Art of Darkness

This week has been another great one!

Yesterday, Rachel and I and some other people got Indian food!  It was great!  There was no ham in it at all!  Afterwards we took our sorry selves to the library of this art society and did our homework!  (I am writing rom there right now, as my internet is on the fritz)  It is not all fun and games here.  Except my hw was pretty ridiculous.  My language class is geared toward preschoolers, and so my ‘essay’ was to write about what I would do if I were invisible.  My answer included eating chocolate croissants, robbing a bank, tripping strangers, and stealing the homework of my enemies!   I would be a malicious Invisible Man. After hw time, we went up onto the terrace. 

The view of Madrid is spectacular! And how could we resist climbing something for a view! 

Friday night we went to our fave place, Casa de Cerveza, which was free!! (for me, because I had a coupon)  We attracted much attention by defiantly speaking English against the wishes of the stern ladybouncer.  Some Swedes and a kid from some state no one’s ever heard of joined our group.  The Swedes spoke better English (and Spanish and Swedish and God knows what else) than me.  The unfortunate truth is that I can now no longer speak English and I certainly can’t speak Spanish, soon I will have to resort back to my mime days:

I sent a post card to my mother describing the Thrown Room (Throne Room) of the Royal Palace.  On a related note, Rachel and I learned our first Spanish joke!  I tried to tell it to my madre, but she insisted that I was talking about tennis (really the joke is about Darth Vader).  Ok so here is the joke, it doesn’t translate well, or at all:  What does Darth Vader keep in his freezer?  Helado oscuro/el lado oscuro (ie. Dark chocolate ice cream, which is a homophone for the dark side).  Haha!

Speaking of the dark side, last night I must have accidentally turned the light for the kitchen on when I turned the hall light off.  Unfortunately the kitchen light bulb burned out.  This morning when I went to eat my breakfast I hit the switch and my madre slapped it right off again and yelled at me about something.  But, by the light of a desk lamp I saw that the ceiling was black and thought I started a fire on the ceiling! (the words bombillo(light bulb) and bombero(fireman) are quite similar)    The severity of a ceiling fire made sense with the amount of scolding that was happening.  I couldn’t imagine how I’d slept through a fire!  After a close study though, I realized that the ceiling was just dirty and not fire stained.  However, I am predicting an icy next few days between the Señora and myself.

On a happier note, Rachel and I and others went to a street fair, ate delish Mexican food for lunch, went to the Reina Sophia and topped it all off with frozen yogurt!  A splendid day!  Except that some parts of the Reina Sophia, a modern art museum housing lots of Picasso and Dali, were terrifying.   We saw Guernica, a piece by Picasso about the Spanish Civil War, and it was HUGE! Actually, the entire museum was huge, I will have to back many more times, although Rachel and I did decide we were more Prado people.

Here are Rachel and I in front of a seeming innocuous yet random piece of art.  After this picture was taken, the whole thing shook REALLY violently and I had to scramble out of the way, I almost died of heart failure.  However, most of the art was not violent or terrifying. 

Here we are as performance art. (Actually we are just waiting for the rest of the group)

We went out with the Swedes again last night for Mojitos, which was fun.  And today we went to El Rastro, an open-air market that is probably as big as my hometown.  There was so much stuff there.  Unfortunately I only have 5 Euros to last me until Tuesday so I did not buy anything.  Lunch was olives, bread, cheese, and CARAMELS from a Argentina Expo!!  YUM!

And here is a continuation of the list:

19.  Meals are much later here; this has become such a part of daily life that I don’t even notice it anymore.  Lunch is at about 2 and dinner is around 9 or 10.

20. TV shows are stranger (maybe this is because I can’t usually understand them.  Here are a few examples

a. Pasapalabra!  A crazy game show/ amalgamation of many games shows!  No one really understands it.  Rachel did get her first answer right though!! 

b. Los Clonos – A one man SNL.  This one man dressed up as everyone and imitates them.  I don’t think it is very funny, but the name is.

c. Also there is some obsession here with this woman Belen Esteban.  I think she was dating a bull fighter, had a kid and is now single.  Some (mostly her) are clamoring for her to be the next presidente.  She looks a bit like ET

21. The Spanish spoken here has a lisp built into it!  Cs and Zs and sometimes Ss are more like THs.  This is thilly! 

22. There are THE SCARIEST street performers here.  They startle me every time.  Here is the least scary, yet the most famous street performer we have found, Fat Spiderman.

Hasta la Vista,

Hilary