7th and 8th updates from Spain. Hope everyone had a good Spring Break. --Anand

The Saturday before Las Fallas I went to the National Science Museum in Madrid, in the same building as an engineering school. Wow, not even worth the low price of 2.40 € to get in. There was hardly any real information there, just a whole bunch of stuffed animals in cases. But the reason I went was to see a temporary exhibit on genes and food for a paper for my ethics class. There was also a giant squid in a display case. Creeped me out. On Monday I helped Jorge translate his résumé into English and later I met with 3 girls in my phonetics class and we made up a radio program to turn in for a grade. I played Don Juan Tenorio and I had a Frasier-like show where women called in with their romantic problems. The stories were hilarious, and the best part was doing commercials in between (Try new Dannon GoodMeat, the yogurt with pieces of meat you can really see!). We laughed so much. That same night I went with Paulencia to see Hable Con Ella (Talk to Her) by Almodóvar. It just won the Oscar for Best Original Script and I highly recommend it (especially for the music), although if you are uncomfortable with female nudity, you should not see it (nor any other movie by him). Unfortunately I also lost my gloves some time that night. My 12€ Burberry of London black gloves that I bought during Spain´s month of sales. Ah well. Tuesday night I stopped in McDonald´s on the way to meet my friends at a bar. It was closing time and after I bought my vanilla cone (0.50€) the door was locked so I and everybody else were kinda trapped inside McDonald´s for about 5 minutes till the lady got around to unlocking the door, but I figure, how scary could that really be?

We left for Valencia for Las Fallas at 9:30 on Wed, March 19, from the bus station at Conde de Casal. I had found out that despite everyone saying they wanted to go, only Lindsey, Kelly, Hilary, and Kory were going. (Well, Paulencia, Jeromia, and Aishah rented a car and drove.) The worst part was that I got my ticket early so even though we were all leaving at the same time, I was on Bus 1 by myself. But it was ok cause I sat next to a guy named Steven from Houston (going to Brown University, and a human biology major!) and we talked the whole time down there (about 4 hours). When we arrived, the 5 of us caught a bus to the city center and walked to Plaza de la Reina where we saw our first big ninot. Ninots are made of wood and plaster or something and painted all up. They are massive works of art. These people apparently work on them all year long. They are often satirical, mocking political figures or issues. It was a little scary walking around because firecrackers kept going off randomly all around the streets. They were very loud and kept startling us until we finally got used to them. After lunch, we walked to the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (Town Hall Plaza) which seemed to be the biggest one in the city. It also had the largest ninot, a collection of musical instruments and cartoonish musicians, the whole thing dominated by a massive saxophone. Definitely my favorite. We walked around the city some more, finding the Plaza de Toros, which we almost stopped at. There were ninots in almost every plaza in the city center. We just kept happening upon more and more and taking pictures of all of them: the signs of the zodiac, Walt Disney and different versions of Mickey Mouse, a rooster on a clock, a genie in a bottle, a woman with a feathered hat… The unfortunate thing was that we could not understand any of the writing on any of them cause it was all in Valenciano, a version of Catalán, which is like a mix of French and Spanish (but is considered a full-fledged language). There was a café off the Plaza del Ayuntamiento and we stopped there to try Agua de Valencia, which I am told is like a cross between a mimosa and a screwdriver: champagne, vodka, and orange juice. It was really good, but you can´t get it in Madrid. We went to see the Plaza de la Virgen, where there was a huge statue of the Virgin of Valencia, covered with flowers. Stopped and ate tapas nearby (wanted to eat paella since it was invented in Valencia, but the waiter at the paella place was very rude and anyway they all had seafood in them). While we were eating we heard people shouting; they had started burning the ninots. We ran outside but by then the small one nearby was done. That was our really bad luck. We spent a lot of time running around to the plazas we´d been to, but since we didn´t know the schedule of the burnings, we kept finding charred remains or completely intact ninots. (I found the remains of the Walt Disney one and took a picture, not that there was anything left to see.) In the middle of this we met up with the people who drove in Town Hall Plaza. We eventually decided to plant ourselves in front of the rooster and clock one because a) it was big, b) we were familiar with it, and c) it was right next to Town Hall Plaza, where the musical instruments one would be burned last, at 1:00 AM. At midnight, they ignited the rooster. It was amazing. We were in the third row back and watched the flames engulf the whole ninot. I think I just held my camera button down. So beautiful. I think I yelled, "I love this country!" to my friends as we got pushed back by the bomberos (firemen) because the heat started to get really intense. We "ran" (i.e., tried to push through the crowd) towards Town Hall Plaza, but the place was completely packed full of people. I am not claustrophobic but this was a scary amount of humanity in one place. We were trying to push closer to get a better view, but that didn´t work. Surprisingly, Kory ended up next to a guy she went to high school with so they all started talking. By now, we had become separated from the car people. The girls (with their cheap 40-oz. bottles of beer) decided to go to the side but I figured my view would not get any better, so I´d just stay where I was. At 1:00 AM, there was a fireworks show. It was so cool and since they were being launched from within Town Hall Plaza, they were exploding right above us. I´m sure that is against some safety rules in the USA. It was deafening and brilliant. Then they lit up the musical ninot. It took a while to start going and the people in front of me were all tall, but hopefully I got some good pictures. It was so cool to see. At about 1:30 AM I was ready to leave so I fought my way to the side and started walking north, in the general direction of the bus station. Now, I had no map of Valencia. So I definitely got lost. And calling the drunk girls who also did not have maps but had managed to find their way to the bus station was not helping. Nor was I likely to get help from anyone on the street because they were probably tourists and drunk too. So I kept walking and walking. I found myself in a completely unfamiliar part of town and asked a security guard how to get to the bus station. He said it was pretty far away. After trusting my luck to a city bus, I finally ran into the bus station at about 2:35 to catch my 3:00 AM bus back home. Definitely was a little worried I´d be spending the night on the Valencian streets. Back home in the Madrid Metro, I ended up running into Kristi and Leah, the girls we met on the way to Portugal. What a weird coincidence. So we talked from Conde de Casal to Avenida de America where I switch to another line. The car people stayed in Valencia for the weekend. It was a great city even if I only saw it during a festival. Definitely a recommendation from me.

