Madrileño Weekend

Madrid's Plaza Mayor

Palacio Real--the Royal Palace

man playing water glasses. People actually do this!

Retiro Park

Lauren, Kristen, and I spending Sunday afternoon in the park

I have a few brief days at home before I head out on my next adventure—Thursday is St. Joseph’s Day, aka Father’s Day in Spain, so we get the day off from school! We only discovered this last week, but since that means we have a four day weekend, Kristen and I are heading out for Andalucia tomorrow afternoon. Also, one of my classes last week was cancelled because of a huge strike against the Bolonia Process. I don’t understand all of the details, but essentially the Bolonia Process/Resolution/I don’t know its real title is an attempt to unify and standardize Europe’s university system rather than have such a wide variety of systems for the various countries. Many (most?) Spanish university students and professors are adamantly and vocally opposed to these changes because they believe it will diminish the value of a Spanish university education and make getting a university degree more like a business endeavor than a learning experience. There are a lot more political complexities that I don’t really understand, but I just thought this was worth mentioning because the resistance against Bolonia is a HUGE part of student culture here; anti-Bolonia graffiti covers the bathroom walls, students pass out anti-Bolonia literature on street corners, and strikes get my classes cancelled. It’s by far the biggest student issue on campus. Anyway, now back to how we spent this past weekend in Madrid!

Kristen, Mary Kathryn, and I headed out for Madrid last Friday afternoon, MK to visit some friends who were going to be in Madrid for the weekend, and Kristen and I to see Lauren, who is studying there this semester. After our train got in, we parted ways with Mary Kathryn and went to our hostel. As soon as I stepped off the metro, I was in love with Madrid. The more cities I go to, the more convinced I am that I belong in one; I just love all the diversity and the excitement—and the metro system! We headed to our hostel and were surprised at check-in. The hostel seemed like it was an apartment that had been converted to a hostel: there were a few bedrooms with bunks, a communal living room and kitchen, and the “lobby” was a desk in the front room where the youngish guy who ran the place sat at a computer. It didn’t seem all that legitimate, and we were a little concerned about the situation. We were especially surprised by the fact that we were rooming with boys, which we did not expect when we reserved our bunks online. But we reminded ourselves that the hostel got good reviews and decided not to worry about it. It ended up being just fine; it was well run, and it kind of had a cozy feel to it. Two nights was definitely enough for me, though. After dropping our things at the hostel, Kristen and I spent the remainder of the afternoon at El Corte Inglés, a huge Madrid department store that has practically everything you could ever want to buy. We shopped for some books in English and some groceries, and then plopped down outside in Puerta del Sol to have a snack and people watch and wait for Lauren to get out of class. She met us there, and the three of us decided to see a movie before dinner. We went to a theater that shows films in their original language (somewhat difficult to find in Spain, which as a whole is more prone than other countries to dub films as opposed to using subtitles because dubbing films into Spanish was required under Franco) and saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was an absolutely incredible movie. Then we went out for a delicious Indian dinner (we had a theme going that night, with our Indian dinner and movie) in the Lavapiés district of Madrid, which is the bohemian/immigrant section of the city, like DC’s Adams Morgan. At dinner, we got to meet Lauren’s friend Maria, who goes to Loyola University in Chicago and is also studying in Madrid this semester. She was really nice and joined us for some of our adventures during the weekend.

I didn’t get much sleep that night because my stuffed-up nose had worsened and turned into a cough, making it impossible to breathe, and all the street noise didn’t help. I definitely still heard people partying at 6am, and was not surprised in the least, considering Madrid is supposedly the party capital of Europe. And it’s Spain—no one sleeps here. Saturday morning we bought some groceries and Kristen, Lauren, and I had a picnic breakfast in the Plaza Mayor. Since we didn’t have any utensils, we ended up dipping our bread into our jar of jam and getting incredibly sticky. It was fun. I must say, I like Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor better than Madrid’s; it’s more architecturally interesting with all of its stone arches, but Madrid’s was nice too. We enjoyed watching all the ridiculously and elaborately costumed street performers roaming around the Plaza—they pop up all over the city to amuse the tourists—and listening to the itinerant musicians. After breakfast we walked to the Royal Palace, which according to my guidebook (or, as Kristen and Lauren know, my frequently-referenced Bible of Spain) is the third-greatest palace in Europe, after Versailles and Vienna’s Schonbrunn. After touring the palace, we walked to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which has paintings by famous and not-so-famous artists. We had a snack in the museum café and then spent a couple of hours touring the museum. The paintings were arranged chronologically and followed more or less the same progression that we followed in my Renaissance to Modern Art history class last fall, so I enjoyed being able to identify all the various styles and some of the artists as well. After the museum we had a late lunch (even by Spanish standards—4pm) at a Thai restaurant. I knew I was tired of Spanish food, but I didn’t realize how tired until I was able to have so many other types of cuisine. It was so nice to be able to choose any kind of food I wanted for the weekend! Salamanca just doesn’t have that kind of ethnic diversity; other than Spanish, all we have, more or less, are pizza places and cheap Mexican and Chinese restaurants. After lunch we hit the Prado, which I was really excited for. As I said in my last post, a lot of really famous paintings by really famous artists, many of which I studied in art history, are housed in the Prado, the most notable of which is probably Velázquez’s Las Meninas. I had fun roaming around looking at more art, and we stayed until closing time. Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the Reina Sofia museum, where Picasso’s Guernica is, but we’re planning on squeezing in a couple more days in Madrid before we come home in June, so we can always see it then. After our museums we did a bit more shopping—Kristen and I stocked up on guidebooks for our upcoming trips—and went out for an Italian dinner at a cute little mom-and-pop Italian restaurant. On the way home we got to take a peak at Lauren’s host family’s apartment, which is beautiful and way nicer than my apartment! We had wanted to go out to the clubs on Saturday night, but I was still feeling sick and we were exhausted from all of our walking and touring, so we called it a night (but seeing as we finished dinner around 11:30 or so, then had to get home, it certainly wasn’t all that early). We’re planning on taking advantage of the Madrid club scene when we go back in June.

Sunday morning we went to El Rastro, which is apparently Europe’s biggest flea market. There were rows and rows of stalls lining multiple streets, lined with everything from typical market goods like scarves, jewelry, and bags to random things like army gas masks. Yes, you can buy a gas mask at El Rastro. I stuck to just buying a couple of pretty Spanish fans. After the fair we bought some pastries and coffee and had brunch in the Plaza Mayor. The best thing to do on a warm Sunday in Spain is to sit in the Plaza and watch all the people stroll by, and it was so nice to sit in the shade with my friends and do just that. After checking out of our hostel, we whiled away the end of our time in Madrid in Retiro Park, a huge grassy park that was filled with Madrileños enjoying the sunny weather. We eventually had to tear ourselves away from the sun, and Lauren took us to the train station to head home to Salamanca. I didn’t want to think about coming home and returning to class, but I only have three days between Madrid and Andalucia, so it’s not that bad.

I had a couple of French roommates last weekend, two 14 year old girls. They were the epitome of silly little girls: they didn’t speak Spanish very well, so they mostly just giggled in French a lot. They were sweet girls, though. This week’s roommates are two boys from Italy, about 17 years old. They speak Spanish better than any of my previous roommates, and I think maybe better than me too!