Last day in Spain
Jun. 26th, 2009 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatarperegrineCouldn't post this while I was there, so a brief recap of my last 36 hours in Spain, spent in Madrid.
We arrived in the late afternoon and met Ryan's friend Javi for dinner. Javi was a lot of fun, perhaps because he's a ROCK STAR, or at least has just recorded an album with his band Mamut. It's an indy pop band although his heart is really in heavy metal, which cracked me up because he's like the opposite of the plot of Detroit Metal City. After dinner Javi drove us around the city so we could see the non-touristy parts, which were surprisingly like Any City Anywhere, and then showed us the Temple of Debod, an Egyptian temple that somehow got relocated to Spain.
Tuesday was my last day in Spain, and I was fixated on viewing as much art as possible. We got to the Prado as it opened and spent 5.5 hours there, and then after lunch spent another hour and a half at the Thyssen-Bornemisza.
We saw many amazing things but I will recap my three favorites:
I'd hoped to make it to the Reina Sofia to see Guernica, but it's closed on Tuesdays. Ah well, that's the price of spending only one day in a city.
In the evening we headed up to the gay neighborhood, Chueca for dinner. In pursuit of an heladería on the way home we accidentally ended up in the red light district. Madrid's prostitutes are, um, assertive; as we left the ice cream shop with our cones we saw a prostitute physically grab a man and try to drag him with her. Whoa. Ryan complained that his ice cream tasted of fear and shame.
So that was it: Spain in 10 days! Take that, Frommer's!
We arrived in the late afternoon and met Ryan's friend Javi for dinner. Javi was a lot of fun, perhaps because he's a ROCK STAR, or at least has just recorded an album with his band Mamut. It's an indy pop band although his heart is really in heavy metal, which cracked me up because he's like the opposite of the plot of Detroit Metal City. After dinner Javi drove us around the city so we could see the non-touristy parts, which were surprisingly like Any City Anywhere, and then showed us the Temple of Debod, an Egyptian temple that somehow got relocated to Spain.
Tuesday was my last day in Spain, and I was fixated on viewing as much art as possible. We got to the Prado as it opened and spent 5.5 hours there, and then after lunch spent another hour and a half at the Thyssen-Bornemisza.
We saw many amazing things but I will recap my three favorites:
- Hieronymous Bosch's incredible Garden of Earthly Delights and Seven Deadly Sins. I'd heard Bosch's name before but honestly knew nothing about his art. He's like a 16th century Dalí... it was amazing.
- A ridiculously extravagant merman salt cellar and jar featuring Narcissus diving into the liquid, from the Treasury of the Dauphin. Can you imagine having those on your dining room table?
- At the Tyssen museum my favorite thing was Dalí's Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Awakening. <3 Dali.
I'd hoped to make it to the Reina Sofia to see Guernica, but it's closed on Tuesdays. Ah well, that's the price of spending only one day in a city.
In the evening we headed up to the gay neighborhood, Chueca for dinner. In pursuit of an heladería on the way home we accidentally ended up in the red light district. Madrid's prostitutes are, um, assertive; as we left the ice cream shop with our cones we saw a prostitute physically grab a man and try to drag him with her. Whoa. Ryan complained that his ice cream tasted of fear and shame.
So that was it: Spain in 10 days! Take that, Frommer's!
