maggie says i should call this blog entry 'madrid madness'.......so here it is..... "Madrid Madness"

This wasn’t quite as busy as a week as I had last week, mostly due to the fact that I was sick because of the week before and didn’t want to do anything. So I learned my lesson about pushing it too hard, to say the least.

It was a little different because we had some friends in. Maggie’s bro and Ali were still in town and Jill arrived a few days after them, so we spent time with them. Brandon and Ali went to Valencia on Wednesday, so Jill came to stay with us, which was very fun. I went to stay in Mag’s room and Jill and she stayed din my for the week, so that was a fun switch up. Also, my friend Lisa’s boyfriend was in for the week, so we got to hang out with him some.

jill and maggie chowing down on some helado

Toward the end of the week I was feeling better, which was wonderful because things began to get very busy. Wednesday night Hannah invited me over for dinner since I’d been sick, and she knew I don’t like to eat friend meats when I’m sick. So we made a delicious vegetable soup with plenty of greens! Boy, t hat was very exciting. After that we went over to Alyssa’s for just a little time to spend some time together.

look at all those veggies!!!

On Thursday, I had the normal 4 classes and so that keeps me on my toes enough, but to add to that, it was Alyssa’s last night in Salamanca and we had a planned group event that night. So I was rushing all around all day. We went to see Julieta Venegas, a Mexican pop singer who’s very popular here. It was very fun. It was at this gym/arena type thing, and there were tons of people there. I’m really glad we got to go, it was fun music and it’s so very cool to see a new part of Spanish society.

julieta venegas


my friend justine and me at the concert


if you can't tell, she's playing the acordian.
trust me, this girl was cool.


the crowd and stage

So after that was over, we rushed across Salamanca, (because this concert was on the other side of town, like really the other side of town), because we wanted to catch Alyssa at En Vivo before she left. She’s back in the states now I guess, living on the West coast and fighting forest fires. Pretty cool, huh? Maggie and I told her we were going to start a fire in VA so she’d have to come put it out and we’d see her. We’ll see what happens….

So we got home crazy late and had to get up like 4 hours later to leave for Madrid. Will I ever learn??

Friday morning we left Salamanca around 7am and drove to Madrid. First thing we did was the Prado Art Museum. It’s pretty sweet, I’d been there before, but I’m still able to catch more than what I did before. We saw lots of Goyas, Velazquezes (?) and some Picassos.

outside the prado

After that we checked in to our hotel and had like an hour to eat lunch. We stayed in a 4 star hotel. It was absurd. In the afternoon we went to the Thyssen Bornemisza Art Museum. It had a lot of different stuff and we had about an hour and a half to just walk around to what we wanted to see. That’s definitely more my way of seeing art. I’m not so good with guided tours of 35 people. So I basically saw everything, from 14^th century religious art to modern art from New York. It was a nice combo.

outside thyssen bornemisza

After that we went back to the hotel and showered and such. Leigh and I are apparently the favorites in the group because we had a noticeably bigger and nicer room than all the others. We had a huge window in our room and mirrors on all the walls. So we opened up our window and enjoyed the most amazing sunset I’ve seen here yet from the comfort of our 4 star hotel.

madrid sunset from our hotel

After that we had a nice dinner in the hotel and then headed to a theater to see a Spanish version of ‘The Producers’ an American play. Or maybe it was a movie first, I’m not sure, but it’s a movie and a play in the US, about two men who want to produce a hit play. With a combo of the fact that I hate musicals, I only got 4 hours of sleep the day before, and that the play involved making fun of Hitler and Nazis at a ridiculously inappropriate level, I wasn’t so pleased with the night. I would have preferred to have gone to a café, sipped on tea and read a good book all night. But that wasn’t an option, so I dealt. Sorry to any of you who loved The Producers, but I hated it. Sorry.

So Saturday morning we got up and ate breakfast in the hotel and then headed to the Palacio Real. We toured that for an hour or two in the morning. It’s a neat place to see. I had been already, and we didn’t see anything different, but it was still kind of interesting. It’s a very elaborate place, soooo extravagant. And it was constructed at a time when Spain was in financial crisis. Way to go Spain-you’ve really got your priorities straight.

front of the palacio real


the church in the palacio


one of the chandeliers in the palace, doesn't look real does it?


cathedral directly across from palace

We had some free time on the patio after the tour and we jus sat and talked to these crazy Italians who came up to us. They spoke a combination of Italian and very broken English, so it was quite entertaining.

