Magpie's Flight

Monday, July 25, 2011

My little Spanish life

We did make it to Madrid, we just had to buy a new flight, and spend most of the day in the airport, oopsies. We were also so tired and hungry that we got two teas, two coffees, one orange juice, two waters, two croisants with ham n cheese, a muffin and a giant peanut butter cookie...and some strange looks from the man that rang us up. Refueled, we toted around our massive bags and eventually were on a flight to our new home.

Madrid is great- expensive, but great. It was so hot there (yay, a real summer!), and our apt was across the street from the most beautiful park (as some of you know from my photo album dedicated to it on Facebook). The park has waterfalls, statues, tennis courts (I think 8), soccer fields (4), huge sun bldg with pond and fountain in front of it, an art museum, running/biking/walking paths galore, large areas for skating, an outdoor gym!, and and and...

One of our first nights there, we went to a bar called The Penthouse in Santa Ana plaza. It had a spectacular view of the city from it's penthouse rooftop terrace. We met some of Anna's classmates and hung out enjoying the view of the city at sunset, and the bustle of people down in the square. We went out with Anna's classmates quite often- Cuban food (not as good as Peseos in Seattle) and salsa dancing (also had Cuban cigars- terrible idea), went dancing at a few clubs, and out to dinner at so many of the gorgeous plazas that have outdoor dining.

I found that I enjoyed some of the food, and I definitely am a fan of tapas style eating, but I did not care for the massive amounts of ham and cheese, and sardines! The wine however, was delicious, available in copious amounts, and so so cheap :)

I found the residents not to be as welcoming to foreigners as I expected (it definitely would've helped if my Spanish were up to par).

We rode the metro like crazy during our time in Madrid- they have a good system, and reasonably priced. We somehow managed to navigate around really well the entire time.

I'm glad that I went to the museums, though most of the art was not my favorite style, and there is heavy religious influence on much of it. Prado was my favorite one in Madrid; mostly the bldg- it's massive and so old and beautiful. They had a large collection of Picasso, and paintings so old that it's hard to even grasp their age. Many had very interesting stories about the painting and/or the painter. There was stories about jesters, and kings and their 14 wives, and a woman that grew hair all over her entire body like a werewolf (breastfeeding her baby in the picture; supposedly the painting was a scientific documentation of the condition), the first painting to ever show a woman masterbating, the significance of all the objects around the subject when portraits painted....it took a long time to go through it, and I didn't see everything.

We made several short trips out of Madrid while living there, but they'll need separate posts, as I have so many pictures.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

First stop on the crazy train through Europe!!

Turns out, when you're in the hot sun, eating delicious food, and playing a LOT, you don't blog much :) However, Amsterdam has decided to be rainy, windy and borderline cold, so it's bidniz time (10 Pts to those that know the reference)!

First stop on this new continent, Lisbon, Portugal! I am a big fan. Lisbon has beautiful beaches, great architecture, reasonable prices, hot summertime weather, and an awesome sounding language. The town was large, but still somehow seemed quaint. It was very clean and had several great viewpoints (Chiado Sq, one of the best). All of the streets are cobblestone and brick, many of the bldgs have great tile work on the outside (if not covering the entire bldg), statues galore, street parties, huge churches, and adorable cafes! We rented "Go-Cars" and it was so fun! It's like a three wheeled scooter, that has been turned into a mini-car. It has a built in GPS that navigates you around the city, while telling you facts. We went to a viewpoint where you could see the oldest part of the city and the castle, to a flea market (we got some great handmade stuff), almost got hit by a taxi...it was an adventure. I've driven scooters plenty, but when I first started driving, I wasn't making a corner and for some reason I didn't think of stopping as an option and we just rammed the curb in the middle of traffic with our bright yellow baby car. To make it worse, our hostel roommate just happened to be standing right there watching the whole scene (of course she brought it up in front of everyone at the hostel that night). At one point of the tour, the GPS says, this is a great spot to take a break, why don't you pull over and have a beer?...Um, cause I'm driving you. Anyhoo, we had a fantastic time driving around in our lunchlady hairnets and helmets sight seeing the beautiful Lisbon! Other day time activities were laying on the caiscas beach (water is cold), wandering the streets, and hanging out drinking coffee at the outdoor cafes. We also decided to get a taste of the nightlife one night, and went out to The lively neighborhood Barrio Alto. The streets were filled with people and music, drinking, and dancing! It was ridiculously late (because they are night owls in Europe), and we ran into a group of gay guys that invited us to go to a club with them, and of course we went- so fun. The club had a drag queen show, and we danced the night/morning away. The problem was that we got back to our hotel with only time for a 45 minute nap before we had to be to the airport, so we set our alarm and drifted off....yup, we missed our flight to Madrid, sigh.