Back to Spanish (Week 3)

This week was very relaxed as far as lectures are concerned. There were two days where I only had one class, Friday was a free day, and Thursday afternoon we toured Museum Stoecki, which was essentially a German anesthesiologist's personal museum of pharmaceuticals and medical technology. It was incredible how much he had collected over his time in medicine. Even though everything was in a hospital building, it was set up like any other museum with display cases for all of the old medicines and machines and little placards for most of the displays. It was interesting to see the progression of anesthesiology over 200 years. For a long time, most of what changed was just the materials the devices were made from and anesthesiologists used ether for much longer than I thought. I also didn't realize that it took so long for needless to come about. But the coolest thing, in my opinion, was seeing the iron lung. Apparently, this little museum has one of only four on display in Europe.

Outside of class and our tour, I was just getting all my assignments due over the weekend done early so I didn't have to worry about them during my trip to Madrid. Genetics has the first exam coming up too, which meant I was also reading for that and going over the chapter problems. Our professor said that those problems would help us a lot on the exams we'll be taking, so that's my focus when it comes to studying and reviewing material. We'll be taking the exam a few days late because of the Vienna excursion, but I honestly don't think it's going to increase my study time. We'll have a hard time trying to make time to study while in Vienna and then while in Budapest the weekend after. Have to take advantage of how far East we'll be, after all. It just means that I'll have to very carefully manage my time and be super focused when I do get to study. 

Come Friday, I went to Madrid with a group of five other people. It was an even split of boys and girls, which made the room situation at the hotel simple to arrange, but getting to the hotel was a struggle. The public transport in the city is not the best and takes a long time. It ended up taking us about 3.5 hours to get to the hotel and check-in, after some issues finding the hotel. After settling in, the first thing we did was get food. By the time we finished the three-course meal (ending with an amazing chocolate cake), it was around 1800. We wanted to go to the Reina Sofia art museum, but free entry didn't start until 1900, so we just hung out at the hotel for a while before getting uber rides into town. Like I said, public transport takes a long time and it would have taken us over an hour to catch trains and buses into the city, compared to a 20-minute drive. The museum actually has an attached bar/lounge and the six of us got glasses of wine/beer after the museum closed at 2100. Later, we went out for a few drinks and danced to some really great Spanish music that I didn't understand. 

Saturday we tried to go to Retiro Park to see the Crystal Palace, but the park was closed because of the wind. The trees can apparently fall over if the wind gets too bad and people have died from a tree falling on them, according to our uber drivers. So, we ended up at the Museo del Prado instead. This museum is so big! We ended up in two groups of three and saw different floors but neither group was able to see the entirety of one floor after almost 4 hours. There were so many beautiful paintings and some of them had really interesting stories behind their creation and/or meaning. But my favorite thing was the stone statues. Most of them were about life-size, with a few being extremely large. I like statues because of the contrast in technique with that of painting. When an artist paints, she adds paint to a canvas to create a masterpiece. But when an artist chisels stone or marble, she takes away from the canvas to reveal a masterpiece. Anyway, after the museum, we went for dinner and got some paella and tapas- so delicious! We saw a lot of the big plazas in the process and after dinner, when we walked back to the park to see if it had been opened. When we found out the park was still closed, some of us went for churros. They weren't quite the same as the churros one would find in the US because the ones in Madrid don't have cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on them. But they were still quite tasty and the chocolate that came with them as a dipping sauce was very good and rich. 

This last full day of our trip, Sunday, we started by going to El Rastro, a huge flea market in the city that happens every Sunday morning. We got a big breakfast in the plaza where some of the stalls were and I tried Argentinian empanadas for the first time. I'm not entirely sure how authentic they were since we were in Spain and everything, but I can't deny that I absolutely loved my empanada! Of course, after breakfast, we went shopping for around two hours and I spent way too much money on souvenirs for my family. Next, we finally got into the park and saw the Crystal Palace. I was very impressed by the building itself because it's all made of glass and must be hard to maintain due to the high number of tourists. We then went to the palace, which is apparently the largest in Europe, and got to go inside. I can't fully express the opulence of each room I stepped foot into but the small portion of the palace that we did see was a mix of styles and artistic methods, including a room completely decorated in porcelain, that all resulted in absolutely stunning rooms at each turn. Finally, we ended the day by watching the sunset at the Temple of Debod, which was gorgeous. I think it would have been prettier if there had been water surrounding the temple in its small pool, but that couldn't happen due to the weather. 

The others are at a soccer game right now with Real Madrid. I considered going with them but I've been forced to sit (re: stand) through so many athletic events at A&M with the Corps, that I didn't consider it very long. The tickets were also a bit pricey for me. So I'm back at the hotel, and just finished packing after a very relaxing bath. Tomorrow, Monday we have an extremely early morning because of our flight and I know the second we leave Madrid I'll miss the vibe, friendly atmosphere, and gorgeous architecture. I might try to go to a different region of Spain on another weekend because we were only able to see one city and didn't do nearly everything Madrid has to offer. I'm hoping that we can see more in Vienna since we'll be there a few days longer.