Month: June 2016

The Security Guards Recognize You

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Officially, I moved to Madrid to participate in a Hispanic Language & Culture program with the study abroad group ISA.
Really, I picked Madrid specifically to be closer to Real Madrid, but the renowned art museums didn’t hurt anything.

The “language and culture” program was really me living the dream of being an art history major, plus a grammar class.
Hours and hours a week pouring over the cultural works Spain had to offer the world.

It was magical, and in every way I could have wanted, a great fulfillment of The Dream.
One class at La Universidad de Antonio de Nebrija was simply an Art of the Prado class. However, it was even simpler than that; the prof had divided the semester into thirds and we covered the bodies of work of El Greco, Velasquez, and Goya: three of the most major (according to the professor the most major) Spanish artists.

This class required four outings, as a class, to El Prado, easily one of the most traditionally beautiful museums I could imagine.

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In my own time, I visited the Reina Sofia frequently. To the point where I am pretty sure some of the security guards recognized me.
To the point where I gave a friend a walking tour of the museum once, and was deemed a sort of art official amongst my friends because of how thorough my tour was.
Most of the Dalí paintings in Madrid are in the Reina, and that’s what so often led me there. Staring for longer than may be standard at an advertisement he designed in the 20s with a lobster on it, red and ridiculous. I loved it.

Once, in one of the long, thin galleries that led into a larger room, there was a movie playing that had been frame-by-frame water coloured sometime in the early 20th century. I stood, enraptured, for near 30 minutes.

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That’s how the museums in Madrid are.
There is also a museum of archaeology that is astounding in its span of history in relation to dear Spain. The various peoples that had populated, died, and there things been buried in the Iberian dirt; all amazing, many rich, the displays and information stunning for someone from a country only a few hundred years old.

Museums of Madrid: do that.
And really, is it a vacation if you don’t visit a museum?*

*No

Toledo by morning

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There it was.
The Hapsburg double-headed eagle.

I have spent most of my life enraptured in the opulence and tragedy of the story of Marie Antoinette, and as I got older and my reading options expanded I started digging through the story of her family– the Hapsburg emperors.

The Hapsburg family was so large and powerful, there ended up being two ruling branches of it- the Spanish and the Austrian.

Toledo was my first adventure outside of Madrid with my study abroad program, ISA. There was the seal of the Hapsburgs, the double headed eagle, staring back at me from everywhere.

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The city had been the royal seat and the Spanish capital under the Hapsburg dynasty, and their seal is everywhere– now the city seal, the double headed eagle regally marks where you find yourself now.

I was awed, standing ahead of my group, having unknowingly come along to a place full of a history so dear to me.

Then there was the cathedral, San Juan de los Reyes.

I was enthralled with the patio, full of citrus trees, the columns and walls carved incredibly: unicorns, dragons, centaurs hidden amongst the stone vines.

I could have stayed in that passage way for hours, just finding all the little quirky carvings. I hope to someday be able to do just that.
This was the trip where my character introduction line (like Superman’s “Its a bird, its a plane!”) was begun: “¡Mirandita, venga!”

I lulled to the back of the group. I kept quiet. I soaked in the detail, lingering over art and architecture- running my fingers over mythical figures that had been carved before even the Spanish set foot in Texas- until the last member of my group exited the room, then scurried after.

That is the overarching feeling I have in/about Spain: I just want to stop and watch. I am not a quiet person, but when my attention has been caught, oh lord, let me watch.

 

Good, good Toledo.

 

App Attack

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One of the biggest cities in Europe, Madrid is not always simple to navigate. There are apps for that (also is it aps or apps? Yo no sè).

So, a list of apps (I’m running with it) to help you get around the city!!

First: Snapchat
because not everything is worth putting up on Instagram, not everything needs to be seen by your nana on Facebook, and you Do Not Need to drunk text from across an ocean and snaps are deletable.
ALSO Snapchat recently introduced a feature like iPhone’s Facetiming, so a wifi calling is free internationally (or across the street) for anyonw with Snap and a stable wifi signal!

Second: Citymapper
Oh you’re hopelessly lost and a tinge of fear is starting to creep in at the corners of your heart? Citymapper has you.
The app is like a step-by-step map that can take you anywhere, much more direct than even the Maps App on iPhone.
It can also take you to local hotspots.
I really loved this app and found it quite easy to navigate. Also it saved me once when I got brave and went on a two hour walk in a neighborhood I thought I knew better than I actually did.

Third: City Guides TripAdvisor
This app has available guides you can download for various cities around the world, Madrid is included. The guide can be accessed even when you’re not connected to wifi. It has metro stations and major attractions. It is helpful to get around a very big city full of a lot of great things. This is especially useful if you’re okay with staying on the beaten path– a tourist’s super guide.

Fourth: WordRef
for all those times you want to be smart, but don’t know enough words to even get to sound half stupid– this app has all the smart words (and the stupid ones, too)

Also, you’ll probably need WhatsApp, as all the Spanish kids you come into contact with will use WhatsApp instead of standard texting, for a milieu of reasons. Get hip with it!

Wine, Water

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You’ll realize in time spent abroad that alcohol is generally cheaper than water at… anywhere.

Wine 1,50€ and then there’s water: 3€
**blank stare**
a few moments later: **wry smile**

The same is generally true of beer, it’ll be like 1€ a lot of places. Granted, these are not big servings, but it is something to take into account. Especially since the same is true of alcohol and cokes. (I’m from Texas, if its carbonated and sweet, it’s a coke. I’m not sorry.)

So this is a good segue for an important topic when living in Spain: drinks versus drunk.

Drinks: what the Spanish do.
A few drinks spread over some snacking (ahem, tapas) throughout an evening

Drunk: what Americans abroad are known for.
Two things of boxed white wine (14% alcohol by volume, and like 3€–BEWARE) and a few cheap, scraggly bars that have free shots later.

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Actually, Americans are pretty reviled in the nicer clubs and bars in Madrid, I found, because of the typical wild-child, travelling-on-Daddy’s-dime, Greek row chump that has drunkenly occupied the space before you.

So, as someone who hopes to live abroad again, hopefully Madrid Round II, let me ask of you: be careful with the cheap and easy access to alcohol and when you do get so drunk you lay down in front of a cheap club and have to be hauled into a taxi by people you’ve only known briefly… try not to repeat that.

Una chiquitina vacación

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There is a little bar in a plaza near La Bicicleta– a cafe I was a regular at– se llama Las Vacaciones.

This place has a glorious Sunday brunch and a variety of mojitos (like a coffee one, that as gross as mint coffee may sound is delish). But the real real: that brunch has bomb options and their tapas are always so, so good.

A great place to drink when it’s not late enough for Madrileños to really be “out” yet for the evening (read: before 11pm).
This bar seems to have more girls drinking here than any other place I kicked it, and I think that the female owners of this place may feed into that– like maybe its a known femme space in the city? I don’t know for sure, but the frequency of it being a girls-only crowd was odd for, what seemed to me, a highly male city.

Vacaciones is the place one of my dearest friends in Spain first told me about the experiments he did in his internship and my love of the word “chiquitin” was solidified**. It’s a great place to get close to people (literally, its tiny) and as bright as it is, and as happy as the decor is the mood just sets you off in a whirl of good energy.

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There were always a hodge podge of visitors to the city and locals, so be prepared for the typical Spanish stares, but also maybe drunk Australians.

Here’s the place’s website: http://www.vacacionesbar.com/

**Chiquitin: a typically Castillian (i.e. not Spanish-speaking America) word meaning “very small.” Like “chiquito,” which you’ve probably heard.