El martes we went to class and mostly did nothing. Tuesdays are pretty dull days here in Madrid. Not much to do except maybe shop (which we do a lot around here). However, another person from Carnegie Mellon arrived over the weekend so Tema and I decided to take him out for a walk or drink. His name is Cristian Young.I had heard of him before but had never really met him. He's a really cool guy (simpatico, si?). We went out and they had carpirinahs (not sure how to spell that actually....). Twas good.
El miercoles despues de clase visitamos el Museo de la Reina Sofia, un museo que esta repleto de arte contemporanea. Ahi hay varias obras de Dali, Miro, y Picasso. El mas famoso ahi es La Guernica por Picasso. Its huuuuuge. I've seen it in books and online before and I thought it was impressive then. But after seeing it in real life, and seeing how big it really is and all the strokes and colors, I must say it was amazing. Extremely moving,to say the least. What was interesting was that in the room next to it there were about 20 other paintings, or rather drawings of different variations of the Guernica. They were actually studies that Picasso did, experimenting with different colors and styles, shapes and figures. It was interesting to see how this piece progressed. For example,some of the earlier studies had lots of color in it, but the Guernica is completely in black,white, and grey hues. Apparently Picasso thought it more fitting and emotionally provoking to have it absent of any real color. Twas awesome.
I then spent another 3 hours walking through the floors. The top floor, the 4th, had some temporary exhibitions that were pretty interesting as well as some of Miro's later work (you know, the stuff with maybe one line and a dot and its supposed to be a bird in flight or something....). My favorite room though was were all the surrealist stuff was. Dali's paintings were amazing. I can't comprehend how he would think to paint some of those things. Some were pretty crazy. Just like all of Bunuel's films, craaaazy. Weird, crazy, but interesting all the same.
After the museum Tema and I hit up the Royal Botanical Jardins.There weren't as many flowers at you would think, they just got out of their cold season, but it was pretty over all. Huge garden with lots of fountains, statues, trees, flowers, kitties, it was peaceful and beautiful. However, it was so hot we decided to head back home.
After eating a delicious dinner and watching the latest Pasapalabra, we got ready and headed out into Sol to watch some Flamenco. The internets and Tema's book recommended this place called Cardamomo. Every other night they have live flameno (with two singers, two guitarists, a drummer, and two dancers). It was pretty pricey, but we got a glass of sangria and a front row table which allowed us to see all the action. I must say, it was so moving. I LOVED it.It was so amazing. Like WOW. We were so close to the stage we could see the sweat on the dancers' faces; the guy was sweating so much that when he turned the sweat went flying! Thank God he was turning away from us.....I sometimes thought they were going to break the floor because they were stomping so hard! I recommend everyone to go see it if they are ever in Spain. Its probably one of my favorite things I've done so far.
Anyway that's all for now. Thursday we really didn't do anything since we've gone out every night.
Hasta luego chicos!
Cristian was in my Spanish class freshman year. He talked about doing study abroad from like the first month of CMU. It's good to hear he finally got to.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I don't know if you saw the big glossy posters/flyers for the 40th season of the pittsburgh ballet, but one appeared in a back corner of the library, not hung up or anything, just kind of sitting there. Do you want me to grab it for you if it's still there next time I go?
I'm glad you're having fun and seeing all kinds of "wild and wonderful" things.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeees grab the poster for me! I´ll add it to my collection :)
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