Pincelada

So, much has occurred since last time. So much that my brain cannot remember all of it. We went back to the Prado again, this time with my Civilization and Art class at the Skid center. We had learned about a bunch of post-impressionist Spanish painters in class and were going to see them, but they were in the process of moving them, so we had to see the Velazquez and Goya again and hear the same explanations. But, then we got to see the crazy Francis Bacon exhibit. Here is an example of his work:


apparently his deal was to capture the spirit of man without god, as in, animalistic. everyone in the paintings were either screaming or bearing their teeth and had crazy mouths. i was not sure how i felt about it.
And thennnnnn.. Thursday night we went out for real! We found this cool German bar that gave us "VIP" cards that apparently do absolutely nothing, and hung out there for a bit while the night was still young (i.e. until one in the morning hah) and then we to our first discoteca! They play a lot of american music here, so obviously much dancing was done to "all the single ladies." It was nice, because on friday we didn't have to be anywhere until one in the afternoon....
which was the Reina Sofia museum! The reina sofia has most of the modern art in Madrid, like Picasso and Dali. I GOT TO SEE GUERNICA IN REAL LIFE AND IT WAS SO SO AWESOME!!!!! It's so huge and you can see things you can't really see in a picture, like the bird in the background. And everything looks smoother or something, it's hard to describe.


Then, we had to go back to school to have yet another information meeting about university classes, which we had already heard about a million times, so my friend and I went to the movies instead. We picked out this movie that we thought would be about modern day Germany and be fun and interesting, called "the wave." then it started and we were like "oh shit this is actually IN german, with spanish subtitles!!" and then as it progressed we were like "oh shit this is actually about neo-fascism!!" and there is a bloody school shooting at the end. Needless to say, this is what happens when you cannot understand the synopsis. but i surprised myself with how much i could understand of the movie, which was positive.
Luego, on Saturday, we went to the this royal monastery palace thing called El Escorial. It is about an hour north of Madrid in the mountains, so it was really really cold. And we didn't know it would be so cold, so we were all freezing. It snowed and it was really windy and the castle had zero heat inside. Also, in terms of royal castles, Versailles is totally cooler. This one was okaayyyyy but.. meh. Kind of bland.


Which leads me up to today, which was a great day. We went to El Rastro which is kind of like the Portobello Market of Madrid, except a lot bigger. We were pretty overwhelmed with how big it was and how many people but i liked it a lot and plan to return. it's notorious for pickpockets, so i went without a purse and was totally fine. Then we met up with some others and went to see one of the movies that is on our cultural activities list, called "dieta mediterranea," which turned out to be one of the strangest movies i have seen. This is this woman who is in love with two men, and marries one but is still in love with the one, and they end up just becoming a threesome and having sex all the time and running a restaurant together and sleeping together and it was just bizarre. it would never be a movie in america haha.
Then we had chocolate caliente and churros at the famous place to eat them and they were delicious!



Classes start at the university this week.. ayyyyyy i don't want them to.