rey de tormentas/rey de hamburguesas

I named this post "Storm King/Burger King" because this weekend I experienced many sides of Spanish culture both highbrow and somewhat scuzzy (o, "cutre). Here's a resumen con fotos!

Thursday -- met some friends in Parque Retiro to share a bottle of wine and conversation after classes. We wandered around the park for a while - it's huge! and gorgeous! - and found the "Palacio de Vidrio" which looks like a large version of the summerhouse from the "I am 16 going on 17" scene of "The Sound of Music". That night my friend Emma and I had a mini-bar-crawl of two, meaning that we walked around a new neighborhood and checked out the bars. Our favorite was a cute cidreria (cider bar) with very kind bartenders who gave us bread with weird cheese, gratis! After that we met up with the big group and went to a big discoteca, Palacio, and danced until 4 a.m.

Friday -- went to the Reina Sofia art gallery with some friends. The Prado and the Reina Sofia are Madrid's most famous museums for classic and contemporary art, respectively. I used to drag my feet/make fun of modern art but lately I've found it very interesting albeit confusing. I think that the artists fascinate me almost more than their art. It's amazing that someone can be so creative and strong in their convictions as to take something completely new or mundane and call it art. I was especially taken with one painting that showed a collage of nonexistent objects and shapes. I can't even describe it adequately because every single one of the images was a nonentity. That kind of creativity blows my mind. After the museum we went to a nice plaza nearby and had a coffee and listened to street musicians: 

sculpture in the courtyard at Reina Sofia 

friends at a cafe- sarah, hillary, ellie, carlitos

que ambiance!

Friday night we had a "noche femenina" or girl's night out. About 15 of us went to a cafe/bar to see a performance of "flamenco intima." There was a man playing the guitar, a woman singer, and two dancers who performed several "pasos" of flamenco for an audience of maybe 25 people.

Saturday -- Woke up early and took a hour-long bus ride to Segovia with two friends for the day. We saw the Alcazar, the Cathedral, the Aqueduct and other historic sights. Segovia is campaigning to be named as a European Capital of Culture in 2016, so there were flyers and signs everywhere. We also took a short bus ride from Segovia to La Granja, a royal palace built by Philip V in 1721. It is often called "The Versailles of Spain" or the "Little Versailles." We spent a few hours walking in the gardens and seeing the beautiful fountains and outbuildings. 

in front of the aqueduct with emma 

catedral de santa maría

julia hangin out in front of the alcázar

pequeña versailles

el jardín -- qué bonito!

We got back to Madrid by 8-ish p.m. After a brief rest, we went out with our Spanish guides/friends. I think I've talked about this before, but in Spain everyone is broke and bars are expensive, so young people "botellón" aka drink in the streets/public places. We all B.O.O. (brought our own) and went to a plaza in the Tribunal district that was so full of people botellón-ing that you couldn't see a patch of  free ground anywhere. Botellón is illegal and at one point there were police in the vicinity. In a massive yet coordinated wave EVERYONE stood up, picked up their drinks, and peaced out. If you've ever seen vendors in Chinatown hastily retract their bootleg videos and knock-off purses, it was rather like that. I was pretty impressed, to tell the truth. We relocated to another plaza and continued our botellón until nearly 2 a.m., at which point we went to a club/bar called El Barco. We took the metro home at 6:30 and got home at 7 a.m. After sleeping 'till 1:30 - a new record! - María cooked Stephanie and I a superb breakfast of pancakes with nutella and bananas.

¡Gracias Maria!

Besos,

S

p.s. I have more pictures posted on Dad's Shutterfly account.