Días de Madrid

Days 2 and 3 in la capital

Only in Spain can you come home to your granpa's house at 4:00 a.m., wake
up the next day at noon, and he won't start to worry about you and
your partying habits. We dragged ourselves out of bed and into the
breakfast room. Madrid was waiting.


Took some photos of Abuelo Manolo's apartment. The second you walked in you could smell that wonderful, old house smell. When I was little I used to go play at Lincoln Fergusson's house. It had the same wonderful, old smell. I thought of Lincoln's house every time we entered the apartment.

These are all different angles of the first room you walked into.



The plan for the day was pretty relaxed. Lillie wanted to go to a
Marc Jacobs(I know, ¿who?) store, and all I knew was at some point I wanted to go
to this other art museum. We weren't lookin to stress ourselves out and overdo the tourist thing.

We walked to a big shopping street, Calle Serranos.



It was a lovely day in Madrid. I used sunscreen for the
first time in Spain.



Passed by the U.S. Embassy



We love you America


And we still love you too España.


This flag was actually really huge. But you can't tell now.


Basically our day was lots of walking and stopping in a few stores (all without air conditioning.) We grabbed a healthy lunch of wraps and fruits then headed back to Abuelo's. We were going to a flamenco ballet show at 7:00 and we wanted plenty of time to get ready and get there without having to hoof it/work up a big sweat.


Back at Abuelo's... in Lillie's and my room.
Here's Lillie and her bed


Mateo on my bed.

The rooms in this place were great. The apartment has been in Matt's family for lots of years. His mother and her siblings grew up here. There are still posters on the walls and jewelry in boxes from when they were little.

We rested for a very little while, Lillie bandaged her blisters up, and we loved on Igor (Abuelo's dog)


Lillie and I have been in pet withdrawal. So we smothered this puppy dog with rubs and scratches.


Problem again: my clothes. All I had was a sweater dress. Not
happening. Lillie had a skirt, I had a black tanktop (ok,it was the same one
from the night before) and some boots. It matched. It wasn't sweater.
It worked.


Heading to the show.
Just wanted to document here that Lillie had to use the lower handrails on the metro.


The ballet/flamenco show was great. It had a lot of flamenco but also other Spanish dances like "La Jota" ... which was a dance with tons of jumping. I can now say I have seen great flamenco and realize why the other two shows I saw were crap. Thank you, Matt.

Pictures with the stage after the show.



Maracas in a souvenir store. Matt was disgusted.
Maracas are not Spanish.


We came back to Abuelo's after the show, excited about dining in and getting to bed early.
Matt's aunt was making us dinner.

Lillie and I, wondering why America looks strange on the globe


Oh, that's why. Fake globe. A flobe.


We sat down to a Spanish dinner: Spanish tortilla (like a egg and potato pie), salad, and pizza (ok, not a completely Spanish dinner)...either way, it was delicious. But what made it perfect was this right here:

Abuelo Manolo came in and started telling stories. I believe he was telling a story about one time when he and his brothers had a pillow fight. But he didn't get in trouble because he was the youngest...el más pequeño.

Tell us more Abuelo.
He had us completely spellbound...clearly.


Igor came to visit as well. They muzzled him because he will grab any object within reach of his snout ...food, clothes, anything. Whenever we left or entered a room we had to close and lock the door to keep Igor out.

We finished eating around 11 something (we had started at 10:30), checked email on the slow internet, then went to bed. Couldn't wait for bed.


Day 3: Reina Sofia

We had gone to bed saying we might try to go to this market Sunday morning. Matt popped his head in our room around 9ish and we all agreed to go back to sleep. No market.
Lillie, "I can't move right now."
Me neither.
I felt like someone had dropped rocks on me all night. We were so done.
We got up later and went to the modern art museum, La Reina Sofia (Queen Sofia)



The main artists I wanted to see were Picasso and Dalí. The entire time we were at the Dalí museum in Barcelona our guide kept saying, "But that painting is in the Reina Sofia in Madrid."
Obviously we had to see some Dalí.

Here's some Picasso


"Bust and Palette" also Picasso


We got really excited when we found this picture of a plaza in Valencia (La Plaza de la Reina) but from the 50's.


Occasionally they had some videos for you to watch.. you know.. Modern.


Photo of Dalí and García Lorca (writer)... Hi! I've studied both of you! Actually took a class dedicated solely to Lorca in college. Sorry, Lorca. I didn't understand any of your poetry.
Dang.. can't remember which one was which right now. I think Dalí is on the right.


By Lorca for Dalí


Some Dalí paintings



I tried my best to apply what I had learned in Barcelona to these paintings. Saw a few swirls (perfections symbol) but other than that.. Dalí is too obscure.


Still like him though.


Look who's creeping out from the right side of the painting
Gala the wifey.


And the main thing I wanted to see..... Guernica!
By Picasso
Showing the horror of when a Spanish town was bombed (basically for target practice) by the Germans... This is information a Spanish major (aka ME) should've known, but it's been a while. I know it was something like that... war... death.. etc.
But Matt refreshed my memory.
Thanks again. He taught us so much.

Technically, we weren't supposed to take pictures of Guernica. But you could take pictures of everything else in the museum so people didn't realize it. And those that did, didn't care. The only thing that happened when you took a picture was two women guards just yelled a little. So I snuck one...well, three.
However, some terrible people (NOT me) were using the flash... tacky.

Then there was a room with all Picasso's sketches he did when working on Guernica.





Back to the apartment to eat lunch (Burger King again) and grab out stuff.

Kitchen





Hallway

We two-sided-cheek kissed Matt's abuelo, aunt, and cousin goodbye then went to catch our bus.
And that was Madrid.

I feel like I enjoyed it as much as I could at this point in my travels. But after Madrid, I can safely say I do NOT want to go to anymore countries for a few months (besides AMERICA!). Unfortunately, any place I see right now I won't be able to FULLY enjoy like I would if I were well rested. This was the main reason Amsterdam wasn't that incredible. I'm traveled out. It was like Ignacio warned us in Granada, "You have seen so many amazing things...the next thing won't be as amazing as it should be to you...but don't let it be. Still be amazed." As much as you'd like for things to still wow you, at some point they just aren't gonna...you've seen so much.. and that is what has happened to me. That's when you know you need a break. So perfect timing. The end is near.