After Madrid

So this post is pretty delayed, but I haven´t had much access to computers. Right now I´m writing from an internet cafe at the back of a grocery store.

Even though I´m in Oviedo now I thought I´d write about my adventures in Madrid first. Ava and I landed in Madrid at around 11 in the morning last Friday. From there we took about 45 minutes to navigate the underground Metro and find out Hostel. We stayed at Las Musas by the Tirsos de Molina Palazo. It´s a great hostel, really clean, just incase someone is looking for a good hostel in Madrid. Lot´s of the people we met who were backpackers said it was one of the best they had stayed in...which makes me slightly nervous about my backpacking after my study abroad program.

Anyway, Ava and I got next to no sleep on the plane ride over, but we were only going to be in Madrid for two days, so we decided to nix the sleeping and start exploring right after we checked into the hostel. First we just walked around to get the lay of the land. Later that day we went and poked around the Jardín Botanico Real. We were so exhausted at that point though that we had to take a little nap on some of the benches. I say a little nap, but it was really about an hour and a half. We didn´t even look like bums either because everyone else was doing it because it was during siesta.

Siesta is one of the most bizarre differences between the cultures that I´ve noticed so far. None of the shops open until around 10 or 11 in the morning, and then they´re only open til about 2:30. Then they close until six. Except the restaurants, those don´t open up again until 9 or 10 at night. So peoples´eating schedules are exceedingly bizarre. That´s taken some getting used to...

So, after our little nap in the gardens we went to explore the Prado Museo because we could get in for free at 6. I love classic art, but Ava didn´t seem all that impressed, plus we were still exhausted so we only looked around for about an hour and a half. We still saw most of the art though, I thought it was gorgeous, most of it was religious...a bunch of Catholic artists I suppose.

Then we tried to find something to eat, but once again we had to wait around until 9 to find an open restaurant. We ate tapas which are like mini apetizer type dishes that are very popular in Spain. I tried shark YUM!

The next day we woke up a little bit late (10:30ish) and went out to explore the city some more. Some of the girls we had met in the hostel from Australia told us they had gone to a flamenco show the night before, so we set out to buy tickets. First we stopped to have a better look around the Plaza Mayor. There´s a picture of it to the right. Then we went to this GIGANTIC store called Cortes Ingles in la Plaza del Sol which is pretty much like the Spanish version of Harrod´s in London. It was about 10 stories tall and we had to go almost to the top to buy our tickets for the flamenco show that night. Then we went and walked through a gorgeous pre-romanesque church. There was a sermon going on while we were there so we sat and tried to listen for a little bit...I have no idea what he was saying but I´d bet 5€ it was about Jesus :P.

We did a little more walking around the streets after that until around 2 when we headed to the Reina Sofia modern art museum (we could get in free at 2:30). While we waited to get in some awful dance group was trying to dance hip hop on the streets, so atleast we were entertained while we waited.

I loved the Reina Sofia. I was especially excited about the Dali and Picasso collections. I´d seen Picasso´s Guernica in a bunch of my Spanish text books, but it was way bigger than I had imagined it to be.

Then we returned to the hostel for a short siesta before our flamenco show that night. The flamenco was pretty decent, but we ended up getting tickets to the Flamenco Ballet...not exactly what I´d expected... After that we were wiped again and headed back to the hostel because we had to get up the next day and catch a bus to Oviedo to meet our host families.

I´ll stop writing now, and talk about Oviedo and my host family in another post. Anyway, this was a semi-condensed version of my adventures in Madrid the first two days of my trip. :)

Expectations for Spain

I can't really know what to expect when I reach Spain.  I'm certainly nervous to meet my host family, I hope we get along, and I'm definitely prepared to be thoroughly embarrassed by my terrible Spanish.  However, I hope that if I make an effort to communicate right from day one I'll improve enough to where I won't have to blush every other sentence.

As far as the people and the scenery goes I can only imagine what I've seen in pictures.  I expect to see fantastic architecture and historic art.  That's probably what I'm most excited for.  Here in the U.S. buildings are designed to only last 30 years before they're torn down and replaced.  It always amazes me when I tour old cathedrals and realize that they took hundreds of years to construct and that the intricate details put into the moldings and carvings will last hundreds more barring catastrophe.

Mostly I'm just excited to experience a new culture, try new food, and explore new places.  I can't say exactly what I expect because I thoroughly expect to see and learn things that I never could have imagined.  I'm nervous, excited, anxious, and most of all grateful for this opportunity to explore another country, I know that I'll learn a lot and hopefully improve my Spanish even more.