On Saturday it was Analilia's idea to have a picnic in Parque Retiro (which is Madrid's famous, beautiful and huge park within the city). So myself, Danthe, Analilia, and Lua all headed to a grocery store in the early afternoon to pick up some food, and drinks to take for our picnic. We chose a spot on the grass next to the lake in the center of the park. There we made bocadillos (sandwiches), and had tinto de verano (of course lol). There were lots of people out in little rowboats on the lake, as well as many people walking or running through the park.
After eating we all relaxed on our blanket we had in the sun, and chatting about various things. We then walked a bit through the park to check out this huge green house, next to a pretty pond with fountains and this cave structure thing. We took some photos and then headed to the main part of the park again, where I was able to see the Alfonso Monument, which is huge and a center piece in the center of the park. Outside of Park Retiro I saw Puerta de Alcalá, which is a large Arc de Triompf diving major roads in Madrid. 
After seeing Puerta de Alcalá I headed over to La Reina Sofia museum with Danthe and Lua. This is another famous museum in Madrid/Spain, which houses contemporary art. So there was a lot of Picasso, and Dalí. I was able to see "Guernica", which is a famous piece of artwork by Picasso, which depicts the civil war in Spain but in a style only Picasso could do. It's HUGE in real life - once again these paintings were larger than I thought they were going to be. (For example, when I went to the Louvre in Paris back in highschool and saw the Mona Lisa it was much much smaller than i thought it would be.. soo all of these are exceeding my expectations in size). After seeing more Picasso and Dalí, the museum kind of got dull because it houses ALOT of contemporary art that is for example... 2 boxes in one room. Now I can appreciate art, to a certain level, but seeing random stuff like this in a museum isnt very exciting for me. I much prefer the old fashioned paintings and artwork than "new age art" (no offense to anyone reading this, that is a huge fan of contemporary art).
So after a long day of site and art seeing, we all headed back to Danthe's apartment and had siestas lol. After our semi-long siestas Lua and Analilia made a big pasta dinner. It was here that there was an impromtu english lesson, and I started to teach them various sayings, and the difference between sayings in english and when to use certain phrases etc. It was hilarious. We kept laughing, and then Danthe would get confused or frustrated at something because he wouldnt understand why there are so many ways to say something. Needless to say, it was educational, and very entertaining. After dinner I also gave some music suggestions to Analilia and showed her how to take youtube videos and convert them into mp3 songs for her laptop. She seemed pretty impressed by this. :)
DAY 4:
On Sunday which was my last full day in Madrid, Danthe, Analilia, Lua and Myself all travelled to Manzanares, which is a little town about 30-40 min bus ride outside of Madrid. We all travelled to Manzanares to see its famous castle. We met Lua's mom in the town (as she lives just 10 min outside of the main town of Manzanares), and she joined us on our day trip to the castle. The castle was big, not the biggest ive seen (ive seen larger castles in England) but it was still very impressive. We got to tour the inside of it, and read about it's history, which was all in Spanish so I understood about half of it lol. We even got to go to the top of the castle and see the views from the top of the town and lake surrounding the castle.
After learning about its history, seeing the grounds and randomly dancing to Baroque music that was playing on speakers outside (lol), we headed to Lua and her mom's house for dinner. Lua's mom made the most delicious meal... it consisted of roasted lamb, marinated fish, rice with a bean sauce, avocado salad, and then for dessert we had icecream with this melted chocolate sauce that tasted like liquid chocolate cake (SOOOO GOOD), and to top it all off we had Cava (spanish champagne). After dinner we hung out for a bit before heading back to Madrid for the night, we were all so sleepy from the yummy food and day trip to Manzanares. It was a lot of fun, and so nice to meet Lua's mom! 
DAY 5:
My last day in Madrid consisted of getting up semi-early to go to the airport to catch my flight back to Barcelona. It was sad to leave Danthe, as we had such a great time, and it was so nice seeing him again after 2 years since my Mexico trip! We promised each other that we would have regular skype dates where 30 minutes of conversation would be spoken in Spanish and another 30 minutes would be spoken in English to keep our practice up. :) I couldnt thank Danthe enough for having me that weekend, as he provided me with my own room, showed me around the city, and even cooked for me. So a BIG Thank You goes out to him! THANK YOU DANTHE :)
No comments:
Post a Comment