After class the Tuesday before Las Fallas, we got The Talk about the war starting. Basically be careful, don´t act like Americans, and know where our passport is at all times, etc. It was a little scary. That night there was a huge protest in Puerta del Sol, but the good news is I found a Pizza Hut near where I saw Hable Con Ella with Paulencia, so I got to have cheesy garlic bread that night!

When I got back from Las Fallas, I found out that some of the students made plans to go La Granja on Friday, March 21 (we don´t have class on Fridays), so I decided to go too. We left from the Charmartín train station at 10:15 AM. (Lucky I got there at all since I tried to take the bus there to save time and ended up getting dropped off right back where I got on because I didn´t understand the route.) The funny thing was we didn´t have to say what time we were leaving or coming back to buy the train ticket. Since our teachers told us to stay updated on the newly started war, we all had newspapers and were trading them during the 2 hour ride to Segovia. From there we took the bus to La Granja where our student cards finally came in handy and got us discounted tickets. We put everyone´s stuff in one locker (this took a long time because every time I locked it, someone else realized we had one and wanted to put something in it); I kept the key. It is not permitted to walk around La Granja yourself, so we had to take the guided tour. La Granja is a palace built by Felipe V, the first French Bourbon king of Spain. The Bourbons supplanted the Austrian Habsburgs after the childless Carlos II named his cousin Felipe d´Anjou his heir (oh, and there was the War of Spanish Succession to contest this, but anyway Felipe won). It was interesting to see the huge contrast between the lavish La Granja and the stark and austere castles of the Habsburgs. There were chandeliers and clocks and comfy chairs and beds and paintings and statues and mirrors (from the first output of the Royal Glass Factory) and marble and tilework and lots of cool stuff. Afterwards Melissa and I went to the connected church and got to see glass boxes with real live (well, not) skulls and bones! After that we all walked around the beautiful gardens. Too bad it wasn´t a special day, so the fountains were not turned on. Melissa saw the mountains way behind La Granja and decided we should climb them. So off we went, minus Kristin and Kellye, who decided to find a nice outdoor café that had cheap sangría. On the trail towards the mountain we found a labyrinth and Chuck ran in as Chuck is wont to do. It being the end of winter, the bushes weren´t exactly thriving, so we decided to skip it and waited till Chuck found his way back out again. We continued towards the mountain on the trail till we realized it was veering away and then started hoofing it cross-country through the woods. Ah, the Wall. La Granja is surrounded by a high stone wall. We encountered this and Chuck and Melissa climbed on to see where we could cross. After jumping down on the other side and rolling, they tried to coax all of us into doing the same. It looked high but I made the jump safely (pretty proud of myself for that) and we eventually got all 7 of us over. (It sounds a lot less exciting than it was). Now it was clear country. After getting a third of the way up, Lauren, Akua, and Kory decided to stay at this rock formation. That left Chuck, Melissa, Hilary, and me. 2/3 of the way up, we left the jackets under a tree. Then it really started getting hard. The terrain was steep, the grass was slippery, the rocks moved, and there were weird stepping-stone-sized mounds of earth. After struggling, we finally made it to the huge rocks at the top. I was very proud of us but the victory was short-lived because Melissa was sure she saw a snake, then many snakes, freaking out Hilary and Chuck. So after quickly taking smiling pictures, we all flew back down the mountain. The other problem at this point was that it was very quickly nearing 5:00 PM (closing time for La Granja) and I had the key to our locker. So after finding the jackets again, I hurried past the group with my little Oprah speedwalk and got lost in the city and then found La Granja and retrieved our stuff with just 7 minutes to spare! So we collected Kristin and Kellye, who were laughing at very silly things, having contented themselves with drinking sangría till we returned, and we rode back to Segovia. There we found all the restaurants were closed for some reason so after finding out that the next train to Madrid didn´t leave for another hour, we went to the supermarket to buy snacks. This wouldn´t have taken that long if the cashier hadn´t screwed up. Chuck handed her his 20 euro bill and something was wrong with the register, so she walked away and talked to her manager. When she came back, she asked for his money again. That was Chuck´s last bill…empty wallet means he must have paid her already. She didn´t believe him, so she sat there and counted ALL of the money in her drawer to find out if she had already put it in there or not. Finally she gave him his change and we left. Ended up eating on the (double-decker) train anyway. When we weren´t talking, I read Trainspotting, which Chuck had lent me. Very strange book, but I liked it a lot. And it had Scottish accents! What I wouldn´t do to have a Scottish accent.

