Madrileña!

Bonjour!


Today marks three months in Paris for me!  I can't believe it's already been that long, and I definitely feel sorry for all the exchange students who are already heading home in mid-December or in January.  Not sorry in a condescending, "I pity you" kind of way; I'm just genuinely sorry!  I'm not sure I'll even be ready to come home in July.  But ask me that question again in...July.


It's been a great week.  Before jetting off to Madrid last Thursday, I enjoyed a TASTY dinner with Vicki, Andy, and Vicki's visiting friend Irena on Tuesday night.  We went to Gladine's, a Basque Bistrot in the 13th that Kenzie's French students (she teaches informal English classes at an Engineering school) had recommended to her a few weeks back.  Mmmmm, delicious local secrets! We ate WAY more than our fill (at a reasonable price, although I think my idea of "reasonable" has changed quite a lot in the last three months) before heading off to meet Dominika, Kenzie, and Emily at Footsie's, otherwise known as the "stockmarket bar" near Opera.  The prices change according to demand, which is pretty awesome, although it was slow on a Tuesday night so we didn't get the full effect.  It was still really great to catch up with some of my "countrymen" who I hadn't seen in quite some time!


Wednesday passed quickly between yoga and 4 hours of teaching English and before I knew it I was on my way to Madrid.  I flew Easyjet and got there around noon Thursday.  My American friend Anthony, who I've known since we were six and both going to St. Rose, and who is doing an exchange in Madrid this year, met me at the airport.  Unfortunately it was a cloudy, chilly, and rainy day -- one of the first they've had -- but we still had a good time exploring some of the major sites (Plaza Mayor, Palacio Real...) after dropping off my stuff at his friend Giuseppe's place, where I spent the first night (thanks, Giuseppe!!).  I was immediately struck by the price differences -- things tended to be 1/2 or 2/3 of Paris prices -- and how sprawling the city is.  After some research (involving Wikipedia, obviously the most credible source I know) I can give you the following rough figures.  Everything in parentheses is the equivalent measurement in miles.
Paris
Land Area = 87 km-squared (34)
Population = 2.2 million 
hence Density = 25,360/km-squared (65,700)
So that's "Paris Paris".  The Urban Area (not to be confused with the Metro Area, click on the terms for wiki-definitions) is 2,723 km-squared (1,051); the Metro Area is 14,518 km-squared (5,605).
Madrid
Land Area = 600 km-squared (234)
Population = 3,2 million
hence Density = 5,300/km-squared (13,700)
The Metro Area is 10,500 km-squared (4,000) and the Metro Population is just over 7 million.


Well, if you got anything out of that, you see how much more compact Paris is.  I'm not sure how much I really saw of the "city center" in Madrid, but it seems like you get out of it pretty quickly, and you notice when that happens, whereas in Paris I feel like I'm "downtown" pretty much all the time.  It seems that most Madrileños live outside the city's bustling nucleus, and while I enjoyed the break from the hustle and bustle, I realized as I walked to my metro stop today how much I like seeing other people out and about.  Speaking of metros, while the Madrid metro system is awesome, the land area of the city limits its efficiency.  I'm getting pretty spoiled here in Paris, where the metro stops are sometimes only a minutes' walking distance away.  Which does NOT mean that Parisians don't walk (because they do), but rather that no matter where you are, there's a station close by.  
No wonder Parisians sing drinking songs about our metro! 


After sightseeing Thursday afternoon, we headed back over to Giuseppe's for...wait for it...Thanksgiving dinner!  Anthony's awesome friend Erin, who grew up in Luxembourg but whose father is American, had started preparing the stuffing the night before, but things really got going in the kitchen around 7PM Thursday night.  Erin and Giuseppe worked for hours in kitchen while I wandered between them and the other guests, which eventually included four Belgians, three Americans (Anthony and me included), three Frenchies, a girl from Poland, a Peruvian girl, a German guy, Erin, and Giuseppe.  So, you know how people usually start preparing Thanksgiving dinner in the morning?  There's a reason for that.  We ended up eating around midnight, which I guess is actually somewhat typical for Spain, but Erin, Giuseppe and I (when I was in the kitchen) underwent a LOT of harassment from some hungry students!  It was worth the wait in the end though, because the food was delicious.  Erin, Giuseppe and I sneakily prepared our plates first then let the others have a free-for-all with the rest of the food.  When I wandered back into the kitchen a few minutes later, the three chickens (because if you want a whole turkey, especially a big one, you either need to call the butcher in advance or literally import one from the States) looked like they had been pecked apart by vultures.


Everyone left around 2am but most of us saw each other 8 short hours later when we met to take the bus to Toledo.  Despite some tricky map-reading and a less-than-spectacular, we-cater-to-clueless-tourists lunch, we had a good time wandering the city and checking out a few of its churches, synagogues, and mosques.  Toledo is pretty much how I've always pictured Spain (unlike the newer, and often unattractive, buildings in Madrid).  The views, especially at sunset and from the towers of one of the churches, were spectacular:

The food on Saturday more-than made up for the interesting cuisine of Toledo.  We started off the day with a trip to the Reina Sofia, a huge contemporaryish art center in Madrid.  I had an amazing time there -- it might be my favorite museum so far (as in, in my life).  Of course, that kind of stuff can have a lot to do with your mood and what temporary exhibits are there; I particularly enjoyed the top floor, where I found León Ferrari y Mira Schendel: El alfabeto enfurecido (The Enraged Alphabet).  The whole exhibit was just really interesting, maybe because a lot of it was about language.  I also thought the layout and placement of the pieces was excellent: they used a lot of overhead spotlighting, an intentional choice I'm sure, which allowed most of the 3 dimensional pieces to cast some awesome shadows.  I actually hesitated before stepping into some of the shadows the pieces cast.  Maybe I've just got a thing for shadows; you can look at pages 7 and 8 of this album to judge for yourself.  

