Madrid!

So this past weekend was my last full weekend in Spain, and what better place to spend it than Madrid! We had a group of 8 people and we all decided to go. One of the things I love about Spain is that you can book any trip last minute and its pretty cheap to get around. The bus ticket was only 30 euros to Madrid and 30 euros back and the apartment we rented was 300 for 3 nights which evened out to about 40 euros per person.

We took the bus on Friday after our classes and arrived in Madrid about 9:00. Luckily our apartment was about a 20 minute walk which wasn’t too bad. Once there we got into our apartment and it was actually a lot nicer than expected. There were three bedrooms and enough beds for all of us to sleep. We also had an entire balcony to ourselves with tables and chairs.

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Since it was already 9:00 we decided to start getting ready to go out. We went to a few local places just to get out of the house and eventually came back.

The weather in Madrid was drastically different than in Oviedo. It was about 100 degrees everyday, but there wasn’t any humidity which was good. Our first day which was Saturday, we decided to start at El Museo del Prado which is one of the most famous museums in the world. It was a huge place with so many famous paintings from Goya, to Greco, to Velazquez, and Picasso. I have learned about many of these paintings in my culture classes in the U.S. and in Spain and it was amazing to see these paintings in real life. I loved that I learned about them before and actually knew a lot about each one. The most amazing was probably Las Meninas by Velazquez because of how well known it is.

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After the museum we decided to go to a few souvenir shops and eventually back to our apartment to cook dinner. We had a kitchen so we decided to save come money and just make some pasta, which actually turned out to be pretty bad tasting, but hey, it was food! That night we planned to go to Teatro Kapital which is a 7-story club in Madrid and pretty well known, especially with tourists. It was 22 euros to get in which was a lot of money, but very worth it. We decided to start at the top floor of the club and work our way to the bottom. Every floor had a different theme and a different type of music which was pretty interesting and different. On the bottom floor was where the DJ was and the dance floor. There was a lot of american music which was good because we knew all the songs! The crazy thing is that there were people from all different parts of the world there. When you started talking to someone, you didn’t know which language you would hear. Everyone started in Spanish and from there most people could figure out where each other was from. Overall it was a great night and so much fun!

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On Sunday we decided to go to the Flea Market in Madrid which is one of the largest in Europe. It goes through many streets and everything was so cheap! I pretty much finished up my souvenir shopping and had the best time. My friend and went to one stand where an older woman was selling smalls pictures that she had painted. My friend decided to buy one and she wrote her a message on the back. She then took a picture with us and we all began talking. She was the nicest woman and it was incredible that she painted all of these herself just because she loved it.

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After leaving the market, we decided to go to the Reina Sofia which contained Dali and Picasso. I knew that “Guernica” by Picasso was there and I have always wanted to see it in real life. Turns out, it was more amazing than I thought. They dedicated an entire room to just Guernica because of how big it was. You could really get the feelings Picasso was trying to convey and it was just overwhelmingly beautiful.

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After heading back to the apartment again and taking a small siesta, we decided to go out for Indian food as it was one of our friend’s birthday. I have never had Indian food and it was so good! We had a nice family dinner with all eight of us and shared our pits and peaks of the trip which was great and a nice way to end an amazing trip.

Monday we were supposed to leave at 12 so we woke up extra early to go to Parque Retiro and see the palaces. After a bit of confusion we made it there and these palaces were beautiful. One of them was completely made of glass and resembled a greenhouse. Apparently every so often they have art exhibits in there which would be a crazy thing to see.

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I’m so happy that I took advantage of my time and went on this trip to Madrid because it was truly a beautiful and fun city.

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My name is Ashely Sirna. I am a junior at SUNY New Paltz and am double majoring in Spanish and psychology with a minor in disaster studies. This summer I am studying abroad in Oviedo, Spain for two months. I am very excited to learn about the culture and improve my Spanish!

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