velazquez’s “Las Meninas,” which is one of his most famous paintings, And Goya’s “Coloso.” The cool thing about these art museums is that these painters actually touched what was right in front of us, only a couple hundred years ago... And I wonder how many of them thought their stuff would be admired worldwide and be sitting in a museum years later for populations to gawk at. Some pretty impressive stuff.

After the museums, Adam and I followed a group of girls because we were under the impression that we were going to be grabbing some food. Little did we know that after an hour and half of asking random people in Madrid where the final destination was (unbeknownst to Adam and me), we found this clothing store. A clothing store. An hour and a half of trotting all over this city looking for a clothing store. It’s funny NOW. Adam and I waited for a while, then finally broke off for a bit to go grab a bite and make this journey worth our while. Some of the girls met up with us later for food, and we continued back to the hotel.

A clothing store... really?

The nightlife in Madrid consisted of about 2/3 of our group going to a club or discoteca called “Teatro Kapital.” I’m not much of the clubbing type, nor the type to pay a 20 € Euro cover charge to walk in the door, so I stuck around the hotel with another smaller group, who eventually went walking around the city. The nightlife in Spain is MUCH later than that in the states, and we eventually left the hotel around 2 a.m. I was walking with Alyssa and we were walking on the sidewalk, more so on the tail end of the group we were walking with. We walked by this doorway to an apartment, which cuts in from the sidewalk area. In this doorway was a large box, a box large enough to house a larger flat panel TV. Being as how I am sometimes random and sporadic, I approached this box and said something along the lines of “BOX! KABOOM” and accompanied my dialogue with a swift, light kick of this box. Little did we know, A voice from behind the box followed shortly saying in Spanish, “No hago nada...” which means “I’m not doing anything.” I looked at Alyssa and we exchanged very surprised and puzzled looks, because we just woke up a man on the other side of the box. We had absolutely no idea, we were just shocked. By this time, the group had gotten a bit ahead of us, so we walked briskly to catch up with them. We eventually never found much else to do, so we went back to the hotel and called it a night.

That experience was an eye-opener to say the least.

The next day, we walked around the city on a much larger scale. We headed to La Puerta del Sol, which is the middle of the city, there was even a small plaque on the sidewalk which signified the very center of Madrid. We went to Plaza Mayor, which was really cool because this place is pictured on the covers of textbooks, and we were THERE. There were some street performers all over here. One dude was dressed as Spiderman, only he was a very overweight version. We later saw a Yoda from Star Wars, and a cowboy that danced when you dropped a Euro in his can, otherwise he stood still. We went to “el Rostro” which is an open-air flea-market on the streets. There were a lot of people here, and a lot of the merchandise was cheap. We eventually made it to a restaurant where for the first time in Spain, I had my favorite Spanish dish, Paella. Delicious. Adam, David, and I walked around more, and ended up in “Parque de Madrid” or the Park of Madrid. This was really neat because there were statues, and all these tall structures, and even a “lake” in the middle with rowboats. Here, there was a group of drummers that were just playing around, and some people playing soccer right in front of them. We just sat and watched. It was cool because we saw the hustle and bustle of busy city life, took a short walk and were in the tranquil and calm zone, just people hanging out. We later met up with the group and took the train home.

I’m loving everything about being here. Enough said there.

I’m getting used to describing temperature in Celsius, describing 3 p.m. as 15:00 instead, speaking and understanding Spanish, living without constant internet access, and taking a nap almost every day.

The End.