The physical structure of the Reina Sofia is an interesting mix of the original building and the very modern addition, as you can see from other pictures in that album.


After the museum we headed to Anthony's host's piso (apartment) for comida, which literally means "food" but in Spain can also mean the biggest meal of the day (usually a mid-afternoon lunch).  Anthony is living with Maete and Jacinto, "relatives" of his family (his sister's godmother's sister is Maete, I believe), and I adore them.  We started off with the best white wine I've ever had (which isn't saying much, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that something so sweet actually suited the tastebuds of people besides my friend Nicole and I).  The first plate was bread with a garlic-butter spread and Spanish ham, which is tougher and tastier than "normal" ham, and a salad.  Then Maete brought out a dish of rice and seafoody things which kind of resembled gumbo (can anyone help me out here with a name?).  That was amazing as well.  In honor of our Americanism, Maete baked an apple crumble with fresh cream/custard (I'm awful with food classifications), which was soooo delicious, there is no way I can adequately describe it.  YUM!  Afterwards Jacinto headed into the kitchen to whip up some Irish coffee.

At the table that day and throughout my visit to Spain, I was surprised at the lack of a language barrier.  At first I thought it was due to my Texan origins (being so close to Mexico and surrounded by many immigrants/descendants of immigrants) and my two years of high-school Spanish (IF you can actually call those "language classes." Sorry PVA), but as I found myself hearing Spanish and thinking in Italian, I figured out the real reason I was able to understand so much of what was going on around me.  The conversation at lunch that day was probably 80% Spanish, although Maete and Jacinto have been studying English all of their lives, so they were able to switch when I found myself at a loss.  Sometimes my brain only offered me Italian words, and I got really tripped up over verb conjugations (I honestly don't think I ever learned anything but the present and imperfect), but overall the experience left me energized to actually learn Spanish -- after I spend some time in Italy working on my Italian.  I have a feeling that if I learned it now, my Italian would all but disappear.  YAY languages!  I've decided my goal is to speak, relatively fluently, 5.  English, French, Italian, Spanish...any ideas for the 5th?  It has to be a "Slavic" language, I think.  I'm thinking Russian, although it would be cool to learn Czech (my paternal grandfather spoke it but didn't teach it to my dad).  By the way, did you know UT Austin is the only school in the United States where you can get an undergraduate degree in Czech?  I actually originally applied for that major, but reality eventually hit and I realized how ridiculous it would be to learn three languages at the same time.


ANYWAY
Maete and Jacinto generously offered to take me on a driving tour of Madrid after lunch, and after that I met up with some of Anthony's girl friends to do some shopping.  Madrid prices were a nice relief for my wallet, and I got some cute (and warm) stuff!
I met up with the group again around nine, when we went to another friend's house for an authentic Peruvian feast hosted by two Peruvian girls.  I'm not really sure what the occasion was, or if there was one, but I felt so lucky (and full) to be eating another amazing meal!  Later on Saturday we "went out".  Going out is interesting in Madrid, as it's totally normal to just buy drinks from (mainly Chinese) vendors on the street (which explains why I witnessed a man basically buying out a grocery store's supply of coke late Friday night) and stand around, being rowdy, blocking traffic, etc.  It's pretty different from Parisian-style sorties, but I had a good time with even more of Anthony's friends, including some Spaniards that we met, one of whom goes to university in France :)


By Sunday I was exhausted and already dreading the trek home and a test on Monday (which had been rescheduled from the Monday before).  Anthony and I had an interesting experience with public transit which involved taking a bus 45 minutes in the wrong direction, but we eventually made it to the Prado museum, Spain's most famous, a huge monument which houses a collection spanning several centuries.  It's about as overwhelming as the Met in New York, and by the time we got there it was almost time to head to the airport, but I'm glad I got to check out some Velazquez and a few El Greco works. 


My return to Paris was uneventful, and as for the test, we'll see!  The only downside to my Spain trip was that I missed the visit (to Paris) of my friend Jessica from CMU, who is studying right now in Copenhagen.  I almost missed my friend Shaina's visit (she's studying in London this semester and we went to PVA together), but we met up at "Amelie's cafe" in the 18th (from the movie Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, in case you've been living under a rock for the past 8 years) Monday evening.  Considering how touristy the spot must be for the better part of the year, I was surprised at how friendly the waiters were (they DIDN'T "English" me) and how tasty the food was (although if you slap enough butter and cheese on something, it's bound to be delicious).

I took last night and today to recover from the busy long weekend - which means checking my emails, uploading pictures, and writing this blog post - but tomorrow it's back-to-the-grind (if I'm even allowed to say such a thing about life in Paris); I've got some makeup work to do before hopping on a train to Germany with Anja on Friday afternoon!  Be sure to check out that album above (here it is again) to see all my pictures from Madrid and Toledo.  I'll leave you with a few of my favorites...