Sunday, 28 March - Madrid

Sandy and I woke up this morning at 9AM and were too late for breakfast, but that was fine because we found Dunkin' Donuts and stopped for coffee and a donut. They're actually quite tasty here and aren't as sugary as donuts at home, which I like.

We got really familiar with this place.

We then walked to the Reina Sofia, an art museum that houses pieces by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and others, and is free on Sundays. Score! The most important piece in Reina Sofia is 'Guernica' Picasso's most famous painting about the terrors of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. It was especially cool to see it because we had discussed the peace in my Political Culture of Postwar Europe class. The lady told us no cameras, but I took this secret picture of it to prove I'd seen it. My Model UN stealth skills come in handy again. The pieces itself though is MASSIVE and I could've stared at it and all its intricacies for hours. It's amazing because there didn't seem to be any real security measures besides a guard posted in each room, but nothing was really preventing you from touching priceless art work by painters who died long ago. It was a bit disarming. Oh well ... welcome to Spain I guess.

Me in front of the Reina de Sofia.

My favorite piece in Reina Sofia, a Dali painting called 'Girl in the Window'.

These life-sized outfits look like something Lady Gaga would wear.

My secret photo of 'Guernica'. It's in the background.

From there we walked to the Real Jardín Botanico, a beautiful garden that had a student discount so we only paid €1.25 to get in. I'm definitely liking this student discount thing. It was gorgeous and the flowers were in full bloom. Being the grandchild of Eleanor Young, I took LOTS of pictures of the flowers!

The beautiful flowers in Real Jardín Botanico.

The Leaning Tower of Tree-sa.

We had lunch at this place called VIPS and I bought a container of fresh tomatoes and mozzarella balls in olive oil and pesto. Unfortunately, I'm fairly convinced they made me nauseous later. Didn't get that again. We ate lunch in a park across the street from the restaurant and enjoyed the music of a Spanish guitar player and a New Orleans-style jazz band. It was a mixture of, the words of Neil Diamond, 'beautiful noise'. Speaking of Neil, here's some music to read this to. The man will come into play later as well, so brace yourself for more Neil!

Guitar guy!

A NOLA-spin on Frank Sinatra's 'My Way' in Spain ... surreal.

Sandy and I made a point to stop at every playground. We are clearly 5 years old.

From lunch, we walked to Puerto del Sol, which Rick Steves gave two triangles on a scale of three. We gave it one, because there wasn't really much to do there. However, we did get to see an anti-bull fighting protest, which was a bit hilarious to watch because you've got all these people passionately opposed to the practice walking around chanting to free the bulls and right above them is a giant ad for men's cologne featuring a very seductive picture of Enrique Iglesias. It all seemed so very out of place.

Protesters ... and Enrique Iglesias. Another surreal moment.

After going to the Puerto, we walked back to the Prado Museum, which opened for free admission at 5PM. All the locals were laying on the hill outside the entrance soaking up the sun and Sandy and I felt obliged to follow suit. The Prado has a lot of Goya pieces, the most famous being '3rd of May' which depicts three Spaniards in front of a firing squad during the civil war. It's been in every Spanish textbook I've ever had, so it was definitely cool to see it in real life. Unfortunately no pictures in the Prado, especially unfortunate because there was a painting where the subject looked like Mr. Darcy as played by Matthew MacFayden in the most recent version of the film. I stared at that for much longer than is traditionally acceptable in society.

Sitting on a hill with a bottle of Pellegrino. Where is the Russell family?

After going through the Museum, we chilled on the hill some more, I was still feeling nauseous and Sandy was really patient with me. We returned to VIPS for dinner and I just got a chicken caesar salad and then from there walked back to our hostel. Definitely a busy day and a great introduction to Spain!

We found Restaurante Edelweiss. Unfortunately, Captain Hottie von Trapp was not to be found. He's a lover, not a fighter.