The Ruffians go to the Races...and the Prado

A lot of the people on our program went on a trip to a city called Salamanca this weekend, but Hilary and I decided to stay home and enjoy Madrid along with a bunch of our friends. I went to the Prado art museum for the first time- on Friday and again on Sunday. It is INCREDIBLE.

front entrance

I know surprisingly little about art, have never studied it, and usually am not very good at appreciating it, but I was so impressed by the Prado. I honestly can't wait to go back again. On Friday, we only had enough time/energy to explore the first floor (planta baja- because of course in Spain the second floor is actually called Floor 1 and the bottom floor is Floor 0...) Spanish painters are very cool. My two favorite things from the planta baja are:
1. A sculpture of a veiled woman (Isabel II). I found this picture online because photography was not allowed in the museum, but I'm not sure if it does it justice. The veil and all of her facial features are carved out of stone. incredible. I have no idea how he made it look layered/like the veil is covering her face like that.

2. Goya. I knew very little about Goya going into the museum, but the Goya rooms were seriously impressive. The first paintings of his were fairly typical of the time period and, although beautiful, didn't particularly stand out to me, but then we walked into an entire room of his "Pinturas Negras" (dark paintings)...so awesome, and such a dramatic contrast. Goya had a very dark, insane side and was able to express it beautifully, which was incredible to me. Example, "Saturno devorando a su hijo"- Saturn Eating his Son:

This might just look a little silly out of context, but it's pretty incredible and scary in person.

We went back to the Prado on Sunday because a special exhibit called Turner and the Masters ("Turner y los Maestros") was closing that day and we wanted to see it. It was about how this guy Turner (probably a famous artist that I don't know anything about) copied the styles of all these other famous artists to learn how to be a good painter. I didn't like it very much because it just showed the master's painting side-by-side with Turner's copy of it, and you'd be like: "Well yeah, the master's painting is so much better than the copycat's," which seemed redundant. It was worth going to because the art was good, but not the best exhibit.

On Saturday, between Prado excursions, a bunch of us ate lunch at the Mercado de San Miguel, which is a very cool indoor market with all kinds of prepared foods. We had Mexican food, a very exciting change. It was PACKED inside:



No space to walk and explore the different types of food, but definitely worth it because the Mexican was delicious. We got riquísimo cake for dessert. I had something called panda bear cake ("torta del oso panda") that was amazing and looked like this:

We ended our weekend late Sunday afternoon with la Vuelta a España, the Spanish version of the Tour de France. The race ended right in the middle of Madrid, so we went to see it. Watching cyclists zoom around the streets of Madrid a bunch of times is actually really fun.
 

Friday and Saturday night, between all of these adventures, we had fairly low-key nights at various bars after Staqui's crazy birthday night/car chase escapade on Thursday (see Hilary's previous blog entry). On Saturday we discovered a place that charged American girls 5 euro for an open bar (aka all-you-can-drink sangria). Very good deal. The bouncer, a less than threatening middle-aged woman, berated us when we spoke in English because she said she hates it when foreigners come into her bar and don't speak Spanish, but besides that we had a good time.

My classes have been going well this week, although I still don't understand what many of the assignments are because the syllabuses are much much less specific than American ones. My favorite class so far has been my Spanish language class. After about four class periods it already has been more useful than any other Spanish class I've ever taken. We've been focusing on conversational Spanish and correcting the common mistakes we make over and over so we sound less ridiculous when we speak and can have a normal conversation without constantly second-guessing ourselves. I am very appreciative of this. Today we started going over the subjunctive tense, which is a nightmare for most (if not all?) American Spanish-language students. Our teacher made us put our pens down and think about verb tenses spacially...her explanation actually made a lot of sense. I'm excited to finally learn how to use the subjunctive tense after being confused by it every year in high school and feeling proud of myself at Vassar for throwing the occasional "sea" into my papers (probably incorrectly).

Host family is still going well too. Although last night at dinner my host mom asked me if I would like some cheese, and, thinking she had asked me if I like cheese, I answered, "Sí, sí!" very energetically. She brought out a whole plate of cut-up cheese for me. I obviously had to eat some of it, so I ate 4 pieces, but no one else was eating it. Then today for dinner she brought out the rest of the cheese (same plate, plastic wrapped) and set it in front of me again. I ate a few more pieces, but I seriously hope I do not have to finish all of that cheese by myself. Language miscommunications are still a very common part of my day.

Hasta la vista,

Raquel