Another weekend in Madrid

July 8-11, 2010

I had another awesome weekend in Madrid a couple weeks ago! This is what it was like...

Friday

Since every store in Madrid has 50-70% off on practically the entire store, we decided to do a little shopping in Sol to get a few things we have been needing. We picked up some souvenirs for friends, and finallyyyyy got churros con choolate! They were so good! I could have drank the chocolate straight--it was so creamy. We went to Plaza Mayor afterward to try to find some paintings of Madrid, but didn't have any luck so we bought some prints instead. Our last stop before we had to head back for dinner was La Almudena. On the way there, we found this cuteeee market called Mercado de San Miguel. You could see everything inside through the huge windows, and it all looked amazing! I heard the dried fruit stand there is awesome, so I'm hoping to go back and try it before we leave Madrid. We walked through a really pretty plaza called Plaza de la Villa. It has the statue A Don Alvaro de Bazan and is right next to the church Iglesia Catedral Castrense.

We got to La Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena, which is the cathedral right behind Palacio Real. It almost looks like two different churches when you are standing on different sides of it. Most of it is baby blue and white, but one side is brown and tan. Felipe, Prince of Asturias (heir to the Spanish throne) married Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano (a reporter) in this church. We took a little peak inside the church, and headed back home for dinner.

Saturday

I spent the entire day with Encarnita on Saturday :) It was cute! We went to el cine (the cinema) to see a movie called El Concierto. Encarnita lovesssss classical music, and she was humming the songs during the movie. Before we went, she told me if I don't understand the movie completely, I could at least enjoy the music. I didn't think I would like the movie much at first because I didn't really understand the main character's obsession with directing orchestras until the plot developed more. By the end, though, I really liked it. I surprisingly could understand the whole movie without English or Spanish subtitles. It made me realize how much my Spanish really has improved since I've been here. At school, when we watched movies in Spanish class, I used to always need at least Spanish subtitles to understand anything. The voices were dubbed over too (I think it was a French movie originally), which made it a little more difficult because I couldn't read their lips while listening to them speak. If I didn't look at their lips and just listened to them, it was much easier. Encarnita told me I was the first student to go to the movies with her. That was hard to believe because she has had sooo many students over the years. She said other students would watch movies in English or with English subtitles after she watched the movie in the cinema and then they would talk about it afterward, but I was the first to actually go to the cinema with her.

After the movie, we walked home. We stopped in a few stores so Encarnita could look around on the way. It was nice to just spend some time with her--walking & talking. We stopped at a couple of plant stores and she told me how much she loved magnolias. When we got home, we only had about 20 minutes to cool off and rest before it was time to walk to church. We went to her church--La Basilica de la Merced. During mass, all of the old Spanish ladies were fanning themselves the whole time because it was so hot in there--it was adorable :) The church was huge, and it seems like they have service allll of the time(as soon as our service finished, another one started, so the church wasn't even 1/4 full. At the front of the church, there was a really modern looking sculpture of Jesus made out of metal. It was really neat--I've never seen anything like it in a church before. The prayers we said were exactly like the ones we say in Catholic churches in the U.S. (other than it being in a different language).

Encarnita LOVES the priest there. She is knitting him a scarf right now. During mass, she kept talking about how great of a speaker he was. She was so funny during mass too. when it was time to stand up, she was always the first to stand up. When it was time to sit down, she was always the first one in her seat. When we were saying a prayer, she would say it so loudly & say it a couple words ahead of everyone else there. She reminded me of a little kid proud of what she knew, kind of trying to show off how she knew everything by heart. It was so funny :) When they needed another person to help collect the offering, she was the first person to run up there. As soon as mass was over, she skipped over to the door to the back, and we went in the back room to talk to the priests. We talked to them for awhile--about the scarves she was knitting, the classes I am taking, sayings that are really unique to Spain, food, art, and all sorts of things. Afterward, we walked back home. ON the way, we ran into a bunch of people she knew. She was telling me about how she knows everyone in the world when we passed a couple guys & they said "Holaaaaa". We both said "Hola", then she said, "Wait, I don't know them. Anytime you get an 'Holaaaa' from someone you don't know like that, he is saying, 'I want to be with you.'" She's so funny~ We got home, had dinner, & stayed in for the night.

