Blog Day 9

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Looking Inward

This week to finish out our entire trip in Spain together, we went to the Prado museum and a smaller group of us went to the Lion King show the night before. Going to the show was a really amazing experience and the fact that we got to do it in Madrid was really a cool thing to experience. Buying the tickets for this show was a very impulse decision but, in the end, I am thankful for it. As said in Culture Smarton page 113, the Spanish love theatre and so I figured it would be a good thing to experience if it is a big part of the culture. Going on this impromptu trip really showed me that going with the flow, though sometimes nerve-wracking, often ends up causing some of the best experiences. I never would have predicted that spending a lot of euros on some back-row seats to a musical would have turned out to be as much fun as it was.

The Relational Level

Going to the Lion King show was also a great relational moment for those of us that went. Little did I know that so many of us loved both the Lion King movie but also musicals in general. While standing in line, we started discussing some of our favorite musicals, what (if anything) we had seen on Broadway and just how excited we were to see the show. It was a commonality that I never would have expected between the 8 of us and something that I feel helped bond us all even closer near the end of the trip and also something to talk about when we run into each other if we ever cross paths later down the road.

The Social Side

Page 114 of Culture Smartdiscusses that Spain is a leading contributor in many theatrical ways and that is why it is so important in this culture. This was very clear to see when we went to the show. Just waiting in line, we saw at least 6 different school groups of kids waiting to see the show and kids were all around the theatre. Not only were they as excited to see it as we were, but it was very surprising. If school trips took kids to Broadway shows, some would be excited but not every single kid like what we saw with this show. The Lion King was also a classic that everyone could enjoy so it was nice to watch it and feel like a kid again and feel how the kids around us were feeling. It always seems like the theatre and arts programs at schools in America are shutting down and getting cut so it is nice to see that in Spain, the arts are cared about and valued higher than some other aspects of schooling. It brings hope that theatre and arts will never truly die out and maybe they can even make a comeback in America.

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