Madrid Day 1 - Acid Trip in Reina Sofia

So while watching a budget version of (500) Days of Summer* on my computer, I have decided to continue to update this fabulous oh-so-popular blog...

Sidenote: I think Carmen (my host mom) thinks I'm a bit weird because 9.99 out of 10 times I can be found in my room, on my computer... I feel like one of the geeks from 16 Candles (although that could be because I am one, minus the whole underwear fascination)

Ok so Madrid. Unlike any of the other places, we stayed 2 days, and rightfully so. Madrid is absolutely enormous and we probably only saw 1/10 of the city, but I felt as though we got a chunk of the sites in. Day one was all about Museo de Reina Sofia.

Normally this museum is overshadowed by the Prado, but it has some pretty amazing stuff. It's most popular piece: Guernica

For those of you who don't know, Guernica is one of Pablo Picasso more famous paintings, and up close (well you can't get all that close, there's a motion detector that keeps all viewers at bay and at least 5 yards away from the painting) it is quite large. So large, I could not get a full picture of it simply by standing in front of it

What's even cooler is the studies of all the characters Pablo put into the final piece. Originally, I thought most painters simply painted on a whim. But not good old Pablo; it took him what looks like forever to decide where to put each character, with whom they would interact, the shading, the colors, etc.
It's comforting to know I'm not the only nor most indecisive person out there.

Then we moved on to Dalí!
Talk about an acid trip....

Dalí paintings are so awesome, but I'm not going to even try and pretend to know what he's trying to say in any of them. My most favorite aspect of his work is that you could look at it for hours and never get bored; there is a million aspects in each painting. Which makes me wonder if those who analyze his work- and thanks to his work- are possibly just as crazy as him

After the museum we got to roam around (my favorite) and we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner and going out. It was one of the girls in our group's birthday, so we let her choose the restaurant- italian. I have to say, I couldn't complain. The last time I had good pasta and pizza was too long ago and it was a nice change of scenery. (I'm going to change my definition of good pasta and pizza when I discuss Florence with you though)

We did however make the mistake of being so hungry that we agreed to sit in the smoking section. Never again will I make that mistake

After we were going to try and go to a few bars and maybe a discoteca, until we learned how much it costs. Keep in mind, in Granada, dinner is free with drinks and entry fees into clubs cost about 8 euro max, with at least one free drink.

In Madrid: nothing is free, and an entry fee is 18 euro with 1 free drink. No thank you.

At least I was able to get a good nights sleep in my bunk bed (yup they put Meghan and I in bunk beds in the hotel) for the next day!

*(500) of Summer is NOT worth watching when it's budget. One MAJOR pet peeve of mine is when the sound and picture don't match up. I can't take it any more.

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