Domingo - 22.55

Today was another busy touristy day. I moseyed around a bit this morning after I woke up, again around 7:30. I did, however, go back to sleep until about 8:30. Then after eating breakfast and getting dressed, and after checking Facebook and email, I fell asleep. I woke up again around 11:30, and got up for good. I headed out with my purse and bag of trash (since I don't know what to do with my trash that accumulates, I don't have a trash can so I use shopping bags until they're full, and then throw them in garbage cans on the street). After I threw away the trash, I realized I had forgotten my camera. I was glad I realized that before I got too far! Then I headed to the metro. I got off at the Iglesia stop, about a half an hour to forty five minute ride with all the stops. Here I followed the signs until I found Museo Sorolla. It was really easy, I literally did not have to turn once.

The entrance was really awesome. It was a garden, which I later found out that the artist Sorolla had designed, and even helped to plant. This had originally been his family home, which added to it's charm. After getting my free entry ticket, I walked around. I started on the ground floor, which had a room full of pottery on display. It was pretty cool. Then I went to the first floor. This was the studio of the artist, and had three rooms dedicated to the production of paintings. The first was a typical museum, nothing on the floor, just paintings on the walls. There were two in this room that I really loved. One had a man sitting at a desk, working with glass bottles, presumably medication. The expertise of the bottles was amazing! The reflections and distortion was perfect, I had to take a photo. It's on Facebook. The second was a young boy swimming in water, a lake or pond or something. The water was fantastic! It was "clear" enough so that you could see the shape of the boy, but murky enough to be able to tell it was a lake or pond. It was beyond words awesome.

The second room had a table in the middle of it with a few books, not roped off, with a bench, some chairs, and some other odd furniture against the walls underneath the paintings. In this room it was easy to choose my favorite painting. The way the artist works with light is fantastic, I kind of geeked out about it. His paintings are so light and airy, as opposed to the dark tenebristic style that I'm learning about in my art class, and see in nearly all paintings in the first floor of the Prado Museum. The painting is to the right. I found it absolutely amazing. Almost all of his paintings have some sort of a beach theme, which adds to the light airy feel of his collection. It was amazing. The third room had considerably more furniture. It had the desk of the artist with books, pencils, etc. on it. It also had several chests about the room, and what looked like a really comfortable day bed. It had curtains you could pull around the cushions. It had more light, airy beach paintings all about.

The rest of the rooms were part of the family home. It was exactly the kind of house I love; old with a lot of charm, squeaky floors but not too squeaky, great big windows that let in a lot of sunlight, and little characteristic details, like crown molding and chair rails. I loved it, especially since it had a lot of the original furniture too, and it wasn't roped off (though there were guards making sure people didn't sit or use the furniture). It made the whole place feel really welcome and original, not like it's a fragile environment to be heavily guarded like most of the other museums. The rest of the floor had a living room (with some awesome yellow furniture!), a dining room with a really cool painting of fruits along the top of the room, and an area that had large bay windows overlooking the garden.

Up the stairs was the temporary exhibit, which was much more like a museum with glass cases and roped off sections. It was all still the same artist though, which was cool. What I loved about this floor was that you could see sketches the artist had made. It's not very often that museums put out the sketches of a painter, just the paintings. Since this is more up my alley, I looked at them for a while. It's still way above my skill level, but I liked seeing them a lot. This level also had cases in which there would be a portrait, and next to the painting was the shirt and jewelry that the woman in the portrait had been wearing. That was really cool for me to see because it made the portrait seem more real, like it wasn't imagined. I don't know. In the metro they had a print of one of Sorolla's paintings blown up and displayed on the wall, right when you get off the trains to advertise the museum. This is that painting. It's of two women in white walking along the beach. It shows again how the artist is such a master of natural light and bright, breezy colors. It was on the first level.

After leaving the museum I headed back to the metro, stopping into a little store that advertised magazines and books on the outside. I looked at some stickers for a few minutes, because they were really cool and would work well for scrapbooking, but they were way too expensive for me at about 5 euros a sheet. It's much cheaper to buy them in the US. I switched lines at Sol and then got off at Banco de España. I could see Fuente de Cibeles as I exited the station. It was a pretty cool statue, especially with the fountains all right around it and the Spanish flags. It's shown below. The plaza that it's in is really pretty too, the buildings are all really intricate in their design, which of course made it wonderful for taking photos! 

I got photos from a few different angles, but then edited out the ones with too many cars or posts obscuring the statue. I also realized that this area -Plaza de Cibeles- is the area everyone's been talking about for the night buses! So when the metro closes down, the night buses (which are also free with our metro pass) are up and running and stop near the metro stops. That would have been good to know last month. At least I know for future reference. Not that I really plan on going out much. I headed down the street to my next destination: El Museo Naval. I spent a lot of time in this museum. Walking in was interesting because the security was pretty heavy. They needed identification that they could write down in a book to show who had been there and on what day, and then they had a security machine (like the ones at the airport but I can't remember their name) that I had to put my purse and camera through. Then I stepped through a metal detector. Once that was all done, I headed up the stairs to the museum!

It was actually pretty cool to walk through a museum of things which I know virtually nothing about. There were a lot of tools that the crew and the captain used. A lot of compasses and a lot of fancy looking binocular things. There was also a lot of weapons, specifically knives/swords and guns. They had two HUGE globes, which were really cool to see, a lot of maps, a LOT of boat replicas, big and small, and a lot of knick knacks. It was really interesting, I liked it a lot. I will admit after looking at all the art museums, I kind of liked the change in aesthetic, since this museum didn't just have paintings, it also had material items, like compasses, globes, coins, medals, etc. Though they did have some breathtaking paintings on the wall here as well. I loved a lot of them, especially ones with one or two boats and a peaceful harbor. The water was amazing with really pretty shades of blues.