Sunday

Sunday was a busy, and exciting day. We walked to Museo de Sorolla first. This museum has the majority of Sorolla's paintings and drawings. It is so neat because the museum actually used to be Sorolla's house! There was a cute, little garden/patio in the front. Some of his paintings that we saw were The White Slave Trade, The Pink Robe, and Siesta. I love his stuff. Seeing all of his paintings made me want to paint something with water in it. So right now I'm painting one of Monet's landscapes with water in the background. I think it is going to be my favorite painting I've ever done. I want to do a painting sometime with kids in the water--kind of similar to some of Sorolla's paintings. Sorolla used one of the rooms in his house to hang all of his most recent paintings and those that were for sale. He used it as an exhibition room. This was the room that was dedicated to all of his beach scenes. The furniture in this room is the exact same furniture that Sorolla had in it. So cool! He painted the fruit and leaves that bordered his dining room too. The basement was full of his pottery--there was sooo much of it! It is such an awesome museum :) :) :)

Next, we went to the Reina Sofia (Queen Sophie--the current Spanish queen) art museum. The first thing we saw at the Reina Sofia were the cool, glass elevators on the outside. They were awesome! They had Reina Sofia written down the side of them. We went inside and went to the second floor--where the permanent collection starts. We saw a lot of Miro, Dali, and Picasso here. Some specific paintings we saw were Manuel Angeles Ortiz's Still-Life, Dali's El Enigma de Hitler, and Picasso's Crying Heads. The Reina Sofia also has La Guernica!!! We learned all about this painting in my Spanish classes at SLU, and I couldn't believe I was standing in front of it. Picasso painted it in response to the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian warplanes by request of the Spanish Nationalist forces in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. This painting shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts on innocent people. The shape and posture of the bodies express protest. The black, white, and gray colors give it a somber feel. Incredible...

We saw some of Dali's work before he really developed his own style, like Girl at the Window. It's the most realistic painting I think I have seen of his. We saw Angeles Santos Torroella's A World and Robert Delaunay's Portrait of Tristan Tzara. There was a square in the middle of the museum with gorgeous trees and some interesting sculptures. There was this one room in the museum that was kind of strange. It was this room that looked like it could be someone's office. It had a wall full of beautiful wooden cabinets, two leather chairs in the middle, and right in front of the cabinets was a wooden, spiral staircase. At the top of the staircase there were only two paintings hanging on the white walls--one of Bugs Bunny and one of Mickey Mouse. It was interesting.

We went to the first floor of the museum where all of the modern art was. I love modern art, but it makes it really difficult for me because I always want to touch the artwork or play with it. There was a boat made out of clay thumbs, a painting of footsteps of how to do a dance, and so many other cool things! There was one that was hanging from the ceiling that had a bunch of random things on it and some pots and pans, and every once in awhile it would drop down or move up and make so much noise that everyone would jump--especially the people walking underneath it! We went to ground zero of the museum too, which was verryyyyy interesting. It had a model Chinese house in the middle of the room, some disturbing nude photos that looked like they could be the cover of a porno, lifeguard chairs spaced randomly around the room so you could climb up onto the chairs to look at the huge pieces of art, random books hanging from the ceiling with magnifying glasses/binoculars attached to them, a video playing at the top of the platform, and so many other random things! After we were done on this floor, we decided to go out onto the terrace. It was so nice up there, and there was a great view.

After the Reina Sofia, we decided to get some tapas at a nearby restaurant called Los Zuritos. We had potatoes in spicy sauce (that wasn't really spicy at all but still delicious), and a little kebab with bread. It was so good! We went back home after the Reina Sofia to get ready for final game of the world cup! Then we headed back to the Prado for round two. We finished seeing all of the masterpieces there, we headed out to join the crazy fans on their way to Plaza de Cibeles! I already wrote a blog about what happened the rest of the night and all of the craziness of the World Cup, so if you read that, you can see how my night ended! :)


A couple random things at the house....

