Before we left for Madrid, we had a “cultural activity” on Friday night where we went to a Jose Merce concert, who’s a traditional Spanish/Flamenco singer. It was.. interesting. I’m not really a fan of the music- at all (or, wisely stated by my friend Sarah- “This music makes me angry.”) But it was still a good experience. He sang with just a guitarist for awhile, and then a whole band came out which was pretty cool. It was interesting because after every song he would jump out of his chair and do this weird movement that basically said “I am the best singer in the world.” Haha so anyway, after that we got stipends to go out to eat because it was too late for our madres to make us dinner, so a few of us went to this kebap place that was amazzinnngg! I definitely want to go back.
So for Madrid, we left Salamanca early Saturday morning and went straight to El Prado, which is an art museum with tons of famous artists like Goya, Velasquez, and el Greco. We got to see a lot from Goya’s black period, which was my favorite and involved a lot of social criticism. There was also a copy of the Mona Lisa that was apparently just discovered! They think a pupil of Da Vinci painted it almost at the same time as he painted the original. It’s a little different, and was just restored, and it was awesome to get to see it. OH! And there was this group there with tons of little kids and men teaching them the abstract pictures through music. It was sooo cool, it made me so happy to see it. They had morroccas, a violin, and drums and they played the music according to what the picture looked like, and they were like asking the kids what they thought about the paintings. Man, it was awesome.
After that, we went to the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace) where the kings used to live. There are 3000 rooms and 7 floors, and there are rooms for pretty much anything you could imagine- smoking, changing, billiards, greeting, eating, resting, etc. It was extremellyyy lavish, and all the walls were covered in velvet with real gold/silver thread, and it was covered in gold decorations and humongous crystal chandeliers that I wanted to steal. It was definitely gorgeous, but also kind of disgustingly gaudy.
We went back to our hotels for a while, had dinner there, and then.. drum roll.. we went to see Grease el musical! In Spanish! I was a little apprehensive at first because it’s just soo American, but they changed it a little, added some scenes and changed the lyrics so that they rhymed and made more sense in Spanish. Of course, it being European, there was a lot more sexual innuendo/ a random shower scene haha. But it ended up being really good! The actors were pretty amazing, it was like a Broadway show in Spanish.
Next we went to the Escorial, which is like an old little mini town thing outside of Madrid with a monastery, a church, a pharmacy, a library, and a courtyard. We didn’t get much time here because we were of course on Spain time and were late. But what we did get to see was pretty cool. We saw the tombs of all the kings and queens (only the queens that had sons that became kings) of Spain, there was just an underground room with coffins chillin on big shelves. Kinda creepy. We also saw tombs for the infantes, which were the offspring of kings and queens that didn’t become kings or queens. And we saw a tomb that was basically filled with royal little kids who died before they reached their first communion. Creepy stuff! We had a little free time at the end to check out the armory, which was intense. It had all the suits of armor that you see in the movies, with spikes and even horse armor.
We had lunch in the town that surrounds the Escorial, and a few of us got empanadas to go and they were SO good! We just sat outside and enjoyed the gorgeous weather, and still had time to explore a little since we didn’t eat at a restaurant.
We headed back to Salamanca, exhausted. We saw SO much but I’m so glad I went to Madrid twice, it was definitely worth going the first time by myself to get to know the city and not just the famous monuments.
With the warm weather, I’ve been missing JMU more and loving Salamanca more at the same time. I wish I could be in those two places at once for the rest of my life. For the rest of the trip, I’m not spending ONE weekend in Salamanca! This weekend is Barcelona (on my own), then Paris, then Budapest (on my own), then Segovia, then Cantabria, and then Spring break in Italy! Craziness, I know time is going to fly by.
Besitos! <3
^^ Grease and the Palacio Real
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