With not much work done on spring break, it was a hectic week to get back to school..and hard to head back to the campus in Getafe. On Thursday I did have a nice lunch with Natalia, at a place they recently introduced to Madrid from Barcelona..which is a fresh salad bar. It's so hard to find places here that serve veggies and salad (rather than the usual Spanish meal that constitutes some combination of bread, ham, egg, potato, sausage, and oil). That night a Spanish friend took me to some trendy bars by Alonso Martinez and Malasaña, and we ended up at this really cool underground, hippy (but pretty smoky) rocker bar called the Via Láctea that had been around since my host dad's bar hopping days. Apparently it was the hang out place during La Movida, and it still has most of the same movie and concert posters around. On Friday I met up with Natalia and some of her friends to go to a rock concert of a friend's band at a small venue outside the city center. It was really fun to get out of the usual environment, listen to some local music and see a part of the city I would have never known about if I looked on my own. The music was alternative rock/indie, but the cover band before played popular Spanish songs so I got a taste of the music style here. On Sunday, after a good meal (outside in the backyard!! the weather is amazing) with the fam, I got to hang out with an old friend from high school who was visiting Spain with her mom. It was strange to play the role of tour guide for the afternoon, since I still feel I'm getting to know the city myself. But I did show them some parts of the city they hadn't seen and we topped off the afternoon by walking around La Latina.
Monday afternoon when coming home I got to see the infanta (princess) driving off from her house, followed by the flashes of paparazzi on motorcycles and cars! It was so surreal, and a reminder of how lucky I am to be here living in Madrid. I still feel some days it hasn't quite hit me that I am here living my study abroad life. I guess I won't fully understand it until I get back, but I'm still always amazed looking around the city and eavesdropping Spanish conversations on the street or metro that I am actually living my Madrid experience.
After a long schoolweek, I met up with a friend for stroll around the park by my house, and that night went to an Erasmus event. It started out slow, but after running into people we had met last time ended up at Cafe Madrid, which holds Thursday intercambio nights with people from all over the world. I actually randomly met people there who had gone to my rival Mt. Carmel High School in San Diego! It's amazing how small of a world it is! I liked the atmosphere of Cafe Madrid, and hope to go back to get some more Spanish convo in. We hung out with a really friendly girl from Valencia, who I hope to run into while I'm there soon. The night did end on a bad note though, when Kim and I started on our way home and saw two guys running off in one direction. We looked over and saw a guy sprawled out on the floor, muttering and rubbing his head. Sadly our reaction times weren't fast enough but when we got to the guy it turns out he had been mugged and pushed against the wall. It turns out that he was a drunk French tourist about our age, so we got translation help from people from the intercambio..It definitely put a dampener on the evening, as I had never really felt unsafe before in Madrid. It definitely reminded me I need to be on guard! Until now, most of the time when walking home around my neighborhood or other areas of the city late at night, the only people on the street, who aren't there to go out, are street cleaners doing the daily wash of the sidewalks. It's no wonder Madrid is so clean! It seems like every night there is a massive city cleanup. Friday art class brought me back to the Prado for some more Ribera, Murillo and Velázquez and homeworking in the afternoon. The reward: a great evening performance of Swan Lake by the visiting Moscow ballet company! I went with some good friends and had a great time getting dressed up and seeing a performance in the city. The dancing and costumes were beautiful, and it's no wonder Swan Lake is one of the most famous ballets.
On Saturday I did a nice day trip with Janice to Segovia. It's a small town about an hour and a half by train, known for it's huge Roman aqueduct still intact and built without mortar! The town also has a beautiful Alcazar, with a real moat, that actually was inspiration for the castle in Disneyland/Sleeping Beauty. We breezed through the city's history museum, built in the old Jewish quarter, and headed back to Madrid. (I didn't dare try the Segovia specialty of some pork dish that might have involved seeing it cooked whole on a spit). After more homeworking Sunday, I got to go to an Atletico Madrid game, for my first Spanish soccer experience!! Within Madrid there are two rival soccer teams: Atletico Madrid, apparently "the people's team;" and Real Madrid, which better funded and is supposedly more elitist. I've been told it's like Manchester United and Man City? Well my amigo Mateo, a hardcore Atletico fan, took Janice and I to the game against the not-so-great team Almeria. The stadium is huge and part of it actually goes over the freeway! The energy was high with people dressed up with jerseys and scarfs and flags, etc chanting and singing all around. We had seats high up but I still had a great time. It was a ridiculously high scoring game..Atletico won 6-3! Within the first 10 minutes there had already been 2 goals, and a red card. At one point the Ultras, the crazy right wing fans sitting at the section across the way, even started a small fire in the stands. It wasn't the best quality soccer I have seen, but an amazing experience. I really hope I get to go to a Real Madrid game to compare before I decide where my loyalties lie. On the way home, as Janice was passed out on the backseat from running a half-marathon that morning, Mateo gave us a driving tour around the city to see Plaza San Francisco, the other Santiago Berbaneu stadium and a view of the financial district with the Picasso Tower and 2 leaning skyscrapers. Overall it was an amazing action-packed weekend!
