But it was a lovely weekend by ourselves here instead, I think. I already wrote a bit about Thursday's trip to la Reina Sofía--on Thursday, Courtney, Haley, and I took the train into Madrid for the first time (Courtney and Haley flew to Portugal on Friday morning, so they had Thursday in Spain), which was great! Profe Hague had two extra passes to la Reina Sofía, a popular modern art museum. It was really fun! Some of the pieces--the feminism room, for one (minus one piece, which was just a naked woman with words written all over her body--something about not hiding behind anything--which was just too much for me), the civil war propaganda, and definitely the Picasso exhibit--I really enjoyed. Some of them didn't make much sense to me. I just must not understand modern art... and that's okay with me! I'm not really an artsy person. I'm much more comfortable with words than paintings. But I got to see Picasso's "Guernica"! The exhibit includes a lot of his preliminary sketches for "Guernica", and it was really neat to see the progression. If there's one subject matter that calls for Picasso's artistic style, it's the Spanish Civil War. Very interesting. The museum is enormous, so we definitely didn't get to see it all! It's the type of thing you go back to four or five times, which we can do, since we can basically go into Madrid every day, and university students get free admission.
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| Picasso's Guernica. Probably his most famous work. |
On Friday, I kind of hung around Alcalá, including a first-time visit to Carrefour, which is like Walmart. I bought much too much European chocolate, which I've been eating ever since, and it's delicious. I'm afraid I won't want American candy when I get home. It just isn't the same. I had time to read an entire book (The Testament, by John Grisham, in case you were wondering--not my favorite work of his), and I had the room to myself, which was nice--not because I don't love my roommate, which I do, but because I could stay up until 1:30 AM reading (though I guess we're up that late pretty much every day anyway) and there was no one to turn off the light for and no one to tell anyone else about it. Because I was on my own with Ana for meals, it forced me to practice my Spanish more, which was good for me. Normally, I'm content to just let Courtney do most of the talking, because she seems to have something to say.
On Saturday, Amanda and I went into Madrid to go the the Prado Museum (if you've heard of a Spanish museum, this is it--don't worry, I hadn't heard of it until I got here... I think you have to take art classes to know what it is). Extremely touristy, the Prado. This museum was even larger than la Reina Sofía, so we spent three hours there seeing only a small portion of it. Of the notable exhibits we saw (el Greco, la Goya, and Raphael), Raphael was my favorite. He was also the only one my host family had never heard of. They did not believe there was any such famous artist, which is kind of funny. I enjoyed the Christian artwork from about 1200 on the most, because it's an interesting reflection of Christian doctrine at the time. I wasn't a huge fan of the Black Paintings, because they were, well... black. And dark. And depressing. Three hours was about my limit at an art museum (which is odd, giving that I can spend all day at most museums--I'm telling you, I'm just not very artsy), so it was lucky that we had to start heading back. Amanda and I got off on the wrong train stop because we missed ours. The fault was entirely mine. There are two train stations in Alcalá de Henares: one called Alcalá de Henares (where we were supposed to get off), and one called Alcalá de Henares--Universidad (where I was completely and stubbornly convinced we were supposed to get off). Amanda knew where we were supposed to go, and I insisted that we go to the other (read: wrong) one. Oops! Well, at least now I know, and I don't think I'm likely to forget which station is ours anytime soon!
It's pretty much rained this entire weekend, unfortunately, so not a whole lot of tourism outside of those two museums has gone on. Ana tells me that it gets very dry in the summer, so I guess it's a good thing that it's raining now. They're big on conserving water here, turns out.
Side story about conserving water: I upset the neighbors by staying in the shower too long! Apparently, since we live in an apartment instead of an individual house, instead of each apartment paying for their own water use, the whole building splits the water bill evenly. Same with the lights. As such, they're very picky about how much water and electricity you use. Because of this, and also as an effort to conserve water, here they take "intermittent" showers, which I guess means you turn the water on, get wet, turn it off to wash everything, and then turn it back on to rinse off. Ana says she always tells her students about this (she had to learn it too, when she moved here thirty years ago), but that she forgot to tell us. I wasn't paying attention to how long I had been in the shower (apparently it was almost a half hour! Oops!), but the neighbors were upset that the water had been on that long, so they came and complained to Ana, who was then "upset" with me. I put "upset" in quotes because she wasn't really upset--she just informed me of how they do things here. Now I know--and now you all know, in case you were wondering.
Other weird things that Spaniards do: they're not very what we would consider "friendly" on the streets, which I actually really like, honestly, but the men do stare (I guess I look really different!) and catcalls and such are really common. Thankfully, I had read that this was common before I got here, so I wasn't very unnerved. You just ignore them and they leave you alone. It's kind of a weird contradiction. Also, Courtney tells me this is just a city people thing, but no one waits for signals at crosswalks. This is odd to me, since I'm from small town Utah. Courtney assures me this is not a Spanish trait, just a city one. Also, they're big into asking for "donations" here. Both times that we took the train into Madrid, there was a man (different men, I think) telling a sob story about how he had lost his job and he needed help feeding his children or something, then he walked up and down the train asking for money. This surprises me, because I have seen exactly zero homeless people since I've been here. Also, there were a couple of women with envelopes on the train. They handed us the envelope, pointed to the explanation (something about taking donations for poor children; I didn't read the whole thing), and then gave a pen to sign your name. Amanda and I didn't give them anything, and as soon as she walked away, an American girl we had met earlier rushed over to tell us how their little scam worked--apparently they cover up the amount they're expecting you to pay while you sign your name, and then uncover it after you've signed, expecting you to pay up. I have my doubts about whether their "donations" actually end up helping any poor children at all.
I was really worried about pick-pocketing before I got here, but you just have to pay attention to where your things are. Keep everything in your front pockets, carry your purse in front of you and keep your hand on it when you're in crowds, etc. No one in our group has had any problems with it--though I'm told that while in Barcelona, Logan caught someone trying to get into his pocket. I'm not super worried about it.
Haley's host mom says that Courtney and I live in the "bad" part of town (Alcalá is actually a very safe place, so it's not really a big deal), which kind of freaked me out. Turns out our little blackout curtain/prison window cover doubles as a security feature, which is slightly unnerving. I don't like being out after dark, which is too bad, because Spain is really big on nightlife. Their discotecas (dance clubs) are famous. Overall, I'm getting pretty comfortable in Alcalá, so I feel pretty safe most of the time. I know not to do anything stupid. I've figured out the bus system, which has made getting around a million times easier. Hopefully I'll figure out the metro in Madrid soon! That'll make getting around Madrid a billion times easier. It's complicated for a small town girl like me who doesn't have a clue how a subway works (except for Washington, DC, which I kind of figured out while we were there last August). Hey--I just barely figured out the buses, which was a big step for me, given that before I got here I had never used a city bus... ever.
Send me emails! I want to hear how things are going at home!
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