Saturday at the Prado

On Saturday we went to the Prado art museum in Madrid. I had been dying to go since I got here and was really excited. It ended up being me, Samantha, Marshall and Syd who went. We all met at the Prado and since we are students we got in for FREE! I love student discounts.

The museum is huge and you could probably spend days there but we just hit the highlights. We saw all of Goya’s dark paintings, which were very scary. They even had the lights dimmed in the room to emphasize their frightening subject matter. I also saw many Velázquez paintings, and his most famous work, Las Meninas. Las Meninas is considered to be one of the best and most famous works of Spanish art of all time so that was amazing to see. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be.

My favorite thing that I saw was Bosch’s Garden of Earthy Delights. It is a triptych so that means it opens like a display board and has different meanings based on if it is open or closed. It was open in the museum and we obviously couldn’t touch it but it was so cool. It’s pretty big and has amazing details and bright colors. It was made in the  late 1400/ early 1500s but looked very modern and Dali-ish or something. I loved it. After the Prado everyone was hungry so we went to a bar and go some food. It was there that I realized I lost my phone! I was freaking out for a bit because I really didn’t want to buy another one so I went back to the Prado to look for it.

Luckily for me it was just sitting in the grass outside the Prado, where we had been earlier that day and since it is bright blue it was easy to find. I’m pretty sure no one took it because it is stone-age technology and probably worth a euro or less. Sometimes it pays to have ancient technology.

All of us outside the Prado (me, samantha, syd and marshall)

the walk up to the Prado

That night there was a free concert hosted by MTV near my friend Samantha’s place in Madrid. We decided to check it out because as college students we are drawn to anything free. I met her at the metro station and then we met some of her friends that she met the other night in SOL. They are from Syracuse and are also studying abroad in Madrid. There was three of them, two girls and a boy, and the girl said she had to wait for her other guy friend, Juan. I thought Juan would be a college-aged student also from Syracuse but he ended up being a random 30-ish something Spanish man. I actually mistook him for being homeless. He looked like a Spanish Kosmo Kramer.  He and the girl ended up pretty much hanging out with each other the whole time instead of us so it was fine.

The concert

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More concert pics

Me, Samantha and some new friends from Syracuse

Rock out

Posing by the MTV Madrid Beach sign, you can't really see it with the lighting

  The concert was pretty cool for a bit and they played a lot of trendy Spanish songs. However, it was super crowded and there were a lot of drunk people, which is a volatile combination when you have a broken foot (people step on you/fall over on you). I only stayed until 12 because I wanted to catch the metro back but I’m still glad I went.