Monday afternoon when coming home I got to see the infanta (princess) driving off from her house, followed by the flashes of paparazzi on motorcycles and cars! It was so surreal, and a reminder of how lucky I am to be here living in Madrid. I still feel some days it hasn't quite hit me that I am here living my study abroad life. I guess I won't fully understand it until I get back, but I'm still always amazed looking around the city and eavesdropping Spanish conversations on the street or metro that I am actually living my Madrid experience.
After a long schoolweek, I met up with a friend for stroll around the park by my house, and that night went to an Erasmus event. It started out slow, but after running into people we had met last time ended up at Cafe Madrid, which holds Thursday intercambio nights with people from all over the world. I actually randomly met people there who had gone to my rival Mt. Carmel High School in San Diego! It's amazing how small of a world it is! I liked the atmosphere of Cafe Madrid, and hope to go back to get some more Spanish convo in. We hung out with a really friendly girl from Valencia, who I hope to run into while I'm there soon. The night did end on a bad note though, when Kim and I started on our way home and saw two guys running off in one direction. We looked over and saw a guy sprawled out on the floor, muttering and rubbing his head. Sadly our reaction times weren't fast enough but when we got to the guy it turns out he had been mugged and pushed against the wall. It turns out that he was a drunk French tourist about our age, so we got translation help from people from the intercambio..It definitely put a dampener on the evening, as I had never really felt unsafe before in Madrid. It definitely reminded me I need to be on guard! Until now, most of the time when walking home around my neighborhood or other areas of the city late at night, the only people on the street, who aren't there to go out, are street cleaners doing the daily wash of the sidewalks. It's no wonder Madrid is so clean! It seems like every night there is a massive city cleanup. Friday art class brought me back to the Prado for some more Ribera, Murillo and Velázquez and homeworking in the afternoon. The reward: a great evening performance of Swan Lake by the visiting Moscow ballet company! I went with some good friends and had a great time getting dressed up and seeing a performance in the city. The dancing and costumes were beautiful, and it's no wonder Swan Lake is one of the most famous ballets.
On Saturday I did a nice day trip with Janice to Segovia. It's a small town about an hour and a half by train, known for it's huge Roman aqueduct still intact and built without mortar! The town also has a beautiful Alcazar, with a real moat, that actually was inspiration for the castle in Disneyland/Sleeping Beauty. We breezed through the city's history museum, built in the old Jewish quarter, and headed back to Madrid. (I didn't dare try the Segovia specialty of some pork dish that might have involved seeing it cooked whole on a spit). After more homeworking Sunday, I got to go to an Atletico Madrid game, for my first Spanish soccer experience!! Within Madrid there are two rival soccer teams: Atletico Madrid, apparently "the people's team;" and Real Madrid, which better funded and is supposedly more elitist. I've been told it's like Manchester United and Man City? Well my amigo Mateo, a hardcore Atletico fan, took Janice and I to the game against the not-so-great team Almeria. The stadium is huge and part of it actually goes over the freeway! The energy was high with people dressed up with jerseys and scarfs and flags, etc chanting and singing all around. We had seats high up but I still had a great time. It was a ridiculously high scoring game..Atletico won 6-3! Within the first 10 minutes there had already been 2 goals, and a red card. At one point the Ultras, the crazy right wing fans sitting at the section across the way, even started a small fire in the stands. It wasn't the best quality soccer I have seen, but an amazing experience. I really hope I get to go to a Real Madrid game to compare before I decide where my loyalties lie. On the way home, as Janice was passed out on the backseat from running a half-marathon that morning, Mateo gave us a driving tour around the city to see Plaza San Francisco, the other Santiago Berbaneu stadium and a view of the financial district with the Picasso Tower and 2 leaning skyscrapers. Overall it was an amazing action-packed weekend!
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