Home Sweet Madrid

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Last weekend was actually my first complete Friday to Sunday weekend spent entirely in Madrid. About half the people in my program had booked a trip to Amsterdam a few weeks ago but I didn't want to go so I had more time to get to know my own city. Friday I slept in and then started catching up on a lot of reading for my International Business class. Then I went for a run. For the past two weeks I've tried to get back into a formal exercise routine and so every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday I've been running for a half hour in a different direction from my house. I figure this will help keep me in shape and will be a fun way to learn my way around the barrio (neighborhood).

After getting ready I took the metro to Gran Via, on of Madrid's main avenues, to check out some of the stores. I finally went inside Zara, which is kind of like Gap but is cheaper here because 75% of its production is done Europe. Apparently there are stores in the US (including one in Georgetown) but I had never been before. Here they pronounce Zara like "thada" because all Spaniards have a lisp going on for their Cs and Zs. For example, they say Barcelona like "Barthelona." It's kind of funny because sometimes I know the words they are saying but just have never heard it pronounced by a real Spaniard before so it takes a minute to click. Anyway, I found some nice stuff there (a sweater for only 10 Euros!) and then I stopped in another popular clothing store next door called Sfera where I bought a necklace. Then I ate a chocolate sundae at the McDonald's on the corner.

In the evening before dinner I decided to do another one of the walking tours in my guidebook around the Bailen District for an hour and a half before dinner. I never made past the first stop because when I got to the Basilica de San Francisco, which was built by the Franciscan order after St. Francis of Assisi visited in 1217 (according to my book). It was definitely one of the most impressive churches I've seen in Madrid so far. When I walked in, a group of people and Franciscans were on the second station of Stations of the Cross and so I decided to join in which was interesting. I remember the Hail Mary in Spanish from memorizing it in high school but for the rest I just said them in English to myself.

Then I went home for dinner and Patricia had made pizza- just what I was craving! After dinner I went out with Ari and Jarrad to a hooka bar they had spotted near the dance studio where our flamenco class is held. They had a bellydancer who was fun to watch. Ari iwas all excited to show me how to do it because he's the "hooka expert" after growing up in Turkey where it's apparently pretty common. They only had the apple flavor which Jarrad and Ari said wasn't very good quality. I tried it and liked it more than I thought I would. Then we moved on to walk around the area and went in and out of a few different bars to check them out but we made sure to get on the metro before 1:30 am because that's when it closed. Ari and Jarrad were able to ride the blue line all the way home but I had to switch and discovered that after 1:30 even if you're inside the station the trains only run from one end to the other one more time. I was stranded three stops away from my stop and went outside to see if my "owl bus" stopped nearby but couldn't find my stop on the map so I just took a taxi home to be safe.

Saturday morning I woke up around 9 am because Veronica the cleaning lady was here early. I read more International Business and then showered and went to the big supermarket Alcampo to get a thank-you card for Jose Maria and Ramon's hospitality. I dropped it off at my house and then took the bus to Plaza de Cibeles and walked to the Reina Sofia. Although I have class there our class material does not cover contemporary art and so we look at slides in a classroom, but my professor said he will take us around at the end of the semester. I still hadn't had a chance to go through it myself so I went during the free Saturday afternoon hours. I definitely wished I had someone with me to explain some of it but I did get to see Dali's "Girl at the Window," Picasso's "Woman in Blue" and Picasso's most famous work, "Guernica" which was much larger than I thought. I also went through a special exhibit of Paul Thek's work which was interesting.

After dinner on Saturday I just went to bed around midnight because I was still catching up on sleep. Sunday I woke up at 10 am to get ready for an 11 am English mass at a nearby parish which I had stumbled across online. I got a little lost but made it there on time and it turned out to be a parish I had passed many times while running. It turns out that they use the same church building as a regular Spanish parish and then only have the 11 am Sunday mass for themselves and one priest named Fr. Ron. The building was just plain brick and the parish had a very international feel. There were a lot of people from the UK and Africa. It happened to be the one Sunday designated as the children's mass which was so much fun. All of the lectors, most of the choir, and the gift bearers were all 4th graders. For the homily Fr. Ron invited all the kids to sit up around the altar where he said the homily on their level sitting on a stool in the middle of them. The kids got to participate in the homily and their comments were so hilarious. Because the first readings was about Noah's ark and one kid asked why Noah couldn't just leave the skunks behind. Haha.

Later on I e-mailed Fr. Ron about somehow getting involved in the parish. Unfortunately I am away half of the remaining weekends on average until May with trips and he said the parish bases most of its activities on the weekends since people travel from all over the city to get their and lead busy lives on the weekdays. I also asked him about Eucharistic Adoration which I usually attended weekly at the GW Newman Center but have found it impossible to find here. The good news was that their church had it but the bad news is that it's during one of my evening classes. They also have a young adult group that just started and I was interested in attending and Fr. Ron invited me to help teach English on Saturday mornings but I don't know if it would be disruptive for me to come only on certain weekends. I really want to meet people there because they seem like a really active and welcoming parish and so I think I'll ask him if I can just come to things when I can.

After mass I was going to go to Rastro again but it was really overcast and so instead I came home. It was nice to eat with Patricia for lunch and dinner every day this past weekend. Unfortunately I spent the rest of Sunday doing job/internship applications for the summer and spring that just had to get done. I took a break with a short walk and then watched some TV at night.

I didn't start off Monday the best way because although I did all the homework I had forgotten to study for a little quiz our professor was giving us to review what we had learned so far. I'm not going to stress about it though because the midterm and final exam are what really matter. History of Spain is going ok but it is definitely my most challenging class because the professor has yet to speak one word of English and it's very challenging for me to concentrate for about an hour and 45 minutes especially when I don't understand a lot of the vocabulary. The good news is that he's given us power point presentations for all of his lectures along with background notes, and so to be well-prepared for the exams I just have to spend enough time reading over them and translating what I need to. I can't believe how much I love my International Business class, so that's exciting. Art History can be a little dry sometimes but I love our days in the Prado where we get to learn about the paintings as we're standing right in front of them. In flamenco I'm having a great time even though our numbers have dwindled as quite a few of the original people dropped the class last week. In two weeks people from now the GW Study Abroad office are coming to learn more about the program and we're supposed to perform for them. Word on the street is that the President of GW, Stephen Knapp, will also be on the trip but I'll hear the details at our meeting next week.

I've been trying to watch some more TV to practice my Spanish again. Sometimes I watch the news but it can get kind of boring because they repeat the same things like our wonderful 24-hour news cycle (there was a girl named Marta abducted and murdered weeks ago and that's all that I saw on the news for a long time) but I've tried to find some different sitcoms or dramas. Last night I caught a hospital show similar to ER which was kind of interesting.

Today my Art History professor had to leave class a little early and so in between that and flamenco a bunch of us went out for a drink. I enjoyed a nice glass of sangria (also called tinto verano meaning "summer red wine") for only 2.20 Euro, much cheaper than I've seen it at other places. In flamenco we're all almost confident doing our 3-part dance without our instructor Alejandra leading it in front of us. She had me, Edgar, and Ashley lead the group since she said we were the best, haha. Tonight Ashley and I are going to the Intercambio to practice our Spanish that I went to a few weeks ago by myself. Hopefully we find some interesting people to talk to.

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Photos

Dinner
Lentil soup with empanadillas. I still don't really know what's in them. Also, note the food trays. Patricia is all about them!

Comments

[Sarah]

Food Trays
My house mother was big on food trays too!! She used to put my breakfast out on one every single day!