Weekend in Madrid!!

Written March 15th.

Wow, what a weekend. It was fraught with emotional turmoil and anxiety and even anger, but it was also incredible and provided me wonderful bonding time with some of my new friends here.

So this weekend I went to Madrid with my program. On Friday morning, we left (early, too) on the five hour bus ride to Madrid. I sat next to Katie and we napped and listened to music all the way. We stopped in Toledo for a tiny bit, which was fun for me because I’d already done all the sights, so I got to enjoy hearing about the history and taking random pictures. There were some adorable doggies there, and one of them hit me with his tail! I felt loved and special.

We got to Madrid in the late afternoon, and Katie and I took a nap before going out for dinner with some other girls. I forgot my camera, which was a bummer because we walked by the Palacio Real and the Plaza Mayor, both of which were really lovely by night. We found a nice little Italian place that gave us two free bottles of wine for the six of us, and we had delicious pizza and talked about boys and life and travel and all that fun stuff.

Saturday, we went inside the Palacio Real, which was SO beautiful. One of our teachers told me that there had been a king who really liked clocks (or something like that, can’t actually remember the story) and that there were a TON of awesome clocks, so I made a point of noticing them, and they were really spectacular. Tables that were clocks; sculpture clocks; globe clocks; massive clocks; tiny clocks; they were all beautiful and unique. THEN, we went into this room—and YOU GUYS—it had a full quartet of Stradivarius instruments!!! I was about to faint. They are SO beautiful, and my teacher says that really awesome professionals get to play them for the King and his family!!! I was in awe. SUCH beautiful instruments.

All the rooms in the Palacio Real were exquisite, and all very different. I loved one of the rooms that had pale blue silk on the walls… another was decorated with ceramic walls… another was a lovely dusty rose color with lovely dark wood accents… it was overwhelmingly lovely, but also kind of overly decadent. I kept thinking how I would have NO idea what to do with all that space if I were the queen! I’m looking forward to my wittle apartment this summer, I think it’ll be a relief after seeing that massive palace.

After seeing the palace, Katie and Luis and Russell and Jess and a few others (can’t really remember who) and I wandered around shopping for awhile. It was fun to look at clothes and shoes and stuff, but I wasn’t in the mood to buy anything, so I got bored with it fast. We had lunch, and then Katie and Alissa and I went to the modern art museum, the Reina Sofia, which I ADORED, although I’m not sure the others liked it as much as I did. I was fascinated by all the Dali and Picasso and… well, other artists as well, but I’m bad with names. Picasso’s “Guernica” is in this museum, and it was really moving to see it in person. The museum also has a lovely little sculpture garden-courtyard, which was fun to wander through. After seeing the museum, we walked up to the Parque de Retiro and wandered around enjoying the sunshine. We wanted to rent a rowboat for half an hour, but the line was too long, so we just took pictures of other people in rowboats instead. :P

I was pretty exhausted by the time we got back to our room, so I just showered and took a nap before dinner. Dinner was uneventful; we found a little cafetería with relatively cheap, decent food and made a fool of ourselves trying to pay (haha). THEN, we met up with the group and went to see a play!!!! It was SO GOOD. Ok, so maybe just me and Luis thought it was awesome; I think everyone else gave up trying to understand and fell asleep for the most part, but I LOVED it! It was “La Ratonera,” or “The Mousetrap” by Agatha Christy, and it had me on the edge of my seat—partly because I was trying so hard to understand, but mostly because it was really great. It was a murder mystery, and I had NO idea who the murderer was until the very end when he revealed himself. SO GOOD! And all the actors were pretty great, although one guy could have projected better and another kind of overdid some things that I thought didn’t need to be overdone. But that’s just me being elitist. :P Anyways, I was glad that I sat next to Luis, because he understood it perfectly (of course) and could explain things I missed, and also because he enjoyed it, too, and made me feel like less of a freak for getting so excited about it.

On Sunday, we went to the Museo del Prado, the main art museum which houses a lot of the works of Goya, Velazquez, El Greco, and many other important Spanish and foreign artists. I really loved the Flemish art wing, especially the seascapes, and also seeing Goya’s work transform over his life and into his Black Period—when he went kind of crazy and his paintings are ACTUALLY terrifying. The eyes he paints are the most simple yet expressive eyes I’ve ever seen… it was captivating. Of course, the “Meninas” was fabulous, but I actually preferred some other artist’s paintings of little girls (why can’t I remember his name??) which expressed a lot more interest, motion, and emotion to me. Ok, I’ll stop being an art snob now. :P

When we got exhausted from art overload, Katie, Luis, Russell, Mary and I went to lunch (I had a delicious sandwich) and then wandered around in the sunshine eating ice cream and enjoying Madrid. We ran into a mariachi band in the plaza Puerta del Sol, and Luis got really excited and it was very cute. :) Then, we kind of just window-shopped and chatted until it was time to go get on the bus to come back to Granada.

I’m sorry I can’t be more excited or expressive about these descriptions, but I’m still in a bit of a weird emotional place and it’s hard for me to get excited about this trip right now. It doesn’t help that I have a bit of a cold, and I always get grumpy and paranoid when I’m feeling under the weather. It WAS a wonderful weekend altogether, though, and I had some great bonding conversations with Russell (who reminds me of Heath a bit) and some really fun moments with Katie and Luis, so all in all, I feel good about how it turned out. Although in hindsight, I should have bought that scarf… ;)

I hope everyone I love had a fantastic weekend, and maybe one a little less tumultuous than mine. Tomorrow I’m going to see a Flamenco show, which I’m super excited about, so stay tuned to hear about that!

Pura vida,
Kelsey