The museum was also really huge! There was a long row of rooms that I walked through, and there were I think three rooms off to the left and one off to the right. I made sure I saw every room by backtracking haha. I'm glad I did though, the museum was awesome. It was really cool to be able to see relics of the Spanish Armada, since while I know very little about them, I did learn a few things about it in school. It was also cool to see relics from Christopher Columbus's voyages, you know since he discovered America and all thanks to financial support from the Spanish crown. Overall, I really enjoyed the museum, more than I thought I would, to be honest. I wasn't sure how to get out of the museum though. I know it sounds silly, but the way I came in was really small, the only space to get in or out was through the metal detector, and there was a group getting ready to come in. I asked one of the guards, both different than when I first came in, if I was allowed to leave this way, and she said yes. The detector went off as I left, which was annoying, but then I was out!

I walked down the street a bit and passed the Prado Museum. Right next to the Prado is the Real Jardín Botánico (Royal Botanical Gardens). I wanted to go in, but since I had to pay I figured I'd save it for some day next week when I don't have anything to do. It's only 1.50 euros with the student discount though, so it's affordable. I will admit that I caved here and became a typical fat American. I ate lunch at Burger King. I told myself I wouldn't eat there or at McDonalds while here because we have them in the US, but I was really craving greasy beef! I'd say that about 60% of the food eaten here is seafood, 20% ham, 15% chicken, and 5% beef. I miss my beef lol. I have zero complaints about the food too, it was exactly what I wanted! Well, I have one complaint. I didn't get enough ketchup. They gave me two packets, and I put one on my "Big King Burger", since it didn't come with ketchup. It did have real lettuce though! I used the other ketchup packet for my fries, but ran out... so I had to eat naked fries. I also completed the survey online to get a free whopper, so I'm saving that for later. I have 30 "natural days" to use it, so I'm not too worried about when.

After I ate my deliciously unhealthy American lunch, I decided to walk home. It was about two miles. It would have been two stops had I taken the metro, but I was in a fantastic mood and figured I should probably walk off the grease. I'm glad I did though, because two things happened. One, I walked down the street I found my first or second day here in Spain (the museums are really close to the orientation hotel) that has tables of books. I'm a sucker for books, always have been. I ended up leaving with two books for a grand total of 50 cents. I found an Edgar Allen Poe book in Spanish, which was awesome because 1) it's in Spanish, 2) Edgar Allen Poe is my favorite poet, and 3) it was super cheap! I also left with the same book that I had to read for my composition class. Why? Because this version is signed by the author! I was so excited to find it, so I'm going to see if Alicia wants to buy the one I'm letting her borrow. If she does, awesome! If not, oh well, I wasn't expecting her to.

The second thing was that I could take pictures of the really creepy, giant baby heads. Every time I've gotten a taxi here in Spain I have gone by them. Once when Monica took me to their apartment to begin my home stay, once when I got home from Joy around four in the morning, and then again when I left Joy with Marissa and Morgan around 2 in the morning. They're really creepy, and I'm not sure why they're there or what kind of statement the artist was trying to make... they're right by the Renfe station, which is a huge area of traffic here in Madrid. I think they're made out of some type of stone, or cement, and I'm assuming they're relatively recent. The view behind one of them is of the city, but the "dirty" side of the city, with industrial buildings and smoke from factories, etc. I find them interesting. 

After all the adventures of today, I came back to the apartment and sat down. Lol I drank a bottle of water as I filled out my daily adventures in my planner and browsed the internet. I researched an art minor at Tech, and tried to see if I could manage to add it to my degree. Then I Skyped mom and dad at 7, and Jason was there too. (Ryan was there for a few minutes). After we hung up, I got productive. I emailed the adviser for the art minor and asked if she recommends me to add it. Then I also asked if the art history class I'm in here in Madrid will be able to replace the art history class necessary for the minor. I'm not holding my breath, because I was supposed to get all the transfer credits taken care of before I left. It would be nice though, since I think it's essentially the same thing, just focusing on one country's art.

Then I looked at the suggested list of places to see here in Madrid that was sent to us and researched them. I looked at their hours, their entrance fee, and where they are located. Then I got out my planner and penciled in all the spots according to their hours. Then I was called to dinner. Today it was spaghetti (with beef!) and a slice of bread. Pilar was there today, and she commented on how "morena" (dark) I am becoming. I told her it was because I'm in the sun a lot here. That was about the extent of our conversation though. After my yogurt dessert, I came back to my room to finish my calendar.

I decided to take advantage of the 90% discount offered to us through the University. Discount for what? An opera at the ROYAL THEATER. I'm super excited for it! It's called Ainadamar and it's about politics, the government, and art here in Spain. It seems interesting, especially since I know a lot of the history, (thanks to my culture class) but I don't know how much I'll understand. Because of this offer, though, I'll be seated in the first few rows, in the seats that cost 172 euros! I'll feel royal for a night. I'm not sure what to wear though... That takes care of two things on my Madrid wish-list; see the royal theater, and watch a play.

Now I'm going to stretch. All the sightseeing I did today made my legs hurt. Then, I shall go to bed.