To Madrid and First Explorations

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After a quick day at home to do laundry and pack for the next trip, me and two friends from the program (Erica and Beth) set off for Madrid. We got there mid afternoon found our Hostel and went to visit Beth’s friend Lyn from Weslyan who was studying there this semester. Madrid is not Berlin. It is not Dresden. It is not Prague. It is amazing how different of a city it is from those that I have visited in Central Europe. For one thing, it was never really touched by WWII or Communism the way central Europe was. Also, of course, it has a massively different culture from them as well. Unlike Berlin, it also has a feel of Hustle and Bustle that is lacking in Berlin. Berlin does not really hustle or bustle. It is more of a slow, deliberate, churning. Madrid seems to always be alive and active.

During our tour we saw Plaza del Sol, which is the official center of Spain. It is not the geographical center, though relativaly close (few hundred miles) but is the point from which all distances in Spain are measured. (I am not sure exactly what this means, but it is what Lyn told us). We went next to Plaza Mayor, which is a gorgeous large Plaza in central Madrid. I am not quite sure why it is there or how it got to be there, but it was pretty cool to see. We got shown a number of other neighborhoods and got a brief run down of the city before going over to meet up with a number of other Weslyan and Vassar students in the city. Apparently they are all there in a Vassar-Weslyan program. It was cool to meet them.

During our tour, we noted two distinguishing features of Madrid. The one is the abundance of “Frutos Secos” stores, which translates to Dried Fruit. Interestingly enough, you cannot buy dried fruit in these stores (as I later found out), but you can buy fruit-shaped candy (which I guess is what they mean). The stores are all very small grocery/convenience stores run by Chinese immigrants. It is an interesting social phenomenon. The other thing we saw all over Madrid were the most amazing pharmacy signs ever. Every single pharmacy (of which there are quite a number) has a huge green and red flashing marqui outside in the shape of a medical cross. The lights on it make an unending stream of patterns and designs that give the pharmacy more the appearance of a casino than a pharmacy.

The next day we started off early and after a quick breakfast at the hostel, proceeded over to the Spanish royal palace. It was a fairly impressive building situated on the top of a hill overlooking part of madrid. Next to it was a Gothic Cathedral, which we looked into. I was not as impressed by it as much as the gothic architecture in Prague. It seemed to be significantly newer and seemed a little bit forced. Somehow it also managed to seem to busy without being as interesting. Next we went to Retiro, which is Madrid’s version of Central Park. However, it is much larger and a mixture of monuments, barogue gardens as well as parts that are nearly just woodlands.

We then went over to the Reina Sofia Museum, which is a museum chronicling modern art in Spain. It was a pretty interesting museum since several of the biggest names in modern art are Spanish - Picasso, and Dali in particular. It was also really helpful the way the museum was set out. Rather than just putting the artwork randomly around, it was set up in chronological order, so that as you went through the museum, you could get a feeling for the development of the art and see the progression of the artistic ideas as the artist matured and grew. There was some really fascinating stuff in there. On the second floor, they had the more modern stuff, which had both my favorite and least favorite piece in the entire exhibit. My favorite piece was, as best I can describe it, an abstract picture based on the style of traditional Japanese and Chinese art. It was only in black and white and had parts of lots of activity, that was sort of reminiscent of bird feathers and parts of just pure white. It was really pretty. Then, my least favorite piece of art was…well…grrr. It was a giant rib-cage, made from wood and plastic strips, about 8 or 9 feet tall so that you could actually walk inside. Inside was a live-sized plastic sculpture of a dog. Well, that is kind of strange, but not particulary bad you say. No. The dog barks. Three very fake sounding, electronic, short barks repeating over and over and over and over again. Oh, and did I mention that when you are on the second floor, at least in the half nearest this sculpture, that is all you can hear? I mean. It is one thing if the artist wants to make an annoying sculpture, but it kind of annoys me when that sculpture is so annoying that it gets in the way of me enjoying the rest of the museum!

After the Museum, I went back to Retiro for a nice evening walk. The park is quite active in the evening and has a very strong feel of Central park, especially near the large rectangular pond in the center. You are reminded that you are still in Europe though by the rather large monument to a king of some sort on one side of the lake. Walking away from the pond, there is stretch where the sculptures of about two dozen Spanish kings are placed. The dates of the kings goes back as far as the 14th century, though the statues themselves did not seem to be nearly that old.

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