Life Lessons and Various Adventures

This weekend, we went to Madrid. I think you could call this weekend ¨Life Lessons 101¨, because I sure as heck learned a lot, whether I liked it or not. We left Salamanca at 8 AM on a bus-the usual, cheap, public transportation, and got to Madrid around 11:15. We decided to buy a pass for a double decker bus route that went all around the city, and I´m so glad we did. I got tons of great pictures and we got to see all the ¨highlights¨of Madrid-very cool old city. That afternoon, we went to ¨El Museo Reina Sofía¨, which houses modern art; most importantly, Picasso´s ¨Guernica¨, Spain´s most famous piece of art. It was simply amazing to stand before it. It´s huge! Look it up online and see what it is. He painted it in 1937, during the reign of Fransisco Franco, a Socialist dictator who was chummy with Hitler. Franco told Hitler basically that he could have a ¨practice round¨ with a certain type of bomb (sorry boys, I don´t remember what kind!) on one of Spain´s cities-Guernica. Franco also decided to not TELL the citizens of the city, so this painting is a renidition of what Picasso thought Guernica looked like and felt after the bombing. Morbid I know, but absolutely fascinating. There were also a bunch of Salvador Dalí´s paintings, along with some Yves Klein, who made up his own monochromatic color of blue-Brian and Erin should remember this from Art Appreciation!!

After the musuem, we met up with the group for dinner and headed back out to the hotel...which on the website, said it was 800 meters from the big musuems in Madrid...well, I think they forgot to put ¨kilo¨in front of the ¨meters¨...because it was definitely an adventure trying to find it! One of our taxi drivers had to look it up in this huge book to find it! Turns out it was closer to the airport. But, it was a 4 star hotel, and I slept great and took the hottest shower i have had in Spain there, so I´m not complaining! And it was pretty cheap with four people in the room. (You were only supposed to have 2/room...whoops!)
That night when we went back to the hotel, there was a ¨fútbol¨ (soccer) game, Real Madrid vs. Barcelona, so we couldn´t get a cab for almost 45 minutes! We definitely chased one down-I mean, full out sprinting to it, all laden down with our bags. Looking back on it, I´m sure we looked RIDICULOUS.

The next day we went back into Madrid for the adventure of our life...and it wasn´t pleasant. We were trying to find a way to get home, so we went to the train station, but there were only two trains running that day to Salamanca, and one was too early, the other too late. Then we got on the Metro, went to the bus station, bought tickets for a 5:00 bus, got back on the Metro, and finally got to go see what we wanted to see that day. I know it doesn´t sound that bad, but it took us 2.5 hours total. We were MISERABLE. We waited in line for about 20 minutes at the train station, and we had to change metros quite a few times, and all those minutes add up...frustrating, and we´ve decided now to buy our tickets IN ADVANCE! We had planned on doing that, but people talked us out of it, but they´ll never do that again!

So Sunday afternoon, Caroline and I went to the Prado Museum--more art! haha-I´m a dork, I know! They have the big dogs- Goya, El Greco, Velazquez (Las Meninas!!!), Rembrandt(not Spanish), and so much more! I could´ve spent DAYS in there! Not much of Picasso-I don´t know where all of his Blue and Rose period stuff is.

Madrid was great, but I´m so glad I´m studying in Salamanca-much easier to understand and navigate. It was kind of like NYC for me-2 days was PLENTY. We were all dying to get back to Salamanca-we just didn´t feel safe in Madrid.

We got home around 8, and we just relaxed and took it easy. School went well today, and we have tomorrow off because it´s a holiday. We´re celebrating San Juan, the patron saint of Salamanca. Sweet! Fireworks and concert tonight, tomorrow, there´s no telling!

Hope you´re all doing great!!