So usually I love Encarnita's cooking, and I eat all of my food and even some of Preethi's, but lately, we've found ourselves having to sneak food to the trash can on the street. The bread she gives me for breakfast has been as hard as a rock these past couple weeks. At first, I just threw it in the garbage. Then she asked me how my breakfast was (which she never does) so I'm guessing she saw it. Then I tried breaking the bread into pieces and flushing it down the toilet, but some pieces were so hard that they wouldn't flush, so I had to look for a different option. Then I thought about the homeless people I pass by on the way to school & decided to wrap the bread in toilet paper or a napkin and give it to them. So that's what I've been doing practically every day. It's a little more difficult to do now, though, because she is on vacation from work so she is home all the time. She never used to be home when I ate breakfast. I have to wrap the bread in a napkin and shove it in my bra or in my shorts when she isn't looking to sneak back to my room until I leave for class haha! It's pretty funny. I felt bad about wasting the bread before, so now I'm glad that I can give it to someone who needs it. I still get out a knife and my jam and dip the knife in the jar to make it look like I used it. I didn't do it at first because I thought the bread was just going to be hard that one time, but now that it is every day, I have to make it look like I'm eating it.

One time for dinner, Preethi couldn't eat her peas & potatoes & bacon because she thought they tasted funny. There were a little overcooked, but I ate them anyway. I had to eat like the whole pot because Preethi wouldn't eat any though, so I couldn't eat my dessert. 1) Because I was too full and 2) Because it was flan! I hateeeee flan. It is so disgusting to me--something about the consistency just makes me want to vomit. Preethi loves it, though, and she ate her flan but not her dinner. So we had basically an entire dinner that we couldn't eat. We decided to eat slowly and wait until Encarnita was snoring to sneak it out to the trash can on the street. We looked pretty ridiculous wearing our PJ's and carrying our trays of food out on the street to empty into the trash can. I felt like I was 10 years old all over again.

Another time, Preethi and I got back late after Encarnita was in bed. She left us dinner in the fridge to heat up since we knew we would be back late. It was salad, tortilla espanola, and fruit with milk and cinnamon for dessert. All of it was really good, but we just weren't hungry. I don't know if it was the heat or what. It was in the 100's that day and we have no AC or fans here. I stuffed down the dinner anyway, but couldn't eat the dessert. Preethi didn't eat anything really, so we had so much food to get rid of. We decided to give it to the kittens down the street that I found when Encarnita and I went to church! We put the food that would rot in the sun in the trash can and gave the rest to the little kittens and their mom and dad. I hope she didn't walk by and see our dinner sitting on a Blanco bag (a bag from a store we like). She would have known it was us for sure!

Another thing I wanted to write down was something Encarnita told me the other day. I thought it was so cute. I don't remember how we got on the topic, but she was telling me that the person who will always love me the most is my mother. She said a mother loves her child no matter what. She said that first it is the mother, then it is the father, then the grandparents, and then sometimes the siblings, and that friends come and go, but family is there for you always.

We were talking about what Spanish soccer players we loved another time. Preethi likes Torres, and I love Villa and Casillas. We were talking about them and about how Casillas met his journalist girlfriend, and she told us that we need different careers. She said that the only people Preethi would meet would be cancer patients, and the only people I'd meet would be the fathers of the kids I saw. She said this is no good--we need different careers! Later on she asked me if I didn't know how to answer her or what. She said I should be telling her that I don't need a man to make me happy in life. She doesn't have kids of her own, which is why she has students live with her all of the time. She was with a man for about 10 years, but machismo is really big over here. Machismo is basically like sexism--guys think they are better than girls so they treat women like objects. She said the guy she was with was like that--not in his actions but in thought, so it didn't work out. She said it was a good thing that it didn't work out, though, because otherwise she never would have met me.

Random Europe things...

One thing that is extremely different here than it is in the States is the time waiters/waitresses give you at restaurants. People in Europe usually take their time when they eaet and will stay in restaurants after they finish eating for hours. They will sit and talk and have coffee. The waiters and waitresses won't rush you out or even bring you the check until you ask for it. It's nice, unless you are in a hurry--then you have to like chase them down to get the check. Spanish time is kind of like Honduran time too--it's custom to be late. Tipping is different here too. It doesn't really exist, actually. We didn't find this out until a couple weeks in after we had been tipping everywhere. We wondered why the taxi driver was so surprised when we told him to keep the change, and why another driver called us beautiful only after we tipped him. Most people who live here told us that the only time you tip is if you really like the service and food, you can leave a euro or two. The only place I went to where people tipped regularly was Lisbon.

Another thing that is different is the amount of personal space people give each other. It is normal to give a stranger a kiss on each cheek when you first meet them (besos). I's not really a kiss, more like rubbing your cheeks against theirs. People stand so close to each other when they talk too. It almost looks like they are trying to tell each other secrets, but it's just custom here. Just a couple things that are different here.