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Published: March 17th 2009
I don't remember doing anything interesting on last Monday or Tuesday, so I'll just skip ahead. Last Wednesday I went to the best show I've seen so far. It was a ballet and also included traditional Spanish dances from the South in Andalucia. It started at 8:30 pm and after two intermissions didn't end until around 11 pm but I didn't even feel the time passing because the costumes were so beautiful and the dancers were so talented! Carmela invited everyone but only another student Mark and I went. Carmela also introduced us to her mother and friend who came. It was an advantage to go with Carmela because she was able to explain to Mark and I the names of the different costumes, etc. After that it was too late to go to Intercambio which I was a little disappointed about missing but the show was definitely worth it.
Thursday night I met up at the Milk Bar with about half of the people in my program. A lot of people were tired from the week and so just stayed there for the night. Ashley and I split a cab home since I haven't figured out how to take
the night bus from places other than it's starting point at Plaza de Cibeles (I'm not sure if you can do it anyway). Friday I woke up, went for a run, and then took the bus downtown to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza which is considered to be the most important private collections of art in the world. It was huge and took me a few hours to go through but had some great stuff. With my student ID I paid 5 Euro for a combined entrance into the permanent collection and also the La Sombra (The Shadow) special exhibit which Carmela had recommended. La Sombra was all about the evolution of using shadows starting in the Renaissance and then moving through the Baroque, Romanticism, Symbolism, Impressionism, Modern Realism, Surrealism, Pop Art, and in photography. Half of the special exhibit was at the Thyssen and the other half was at the Caja Madrid, another building a few blocks away in Sol. I saw the beginning of La Sombra, then went through the permanent collection, and then walked down to see the second half of La Sombra. I'm really glad I went to the special exhibit because they pulled famous works from the
Thyssen's and Reina Sofia's permanent collections and all of the works were great. I really liked how it was organized by time period so you could see how each movement used shadows in different ways.
Friday night I went out with Ashley and her friend Amanda who is a GW student but is studying in Sevilla. We met up in Sol with Amanda's other friends and then walked to this Brazilian bar that her friend's friend (it was getting pretty confusing meeting friends of friends of friends) wanted to go to. The girl was a little ditzy and couldn't exactly remember the bar's location and so we walked for a pretty long time around the neighborhood. Poor Ashley had these tall heels on and I had to be her motivational speaking coach to get her up all the hills, haha. On the way we met a guy from OH named Jason who was in town for work but had never been to Madrid and didn't know where to go out. The girls stopped and talked to him for a while and Ashley and I were getting a littler impatient so I suggested he just come out with us since
he was obviously harmless and we already had a huge group. He turned out to work for a college in England where he studied abroad while in undergrad and his job is basically to travel all over the world and recruit for their study abroad program (how do I get this job??) which was interesting. We finally got to the place and it turned out to be pretty lame but at least it was an experience. Ashley and I split a cab home again since it was too far for us to walk.
Saturday I woke up at 10:30 am to the sound of Veronica vacuuming the house. I got ready and left to go to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) right next to Madrid's Cathedral. I stood in line for 20 minutes or so and paid 3.50 with my student ID for entrance and then another 2 Euros for the self audio guide (normally I don't do those things but I remembered my family used them in Buckingham Palace and they were really helpful). The tour took you through several rooms, such as the big dining hall, billiard halls, throne room, bedroom and study of Charles III, main
staircase, and other rooms whose purpose had changed depending on the monarchs. Unfortunately the royal chapel was closed and I couldn't take any pictures of what I saw, but inside the palace was so over the top! After the main rooms I exited into the parade ground and then went to the royal pharmacy, which has been open for 400 years and showed the instruments and materials that the royal chemists used, and the royal armory which was a huge room filled with armor of Charles V and Philip II. Underneath the armory room there was even more, such as little suits of armor for the kings when they were young. It is said to be the largest collecting of armor in all of Spain which was definitely believeable.
Then I returned to my house for lunch and went to sit outside and do some homework at a nearby park. The weather was in the high 60s this weekend and was so nice. At 8 pm I went to the English-speaking church for the vigil mass and met up with some of the people I met last week from the Young Adult Group. We invited along another woman there
named Monica and then we took the bus to Sol for some dinner. We found an all-you-can-eat buffet for 10 Euro which had something for everyone and grabbed a table. By this time there were nine of us: me, Gustavo, Sarah, Eric, Monica, Marlin, Evelyn, her roommate Joy, and Paul. I found out Paul was stationed here as a lieutenant with the Australian Air Force, Sarah and Marlin both are nannies for Spanish families, Gustavo teaches business English, Eric is a programmer, and Monica is a contractor for a languages services company. I told Monica I went to GW and she had actually worked for 5 months on a project with GW to set up a program in which some GW students could come to Spain and get credit for a year-long internship but due to budget cuts the project was scrapped. Monica's dad had a business in San Francisco so her English is perfect but she also speaks Spanish and Filipino like Marlin, Evelyn, and Sarah who are also Filipino although Sarah spent 9 years living in Singapore. Paul and I were the only ones who only spoke only English fluently and some Spanish!
