Madrid!

What did you do this weekend? I hopped a short flight and checked out Madrid. This seems tough to beat. Here is a brief run-down on what went on:

Saturday: got up, went to campus, caught National Express to Heathrow (the trains like, don't go there), flew to Spain, was flabergasted by the Madrid airport, which is quite possibly the largest thing I have ever seen in all my life (including Grand Canyon and all kinds of mountains). You basically get off your plane, walk for two miles with no one around, find a guy at a desk who checks your passport, walk two more miles and hope your suitcase shows up, walk another mile to get on subway. Anyways, took subway to place we were staying, walked past place we were staying as didn't see entrance, and magically found Kari and Coco in our nearby plaza. Had an agua and checked out Plaza del Sol (which sadly was partially being constructed on), did a bit of shopping, sat around outside the Palacio Real, had some mandatorily late dinner, walked around a bit more and saw the happening night life plaza (Santa Ana) and saw a man twirling sticks of fire in another (Chueca). Learned that fire baton twirling is evidently a good ab workout.

Sunday: wandered streets looking for food. Finally got some jamon and cafe con leche, went to the modern art museum to see Picasso's Guernica ('the greatest painting of the 20th century'). Sunday was free entry day, but even other days it's rather cheap. Then we went to the Jardin by the Prado to look at some greenery and catch some rays, and earn some brownie points with the matron (we paid 2 entire euros to see plants, aren't you proud, Mom?). We then went to the Prado, again for free, to see priceless works of art. We totally scored by waiting until after lunch, as the line in the morning time was half the length of the building, and when we went it was about ten people. We didn't spend too much time at the Prado because all of the painting explanations were in Spanish, although I did spend some time trying to figure out who all the scary in-bred Spanish royals were (so first she married her cousin, then her uncle, but, as Kari stated, most importantly, what is up with her hair?). So we mainly tried to look at the Spanish stuff, which was a lot of Velazquez and Goya, and was lucky enough to include what 'may' be the greatest painting of the 17th century, which was one of the Velazquez deals. How often do you get to see the greatest paintings of two different centuries in one day? For FREE? Uhh, then we went to Plaza Mayor and tried to go to Zara but it was closed, so we sat at a sidewalk cafe for hours on end and had a Spanish sangria, found another place that had a beer tap built into the table which was ideal, but it was the end of the keg and was foamy and then ran out. Oh, had dinner at a place Hemingway apparently frequented, had some ice cream at fancy dessert place.

Monday: breakfast with Kari and Coco before they departed for the airport. Did a bit of shopping then went to the really, really big park in Madrid, then went to airport myself. Made it back into the country without incident (they even had two lines at customs for non-EU people, one of which was for visa holders, go me), even got on the earlier bus and got back to campus shortly after ten.

So what did I think of Madrid? Lots of cute buildings with cute wrought iron pseudo-balconies, lots of people wearing red, lots of stuff going on late at night, some neat museums and nice plazas and such. Although I'm not sure if I would spend much longer there than I did. But if you dig the 'doesn't open until midnight' nightlife, you may rather enjoy. Oh, and be prepared to eat a lot of jamon. By the way, the picture is 'blue steel'. We were going to go have magnum (ice cream bar), but as we all know, blue steel came first. The Prado is behind us.