Day 5: (Madrid) Crystal Clear

Exhaustion really hit me today, which made it a drag physically and socially so I wasn’t chatting up my group as much as usual, but it gave me an opportunity to be introspective and really reflect on what I want out of this trip and how I can attain that.  That being said, I think our professors realized how hard they were physically working us and decided to take it easy for the day, which was great, because it gave me some time to actually think on my own.  But, more importantly, today we discovered Ruffles’ Sabor de Jamón (Ruffles’ Ham Flavored Chips).  This is life changing.  We literally cannot get enough of them, so Ruffles, if you’re out there reading this – send some 20+ bags over to Chicago for us!  ¡Que delicioso!!  They literally taste like ham, but a bacon-y ham.  I cannot explain to you how incredible this is.  Ugh - yum.

Anyways, we didn’t find those until the night was almost over.  We started out our day with a nice stroll through Parque del Retiro, which loosely translates to The Park of Good Rest, which we all needed.  The park is HUGE and is somewhat comparable to Central Park in New York City.  There’s a lot of different parts of the park – buildings, statues, ponds where you can take row boats out, beautiful gardens, fountains, wooded paths and much more.  It was beautiful and although it was huge, we made our way through it on our way to el Museo Nacional del Prado.

First, we came upon this cute little pond with row boats that you could rent and take out which was being watched over by this huge statue of Alfonso XII, who I honestly have no idea why he’s important – if you know, please tell me.  Anyways, we took the opportunity to take some pictures, walk slowly and relax.  It was a really nice break after the intensity of the previous days. 

Soon after we walked past the fountain, we were stopped by an old Spanish man, who was 78 years old.  He stopped us to tell us that we were so young and beautiful and full of life.  After all the girls blushed and thanked him (after our guide translated of course, which was an awkward lapse in the compliment), he said something along the lines of, “You’re young now.  Live life and don’t take anything for granted.  Time flies by and before you know it, you’re as old as me and you start thinking back on things that you wish you would’ve done.  Try everything and make the most of your experiences.  Enjoy Spain.”

…

No, I didn’t take that from a movie or a cheesy romance novel – it was just a really cute old Spanish man peering through his thick glasses trying to give some insight to the youngins.  While the other girls were flattered and gushed about how sweet he was, I really took this to heart, thought about it, and reflected about what he said, how he said it, and his genuine honestly through his words for most of the rest of the day.

After wandering a while longer, we found ourselves at this path between a gorgeous Arab-inspired building, a large fountain, and a massive glass building.  We were given some free time to explore and I took it graciously, walking by myself to take it all in.  The gorgeous Arab-inspired building was el Palacio de Velázquez which was named after its creator, architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco.  We didn’t go inside, but you can check out the inside on Google Street View here, it’s freaking awesome!  (I just put the Google guy by the front door of the building, so move around and explore with him!)

Then, I walked down this wide gravel path that was adorned with wooden benches so you could sit and take in the beauty of the lush trees and vegetation.  On each bench there was an elderly person, sometimes two, who were painting the landscape they were seeing.  On every bench, but only on this path.  It was a pleasant surprise and I casually peeked over their canvasses to see what they were looking at – Steph would’ve killed me! (haha). 

At the end of the path stood a huge glass paned building adjacent to a pond full of turtles and a huge fountain.  I took in the cute turtles for a bit and made my way into the beautiful glass building, el Palacio de Cristal.  This building is in the center of the park and features a single exhibit inside which changes every few months.  The exhibit showing when I visited was “Tuiza. Las culturas de la jaima” by Frederico Guzmán. I swear ‘they’ knew I was coming, because when I walked in, the exhibit was a massive tent made out of vibrant tapestries, with soft rugs and plush fabric seating.  I was stunned it was so beautiful – the way the natural light came in through the panes of the window and eliminated the tapestries beneath it was nothing short of breathtaking.  I took pictures and gazed in wonder and then sat on one of the benches to give myself a moment to breathe in this serene space.

Not ten minutes later, our professor came in saying that it was time to move on and that we could “come back later” as if we had any free time at all.  We walked outside and there was a single man playing a hang drum, which is this instrument that emits an ambient, far-away sound that is just so moving to me.  Entranced, I stayed and watched him, listening to the beautiful, passionate music he played for what I believe to be himself rather than the audience.  Three minutes later, I was told to leave and that I would be able to “come back later”.  Of course, I didn’t make it back due to a sheer lack of free time and I’m still quite bitter about it, but if you’re ever in Madrid – the Crystal Palace is definitely a stop you should make! 

We walked through the woods where the paths were outlined by short shrubbery.  We popped out of the woods and found ourselves at the top of an alluring section of the park – Bosque del Recuerdo (Forest of Remembrance).  It was perfectly symmetrical, which you could see from the top where we were standing and it was filled with tons of plants, sculpted bushes, and a calming atmosphere.  I took off ahead of the group and sat on a bench under a sculpted tree to admire the beauty and the badass landscaping in the park.

Of course, we moved on rather quickly, not spending nearly as much time as I would have liked there and walked across the street to el Museo del Prado, which is one of the most important museums in all of Spain and one of the finest collections in the entire world of classical art, housing masterpieces by Goya, Bosch, Titian, Velázquez, el Greco, and many more.  I’m not a huge fan of classical art – but the museum was an old palace, which was huge and had a cool layout and it was interesting seeing some of the paintings that I had studied in high school in real life – like “Las Meninas” by Velázquez and “3 de mayo” by Goya.  One incredible painting that I saw, which I had never heard of before, was “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Bosch.  The painting it split up into 3 sections – one representative of heaven, the second of earth and the last as hell.  There is so much going on in this painting that I could argue that you could look at it for hours and keep finding new things.  If you looked at the link, you can see that’s it’s really wacky with vivid colors, giving it almost a surrealist vibe – mind you, this was painted over 400 years before Dalí was even on the planet!

Then we had some free time, which was mostly taken up by finding our way back to the hotel and then taking a shower.  But, I did manage to get a 20 minute Skype call in to my mom, which was really the first time I’ve even had time to talk to anyone from home. 

Then, we went on an informal walking tour of two neighborhoods in Madrid; Chueca and Malasaña which are the up-and-coming cool bohemian spots where a lot of young people and hipsters hang out.  Obviously, I liked them and definitely saw them as places where I could live.  After our tours, we had some brief free time where I spent trying to go through pictures for my blog (seriously, there’s so many..) and laying down.

We met back up at 10pm to make our way to an outside suburb of Madrid as we were invited to watch the filming of a Spanish movie.  (YES I WAS ON SET FOR A SPANISH MOVIE – HOW COOL IS THAT?!)  Most of the group thought it was really lame – we watched the same scene being shot 27 times, but I really liked it.  I had never been on a film set before (I mean, who really has?) and definitely not with semi-famous actors.  The movie is called Tenemos que Hablar (We Need to Talk) which is a comedy written and directed by David Serrano.  I can’t wait for the movie to come out so I can watch the hilarious scene between a father and daughter, and the parents’ sex life on the big screen, haha!

We left the film shoot around 1am and all went straight to bed.  It was another long day.