Madrid.
¿Que tal Madrid?
pues... a las 7 por la mañana, fui a la casa de mi compañera de escuela, se llama Beth. We caught the train at 7:45am and made it to Mardid mas o menos a las 10:00.
First thing's first...we were hungry. I had packed some ham and cheese sandwiches from the night before, but it wasn't enough. Me and Beth have been food buddies for the past week. So far we have been to a pulpeleria where they serve really REALLY good pulpo. What they do is pop a WHOLE pulpo in a big vat of water, leave it there for maybe 10 minutes, then take it out and cut in bite size pieces with scissors. The whole pulpo is about the size of a person's head..with long hair. Olive oil, salt, and paprika on top. It was the best pulpo i've ever eaten! It had a great texture, not rubbery at all and even a bit soft still on the edges. I took a picture. will post it someday.
okay.. that was still in Salamanca, back to Madrid.
About 11:00 am, after navigating the metro system to the area with all the museums, we stopped at a cafe for chocolate con churros. The hot chocolate here is thick. They make it with milk and powder, but it's pretty rich still. The churros were tasty. They come unsweetened, like Chinese doughnut, and they absorb lots of sugar from the chocolate.
After we finished with that, I was still hungry, but we went straight to Prado.
Prado:
Soo...I felt quite fulfilled, being able to see many paintings that i have studied in my Art History classes. Saw classics like Las Meninas, 4th of May by Goya, 3 graces, by Ruebens, many Titians and even some Original Greek bronzes and some roman marble copies of the many faces of Augustus. Also, I saw some de Rafael, that i didn't realize were his, but should have because his Mary's are so distinct: soft focus, round face, pale ladies, caringly looking down at baby Jesus who, for once, looks like a child (not like a miniature hercules). pues, baby Jesus never looks like a mini hercules, but sometimes he looks like a mini person with long legs and no baby fat; just a freaky-baby face.
So we spent a lot of time there, maybe almost 3 hours, then we took off for Sofía. Well, it was time for lunch, so we took a short one hour stop in a restaurant for Menu del dia. Menu del dia is usually 8-20 bucks and you choose off 3 or 4 lists of entrees... entrees, appetizers, dessert, whatever.
so I ate gazpacho andaluz, which was watery (my host lady makes it better) and pescado blanco, but I don't remember the name. Beth had cod with tomato. Her's was better. Then for dessert we both had chocolate cake with cream filling. We both just about died. I had to eat it with café con leche, con hielo (it was a warm-ish day. very seattle-like) otherwise i would have been licking dirt for the next hour. After our meal ended we saw the people next to us receive giant legs of something on their plates. Needless to say, I was jealous, pero incapazitada.
SOOOO THEN we went to Reina Sofía, Beth and I sat for 30 min in front of Guernica, not seeing all the hidden secrets, but enjoying/discussing/contemplating the things we could see. I saw all sorts of other interesting things from my modern art class, including a Robert Motherwell that i REALLY enjoyed. En español it's called "Presencia inquietante" and is fairly huge. It is only two colors: amber? or some dark orange, and deep infinite black. The big black entity dominates the picture in a very odd, seemingly random form that is not a blob because it has no round edges, but is more like a stain, or a creeping feeling; something ominous that you can't put your finger on. It's like una "presencia inquietante", in fact!
I saw a Kandinsky, a lot of prep art for Guernica, a lot of Miró's, which i surprisingly liked a lot, and a lot of Dalí's to which i said "WTF?!". There was a whole Lichtenstein exhibit which i was fairly unimpressed by, and a Monocrome exhibit that made me quite happy. There was a lot of installation art and optical effects in use and overall it was very divertido, since I didn't really have time to contemplate for long periods of time like with Guernica.
Anyway, saw an unimpressive Barnett Newman and a Rothko which i stood uncomfortably close to (you're supposed to). Oh, and a Isamu Noguchi sculpture.
Even when I wasn't impressed, I was glad to see familiar paintings and names and be able to identify main styles and themes. It made me feel half-smart!
After Sofía, we had a little time for shopping. We walked all around a small part of the city, but saw many things that make it onto postcards and into "All about Madrid" books.
Plaza Mayor, Palacio Real, Gran Via, the Oso y Arbol sculpture, Plaza de Oriente, Puerta del sol and a crazy Christian Concert.
On the train home, some P-TA AMERICANA TONTA read a comic from the Christian rally. She was translating slowly into english in a loud american voice with Protestant Church emotion. Like Reverand Lovejoy! only we were TRAPPED. No podíamos escapar! she did it for like 15 minutes!!!!!!!!!! "and THEN the poooor man said? 'JEsus. Why have you not COME?' He knelt down because he was FILled with despAIR?" ok. can't describe it. it was awful.
anyway, I made it back to salamanca at midnight, then went to sleep at 6:30. heh. I pulled a whole 24 hours! It's like I'm 17. go me! Met some new americans who were not so bad and got pissed, as they say in england ; ) An interesting day/night.
Tonight, Salamanca transforms into a different city.... month long fiesta!