The buffet was probably
Street Entertainer
Man playing "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies" using water glasses.the healthiest buffet I've ever seen. It had tons of salad, pastas, and vegetables. Pizza and the frozen yogurt machine was the only junk food I could find! (My friend Derek, who I met at GW but is current serving in Iraq, would've been disappointed because when we ate at the Sizzling Express, a pay-by-the-pound buffet near GW's campus, he would always come back with his entire plate full of brown fried foods like chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, quesadillas, etc. Haha.) After hanging out there we decided to get a drink and walked around a little but then decided to go to a discoteca that Marlin knew of nearby. When we got there Eric left because he hates dancing and Monica had to get more work done but the rest of us went in. It was pretty empty because it was only midnight (very early for the Spaniards to be at a discoteca) so we used our drink tickets (8 Euro for the cover, a little steep but I figured I was the new girl and shouldn't complain). Then we wasted no time getting out on the dance floor even though we were the only ones out there. The DJ
National Guard Soldiers
Check out the hats. SO weird! started off the night with a lot of American rap but as more people came switched it to Spanish music and then more techno. We left around 3 and I walked to Plaza de Cibeles which was close by and took the night bus.
Sunday I woke up at 10:30 am and got ready to go to Rastro. I got there around noon and did some shopping. Ashley, Amanda, and Amanda's friend Anne met me there around 1 but I left shortly after to go to the Young Adult Group's Sunday discussion. It was Paul's turn to present and he talked about the 4th commandment. It was interesting because he read about how the commandment extended from honoring your father and mother to a just obedience to and Christian respect for the relationships between employees and employers and citizens and their country which I can never considered before. After that the group talked about planning a pilgrimage to Lourdes which sounded great but will take place a week or so after I leave to go back to the States. Around 4 I came home, ate a late lunch (some strange pieces of breaded seafood) and then studied. Since I
am going to Valencia thus Thursday and Friday I don't want to leave all of my midterm studying for the weekend since they are all next week.
Yesterday people from GW's Study Abroad Office arrived to review the program over a few days. They stopped in my language class briefly and then they came to our flamenco class where we performed our three-part dance. (I have video of it which I want to put up but my internet connection here at the house is too slow so I'll try to do it at school soon.) We were all really nervous but it was fine. We had our live guitar player there again which was great and Carmela convinced our instructor Alejandra, a professional flamenco dancer, to show us a dance which was so cool. After our little performance we went out to the studio's patio for sangria, cheese and tomato kabobs, croquetas (much better than the frozen ones I eat at home!), little ham and tomato quiches, olives, and chips. Yum! This also gave the study abroad people an opportunity to ask us our thoughts on the program so we chatted with them. Maria Angeles and Javier (one of
Palace Gardens
They are open to the public. our language professors) were there along with Edgar's mom who was in town to visit and two brothers from Venezuela who were friends with Jarrad and living in Madrid now. It was nice to meet everyone and the weather was so nice out. There was so much delicious food there (Ana, Ashley, and I also got a fruit tart and meat empanada each on the way to flamenco after art class at our favorite bakery across the street) that I didn't even eat dinner last night.
The one unfortunate event that happened was yesterday I lost my abono, which is my monthly unlimited transportation pass for the metro, night and day bus systems, and commuter train. I used it to get onto the Renfe and then when I got off and checked my pocket to pull it out to get on the metro it was no longer there. I'm convinced it fell out onto the seat when I sat down but the doors of the train closed only a few seconds after I realized it was no longer there. I was pretty upset because I didn't know what to do and the pass is kind of expensive. I also
didn't bring my wallet with me today for some reason because it was heavy and I figured I wouldn't be buying anything on the way to one class, and so I couldn't buy a metro pass. I was essentially stuck in a small area between the Renfe exit and the entrance to the metro. I talked to the Renfe employee and she gave me the lost objects desk. I told them I had lost it only five minutes ago and knew it was on the train but they said the couldn't only call me if someone turned it in. I tried to explain the the metro man next that I didn't have any money to pass through and just lost my abono but he wasn't helpful. At this point I was pretty frustrated mostly because of the language barrier and not knowing what to do. I called Diana who had ridden on the train with me to that stop and thankfully she agreed to help me out by walking back over and using her pass to let me through to the metro. When I got home for lunch I explained what had happened to Patricia and she suggested mathematically figuring
out how many more times I will use the metro and Renfe to see if it is cheaper to buy 10 trip passes instead of the unlimited pass again. Since I'll be in Valencia for a few days this week and then in Galicia with my program in two weekends, it seems to be slightly cheaper to go with the 10 trip passes. Hopefully someone turns it in anyway! I definitely learned my lesson and will be keeping my pass zippered up in my backpack from now on.
Tomorrow night we go to see Sara Baras, an internationally renowned flamenco dancer, in "Carmen" and then early Thursday morning I leave for Valencia for Las Fallas!
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Meg
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one big bad hair day
MULLETS AND RAT TAILS RUN RAMPANT AROUND BsAs! and not just for men...