After that we went to the Centro de Arte de Reina Sofia- the current queen. There’s a ton of really cool art there, including the Guernica, by Picasso, one of his most famous and definitely his biggest paintings. It’s really amazing to see it in person.

guernica


So after that we had free time for the rest of the afternoon. It was a simply beautiful day, warm and sunny, so Dre, Ali, Stacy, Stacy’s friend Emily, Emily’s friend Matt and I went to the Plaza Mayor and had lunch out on the terrace of a café. Emily and Matt were in for the weekend from Rome where they are studying.

the plaza mayor in madrid

So after lunch we just walked around the center of the city. We walked to the Puerta del Sol and then up to Gran Via which is one of the most commercial streets in Madrid.

I saw this poster when we were walking. For those of you that don’t’ know, Tilly and the Wall is an American band that I have seen in concert a few times. It was funny to see that here in Spain!

tilly and the wall poster!

I was meeting with my friend from JMU who is living in Madrid now at 6, so I left them around 5:15 and walked back to meet her at a metro stop. Natalie was one of my small group leaders and is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. I hadn’t seen her in about 9 months, so it was soooo exciting to see her again. She’s living in the neatest piso near a plaza and is working at an elementary school teaching English. So we just hung in her apartment for a while and she made me an amazing fruit salad and tea. Around 9 we decided to go out and find some dinner, so we just walked around and around Madrid looking for a cool place to eat. Neither of us were really hungry at that point though, so we kind of just wandered, enjoying each others company. Around 10:30 we decided to go to this place near her apt that she really likes a lot, but there was a 40 minute wait, so we just put our names down and went back to hear apt and ate olives and watched the Real Madrid/Barcelona football game. Around 11 we headed back to the restaurant and had a nice little meal which included lots of veggies! We walked around a little more after dinner, but we were so tired, so around 1 I hopped on a Metro and headed back to the hotel. It was so wonderful to see her, it had been so long and we had so much to talk about. She’s such a comforting person for me, almost like ‘home’ for me, and so after feeling like I have been for the past few weeks, it was such a blessing to be able to unload on someone who knows me so well and cares about me so much. It was the best night I’ve had in a long while.

NATTY!! I love this girl!!!

Sunday morning we got up and ate breakfast and then were out of the hotel by 9ish. We drove to San Lorenzo de El Escorial, a small town outside of Madrid, where "El Escorial” is. It’s a palace/church/school/tomb/monastery and it’s a very famous/important landmark in Spain. It was constructed in the mid 1500’s and has the shape of cross. It’s a beautiful place.

el escorial and the gardens


old old old book at the library at el escorial

On the way back to Salamanca, we drove by the Valle de los Caídos, a monument constructed in honor of all the soldiers that died in the Spanish Civil War. I wish we had gone up to it, it’s so unbelievable. It’s a huge cross in the side of the mountain and the view from it is amazing. But here it is, from far, far away.

valle de los caidos

We also stopped on the outskirts of Avila on the way home and got to take some pictures. Avila is known for the walls that surround it. They are huge!

avila

We got home to Salamanca around 6pm, so we had all evening to catch up on stuff and get readjusted. In comparison to how I felt coming back from Barcelona, I wasn’t as excited to be home. The weekend and travel wasn’t as exhausting and so coming back I felt a little sad to be back. But as the night went on, I actually felt like the weekend rejuvenated me and I still had a new appreciation for Salamanca. Like I was back to take it on! I didn’t know if that was just a feeling I was going to have last night, but when I got up this morning I felt the same. I went to a park this morning and just sat in the sun and studied and it was so wonderful. I feel like I’m finally ready to take in all there is to offer, I’m content and happy to be here and I’m ready to keep on going. I just feel like there’s joy in my life again and I’m truly appreciative of where I am. So that’s really sweet.

Today was Teresa’s birthday, so we all were here for lunch and after lunch we had a birthday cake. We all sang and had a jolly good time.

teresa's b'day cake


teresa


So that’s the news for now. This week will be a little less busy, as I’m totally cutting out all the ‘fun’ stuff to study. I’ve got an exam Thursday and a paper due and a lot of other little stuff. So we’re just going to study a lot this week, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

I miss you all, keep me updated on your lives!!