I arrived back in Madrid on August 28th with Pablo and Pilar to pick up my suitcase, repack, and head into the city to meet my fellow students in the ISA group. I have to note the unfortunate state we found the Garcia Ruiz family's house in when we returned - Walking into the house everything seemed to be as we had left it, but when I walked to Belén's room to get my luggage, I realized I was walking through a large puddle of water. As it turns out, the apartment above theirs had started to leak water in their bathroom, and so it came through their ceiling and spread all over the floor. So here I am, anxious to meet up with my study abroad group, luggage ready, and there are Pablo and Pilar, unscrewing light bulbs, throwing any towel they can find on the floor, and watching as their walls suck up the old water... needless to say I felt I had suddenly become a bit of an inconvenience... Nevertheless, Pablo and Pilar threw up their arms and said they'd just take care of it later and whisked me off to the hotel. I can't begin to explain how patient, easy-going, and just plain wonderful these two are!
Like I explained in my previous post, saying goodbye to this family was certainly hard. Pablo and Pilar (or Papi and Pi as they often call each other) treated me to one last lunch of calamari sandwiches and clara, and then we sadly said our goodbyes at my hotel downtown. When they walked through the revolving doors and disappeared around the corner, I found myself standing in the hotel lobby feeling quite alone. It hit me suddenly that although this was the part of my trip that I had originally signed up for, I was still not mentally prepared for finally being on my own...as I was so kindly eased into my time abroad during the past weeks with my pseudo-family. I took my time heading back to my room, feeling a little bit of the blues, but then when I entered the room I remembered I was far from alone, because there was Brittany, a good friend of mine from Lawrence University who also happened to be my roommate for the coming months! I will admit here that I broke out into a mad frenzy of English...it's true. I had been so good about only speaking Spanish these past weeks, but when I saw Brittany, I kind of lost control and probably talked her ear off in excitement.
From here on communication became Spainglish. I slowly met the 44 other students in my ISA group as we went on a bus tour around the city, went out for dinner, and spent the next day at the Prado Museum and the Palacio Real.
Regret number one - not spending more time in the Prado Museum. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about this trip, but I do wish I could have spent the whole day walking around the Prado. ISA organized a wonderful tour with a tour guide who highlighted the best known works of three of Spain's most notable artists: El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. I was particularly blown away by Goya's Black Paintings that he painted on the interior walls of his house during his retreat there while the Peninsular War raged around him. Goya's internal struggle (as he had sentiments for both the Spanish and French opposing sides of the war) led him to paint these absolutely dark and disturbing paintings in various rooms of his country house. I highly recommend you look up the paintings when you can. They're utterly disturbing at times, but also extremely fascinating when compared to his professional work. Goya is given credit for demonstrating the first signs of modernism with these works, which I think can best be seen in his painting, The Dog. Also, you wont believe what painting he painted in his kitchen! You'll have to look up "Goya's Saturn" to see for yourself. (Sorry this just turned into a bit of a critique...)
After the Prado, we headed over to the Palacio Real to take a second tour. Walking through the palace, we received plenty of history tidbits while taking in the splendor of all of the riches of Spain's royalty. This palace is no longer occupied, but is instead used only for important occasions and to host only the most special guests, so the majority of the rooms are available for viewing! Every room was very unique, with some certain style of design (my favorite being the queen's sitting room with walls decorated with pictures made of silk), and almost always some symbolic placement of a certain painting on the ceiling, a tile on the wall, or an arrangement of the furniture. (Just a silly note, but I have now seen the two longest tables in all of Spain, what luck! The longest, of course, is found in the Palacio Real, while the second longest resides in Pazo de Mariñán, an old estate near La Coruña that we visited one afternoon).
After all of this walking, I decided to spend of the rest of the afternoon with two new friends, Lexi and Allyson, in El Parque del Retiro, which I would consider to be similar to Central Park in NY City, but of course with its own Spanish flair. We found a cozy spot on the grass in the afternoon sun by the park's large square lake, which was filled with little paddle boats of tourists and locals alike on that hot afternoon. As we read, I was first approached by a scruffy man who asked me if I spoke in English or Spanish, to which I replied in Spanish (hoping he'd think I was at least somewhat local). With my reply he went on to ask me if I wanted to discuss the fascist-nazi movement in Spain. When I abruptly told him "no thank you," he just stared at me, as if stunned, and then walked away spouting off quite loudly about how ridiculous I was for not wanting to discuss the nazis! Hmm..... A little stunned myself, I was quick to be on guard again when another man walked over to us, looking like he had something to say. Fortunately, he turned out to be a non-fascist, non-nazi violinist who simply wanted to make sure our reading wouldn't be disturbed if he and his two guitar-fellows played some music nearby. And of course, we had no problem at all with such a request. So with this, the afternoon in Madrid ended calmly, under the golden afternoon sun, with classic guitar and violin music humming in our ears.
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