Madrid!

Last weekend I went to Madrid! All the girls from my program (7 total) decided to come and we had an amazing time. It was a five hour bus ride from Granada, so we arrived on Thursday night and left on Sunday afternoon. It was the perfect amount of time to do everything I wanted to do! Thursday night we went to an Irish pub (go figure) and then went to one of Madrid's most famous clubs: Kapital. Kapital is a huge club that has seven floors and each floor has a different theme; for example bottom floor was house music, 1st floor was karaoke, 2nd floor was a relaxed/chill atmosphere etc. We made sure we spent some time on every floor just for the full experience, although we didn't linger on the 4th floor: the kissing floor!

At Kapital

We spent most of Friday at the Museo del Prado, looking at some of the world's most famous artwork. There were pieces by Goya, Velázquez, El Greco and many more! It was especially cool to see all the Spanish artwork I had studied throughout my Spanish classes in real life. For example:

Las Meninas by Velázquez

The Third of May by Goya

One of my favorite paintings was one by Bosch, called The Garden of Earthly Delights:

Friday afternoon we walked around in the Parque de Retiro and enjoyed the sun.

For dinner we went to an amazing sea-food place called El Rocio where they had the best mejillones (mussels). Thanks for the recommendation Kylie!

yummmmmm

That night we did a pub crawl that was hosted by our hostel. We got to meet a lot of other foreign kids our age which was really fun, and it was also interesting to hear everyone else's travel plans. (For anyone looking for a hostel in Madrid, I would definitely recommend The Way. It had a great location, was very clean, safe, and I had a great time there.)

Saturday morning we did a free walking tour with hostel. The tour guide, Pablo, kept the tour interesting and although it was over two hours long I had a great time. He told us the history of several buildings and events in a funny way. The Cathedral and the Royal Palace are right next door to each other, and the Palace looks very grand while the Cathedral looks very plain. Seeing as Spain is one of the most Catholic countries in the world, you would have thought that the Cathedral would be amazing; but Pablo told us that the Cathedral had to be made to look plain because it couldn't upstage the Palace. But, the architects made the back of the Cathedral look beautiful because from that angle the Palace isn't visible and it wouldn't have detracted from the Palace.

The back of the Cathedral

We then had lunch, where I had my first tasting of paella! It was actually a bit of a disappointment, I guess I like the American version better. The rice wasn't cooked enough, and there were a lot of bones in it, and the shrimp still had the shell on. I guess I'll just have to continue my search for good paella here!

The paella I thought was going to be amazing...

After lunch we went to the Reina Sofia, another world famous art museum; which houses artwork by Dali, Picasso, Juan Gris etc. Also artwork I've studied previously, and even a few pieces I've started to study in Art History. We got to see Guernica, which is a famous painting by Picasso depicting the horrors of the bombing of a town called Guernica in Northern Spain by the Germans and Italians in 1937. The painting was huge, and had it's own room; this picture doesn't really do it justice.

Guernica, Pablo Picasso

We decided to go to an American place for dinner; and for dessert we got these chocolate-nut brownies with warm vanilla ice cream on top, and I was in heaven! SO GOOD! Unfortunately we all dug in too fast to get a picture, but I got a picture of the sandwich! After dinner we went to Las Cuervas, a local sangria bar that was super guay (cool)! It had quotes from famous Spaniards, and copies of some of the paintings we had seen in the two museums earlier in the weekend. (Shout out to Kylie for recommending so many great places in Madrid for us!)

Nom nom nom nom nom!

 On our last day we went to El Rastro, which is a huge market in Madrid that is only open on Sundays. There were vendors selling everything from clothes and trinkets, to electrical appliances and carabiners.  I got these really super awesome loose gypsy-ish pants that are perfect to hide the food baby from this weekend.

The bear and tree is the official symbol of Madrid!

On our tour with Pablo, he explained to us the official meaning of the bear and tree (which I forget), but he told us the representation he likes the best. Now I don't remember it exactly, but here's how I think it goes: Apparently the fruit from the tree that bear eats has fermented and has alcohol in it. So the bear eats and eats and then finally gets drunk and passes out; and then when it wakes up, has a combination of hangover and hunger, and starts to eat again, and the so system continues. Pablo said that this is like the Spaniards, they like to drink and have a good time, and then pass out, and then the next day they drink again! Essentially the Spaniards love to have a good time and are very relaxed.