Madrid

It was a blast. My second time into Spain did not disappoint. The first thing you notice there is that people have a different attitude (at least different from France). Everyone is relaxed and happy. The good weather also helped.


We left Paris Beauvais airport when it was still dark. We flew RyanAir, which has gotten mixed reviews, but I thought it was fine. The plane was a new boeing 737, no less than you'd expect from a major airline. I slept through the flight.


When we got to Madrid we checked into our great hostel. It had lockers in the rooms for no charge, included breakfast, clean towels to rent for the shower, and the concierge was especially helpful. After checking in, we went to the nearby Plaza Mayor to eat lunch. It's a big open square surrounded by an old building. There are performers all over Madrid, and this square is no exception. There are performers in costumes, caked in mud standing completely still until you throw a coin in their jar to make them move, violinists and cellists, people playing wine glass rims (picture like 50 glasses filled with different levels of water, performer playing chords and complex melodies like it was any other intstrument). Very cool.


After lunch of spanish meatballs and sangria at Plaza Mayor, we wandered the city and saw some other pretty buildings. The next big thing was the Cathedral, which seems somewhat modern. It was very impressive though, which very high ceilings and colorful paintings everywhere. There was a really impressive shrine to the Virgin Mary that was so decked out in gold and silver you almost have to look away.


We then tried our luck at the Royal Palace, Plaza Réal, but it was closed for some kind of holiday. Eddy told us the inside is fantastic. We'll never know....sad. Cool location though, it overlooks the lower hills outside of Madrid. Good view.


We saw some gardens after that, but we were running on so little sleep that we just had to head back to the hostel and crash for a couple hours. When we got up, we joined a Tapas crawl organized by a company whose job it is to get hostels good online reviews. They did good work, because our guide (for no charge) took us to great tapas bars. In Madrid, a small tapas plate comes with every drink. So snacking and drinking go hand in hand and a great night out is surprisingly inexpensive. We went to some bars on our own afterwards and got a feel for the local nightlife.

The next day we walked down Gran Via, the "Michigan Avenue" of Spain. Pretty cool, lots of shops and offices. At the end there is a pretty government building with a famous fountain in front of it. It features a chariot drawn by lions. It's supposed to be better at night, but I thought it was cool in the day too. Then we saw an old gate to the city that was a little reminiscent of the Arc de Triomph, only smaller. Then we strolled through the Park called "Retiro", which is HUGE. we rowed around in little rowboats on a pond in the park. That was nice except that it rained on us. It was really fun though!

Next stop was the modern art museum called La Reina Sofia. There was some cool cubist stuff there, and a lot of things from the World War I and II years. We saw their most famous piece, Picasso's "Guernica." It was interesting...

I enjoyed the modern art more than I thought I would though. Then we went to the Prado Museum, which is more of the old art. Lots of good religious artwork there. Also some of the famous portraits of "El Greco," and Goya's black paintings. Although it was a relatively quick stop to the Prado (since we had had a long day already), I took a lot from it. I realized how much I am really learning by travelling. Being exposed to all of the art and history really adds another layer to anyone's experience. I feel much more able to talk intelligently about art now.

After some food, we decided to take up Eddy's advice to see a Flamenco show. We tried to have our Concierge book one of the better ones in town, but it was already full. So, we found this 15 Euro show that started in 30 minutes. We got our tickets and we were like... "well, this show might not be as good. It would be better if we had been drinking though." And so, we decided to go around the corner to a bar and down three Sangria's apiece before the show. It was hilarious. Mind you, this is in about 20 minutes. Gulping lip-staining red Sangria and shoveling complementary tapas into our mouths certainly didn't make us stick out like a sore american thumb...at least we were embracing the culture! And we had a Flamenco show to get to!!!

The show was good. I liked it. It lasted about one hour and there was a lot of energy put into the performance. I also realized something absolutely central to the whole spanish...thing. Spain is all about a balance between hard and soft. In a bullfight, the grace and tact of the mateador is juxtaposed against the raw, uncontrollable power of the bull. In Flamenco, the furious and energetic power of shoes hitting against wood floors is countered by the graceful and relaxed arm and torso movements. Seeing hard and soft, power and grace in one coordinated package is very cool, and is probably hard to pull off for the performers. It's very Spanish, from what I've seen.

Since our shuttle was arriving at 3:15 am that night, we decided to save some money and not stay at the hostel that night, but instead stay out. We went to a club called Kapital, on the concierge's recommendation. It was 7 stories! This one club! Lots of bars and lounges with different themes were inside. The main dance floor on the lower level, however, was the highlight. Good music, good sound system, 2 free drinks with the cover. Every once in a while, and very unexpectedly I might add, this jet of cool, damp air would spray at fire-hose speed over the whole dancing group, who unfailingly greeted it with cheers. It wasn't wet, but it wasn't dry. It was more like a cloud machine. It really did take you by surprise, but it would fire when the excitement of the music peaked. It was such a thorough spray that you couldn't even see the people next to you while it was going.

After that, we caught our shuttle to the airport to get back to Paris. We were back home before 8:30 am. Exhausting to say the least. I think we jam-packed about as much as we possibly could into two short days in Madrid. Spain is great though. Definitely worth the trek.

And now, after a miniature week of classes (one cancelled, skipping one) I will be leaving for Charles de Gaulle airport in 5 hours to catch my plane to Vienna. Here's my itinerary for the trip:

Vienna : 3 days, bus to
Prague: 3 days, train to
Berlin: 2 days, fly back home to
Paris

It's gonna be a blast. I'll have my computer, and our hostels have wireless, so hopefully I can get a blog entry or two in at some point. And now I'm going to read about Vienna so I know what I want to visit!