Spain: To go to Spain with the flu or to not go to Spain and recover in Laval? TO GO TO SPAIN WITH THE FLU!!! I decided to go to Spain even though I had the flu and have never felt that sick before in my life. The day before I left I went to a doctor in Paris and got tons of meds. So my rational thinking was that I have all these medicines and I have already been sick for 3 or 4 days now, it’s gotta be leaving my body by now. Hahaha. Spain is a go! Don’t worry mom I didn’t go crazy partying every night. The trip was very mellow and not crazy partying antics. Although Spain is considered the party capital of Europe, so I guess I will have to go back this summer. OK but my trip to Spain was great. I went with my friend Robin and we spent about a week there. I wish I had more pictures to show you but my camera died the first day I was there and naturally I forgot my battery charger. Here are some of the highlights without pictures:
Reina Sofía: I think this is by far my most favorite museum in the whole wide world. Now, to be honest and fair, I haven’t been to that many but, I really enjoyed it. They have some of the most beautiful artwork I have ever seen. The museum is mostly made of Spanish artist and contemporary work, there is a lot of cubism, from famous artists like Picasso and Dalí, a little confusing looking at the pictures but when you have the headphone set they tell you what it is and then you see things you didn’t see before, and sometimes they tell you about the artist as well. But the likes of Pablo Picasso was there as well as his old friends Salvador Dali, Joan Miró, and Angeles Santos Torroella and many other artists as well but these 4 are the ones that stood out the most to me and of course, they are the artists with the most popular paintings. My two favorites were Guernica (naturally), which was amazing and beautiful and really moving as well as “The World” by Angeles Santos. I would definitely recommend you google both of these paintings so you can see them. They are not your traditional paintings but you should try and read a caption or find a little background on the pieces and I think you would appreciate them so much more.
On Sundays at the Reina Sofía there is free entry between the hours of 9am and 12pm, it closes at 2pm, so if you ever go make sure you get there at 9 or a little before 9. (Helpful hint to avoid the line, there is the front entrance that everybody knows and there for creates a long line at the opening but there is also a back entrance behind the building, just go to the back and you can avoid the whole line altogether.) But the Reina Sofía was great, since it was free; I rented the headphone set that gives descriptions of the paintings. Now, another helpful hint: RENT THE HEADPHONE SET. It’s only a few Euros at most places and I’m telling you it makes all the difference... OK another helpful hint, start on the second floor, that floor has all the best work and the painting you really want to see, then when you are finished and have enough time go to the 3rd, the 1st was ok but since you may have limited time you definitely want to see the 2nd floor. Wow that was kinda long just for a museum but I’ll try and keep the others shorter.
Prado: its good, not as good as the Reina Sofia, they had a few cool painting that I remember. Ok, moving on!
Beun Retiro Park: This park was great, sorta kinda like Central park in NYC. On our last day in Madrid, Robin and I rented bikes and rode through the park, great stuff!
NYE: so the tradition for NYE is to go to this plaza, called Puerto Del Sol, there is a huge clock tower located directly in the middle, and when the clock climes midnight you have to start eating grapes. For every chime you eat another grape and there are 12 climes. It’s suppose to be good luck for the coming year. Well, Robin and I bought grapes days before and we were very prepared, the plaza was packed, probably the equivalent to Times Square in NYC but on a smaller scale, but there was tons of people, so many in fact that we could hear the clock tower chime. So when we thought it was chiming we ate the grapes, don’t know if we did it correctly but we tried. Still had a great time!
Mad hostel: This was our hostel and it was great, in our room we had a Finish couple, Ollie and Sarah, and then there was Max a 20 from Boston who was studying abroad, and then this little guy from Indonesia, did you know that Indonesia has the 4th largest population in the world? isn’t that crazy, I didn’t know that. We hangout a lot with our new friends, they were all really great people.
There was tons of other stuff but maybe I’ll put that in another entry, this one is getting kinda long
So I added some photos form online of the park and my 2 favorite paintings, the first is Guernica and the second is The World. Enjoy!
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