PRADO (and a little partying)

Viernes

I love art museums! And yesterday, I enjoyed my first (of hopefully many) visit to the Prado Museum. :)

But lets back up a little, Friday morning I again traveled by bus to campus for an individual advising meeting with Isabel. Good news, I have a schedule. Better news, I'm in level Advanzado A (the middle level) so I only have to take one grammar class. Best news, no class on Tuesday at all! I love my schedule. And the best part is that I am equally excited about the classes themselves as I am about their good times. My schedule officially Historia, Arte, Lengua Advanzado A y Literatura del Siglo Oro. Of course, I will tell you more about these classes after I've actually been to one.

After this I returned home to eat and rest a little (gotta love the siesta!). And then we met as a group again at 4:00 to go to the Prado Museum. Anywhere I go, I love to frequent art museums and the Prado houses the older stuff (classical art, renaissance, etc). Yesterday we did a quick visit with Isabel, who incidentally is also a professor of art so she is very knowledgeable. I've posted a few images of some famous paintings I saw (above: Velazquez, El Greco and Goya). Another very impressive painting that I wasn't familiar with is "The Garden of Earthly

Delights" by Bosch. This painting dates from about 1490 to 1516 and it depicts a three paneled story of sin. The first panel shows Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, the second is of a massive orgy depicting men as animals and the third depicts a hell where the sins like gambling and music are turned into devices of torture. The main reason this painting captured my attention though is that it is the painting that inspired the surrealist movement (especially Salvador Dali). I love this movement and I can definitely see it coming out of this painting.

I think that I am going to visit the Prado several more times (with my art class and possibly also on my own) so I am sure that it will be mentioned in my blog again :)

After the museum we also toured the Circulo de Bellas Artes. This is a place founded by artists and maintained so that artists can come there to practice their craft. It was a beautiful building with workrooms for artists and a beautiful view of the city from the roof. Also - our tour guide was a bearded guy from Wisconsin with a cute story. He first came to Europe on a study trip to Germany with his (now Ex) girlfriend. She became his ex because on that trip he met the Spanish girl who would become his wife. He has now lived in Spain for almost 5 years with his wife and her family. His Spanish was indistinguishable from a native Spaniard's (to my untrained ears) and his ease with the language is something to which I can aspire.

After this tour we went to a restaurant call La Cathedral for a tapas dinner that was excellent. Aaaaand after that ... Miruxy (a new friend through Isabel) told us that she had friends who were partying a little and then going to a discotecho that night. So I decided to try a taste of Spanish nightlife. One important thing to note: In Spain, the night out starts MUCH later than in the US. With dinner at 9:30 or 10 it's common for the evening to start at 11:00 or later at someone's house and then go the the club or discotecho at 1:30 or 2. So, though I was a little tired I did not want to let an opportunity slip by ...

We went with Miruxy to the apartment of a friend of a friend, however, it wasn't exactly as I had been expecting. Though Miruxy and her friend are Spanish, the "friend of a friend" turned out to be an American study abroad student and the apartment was full of mostly Americans. Not quite the local experience I was expecting. Still, I spent most of my time talking to Miruxy and her friend Paula in Spanish and that was fun. I had a few drinks and decided to call it a night. I was tired already at 12:30 and they weren't leaving for the club for another hour so I decided to return home and split a taxi with Marie, who was equally tired. So, that pretty much sums up my first night out. A little non-eventful I know ... but it was fun. And since I'm not much of a clubbing girl in general I had a good time. Also, I arrived home early enough to get a good nights sleep before an early meeting with Isabel at el Parque del Retiro.