The next day I went by myself to the Palacio Real de Madrid to see the free exhibit of Oriental art from the royal collection on display till the end of June. We keep seeing all this darn religious Western art everywhere we go instead of some cool Oriental art. It was a really great exhibit. There was a whole room full of Japanese jars. And a real life Turkish tent from one of Spain´s battles (the Battle of Lepanto, where Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, lost his hand) with Turkey over control of the Mediterranean shipping routes. And lots of Indian jewelry, boxes of nacre and wood, a Japanese screen (I will have one of those in my house), weapons, scientific (!) drawings of native New World plants sent back to Spain, and lots of fans. Interesting to see the infiltration of the Oriental folding fan into Spanish culture. Also saw the Royal Pharmacy (just a lot of jars sitting on shelves and some distilling equipment) and the Royal Armory (just a whole bunch of suits of armor). Caught the Metro down to the Science and Tech museum and walked around in the half hour left before it closed (hey, it was free). I´ll go back when I have more time some time. Tried to find a Thai restaurant I saw a poster for, but failed. Dunno if I mentioned it before, but I want to pass through every Metro stop in Madrid before I leave. So since I was already on line 3 of the Metro (my first time), I rode the whole line. There are 162 Metro stops as of this writing, and I have 48 left. However, a whole new line is opening this month, complicating things slightly. I´m weird, I know. Also ran into a massive parade against the war along Gran Vía. The next day I went to Retiro Park to see the Palacio de Cristal, whose description in the monthly guide says "It combines natural science with architecture." Well, shoot, can´t beat that, right? Turns out it was a massive greenhouse-like building with an exhibit of some of the most pretentious art I´ve ever seen inside. The floor was covered in lava rock (that counted as a piece of art), there was a spiral-shaped metal tunnel to walk through, a large soccer-ball shaped hollow room you could enter and leave again, a cactus in front of a curved mirror, and a fake waterfall on a scaffold. So lame. Art like that actually makes me mad with its utter contrivedness. Left in a bad mood. Ended up walking around Madrid some, ran across the Prado but didn´t go in. Did find the Thyssen museum and decided to see an exhibit on Kandinsky and the influence of music on art. It was kinda interesting but kinda not. I wouldn´t mind having some of those paintings in my place as moodsetters, but maybe not fine art (all abstract and stuff, you know). All in all, it was a weekend just for me. Oh, and Miss Sevilla won the Miss España contest.

The next day I ended up near Gran Vía and ate lunch by myself in a Chinese place. The lady put the TV on for me and I got to learn how to make a Russian salad. Also watched a morning show that took itself a little too seriously. They had a montage piece about a guy who was flying British Airways and found a denture in his food. Included shots of him walking contemplatively through a garden with a voice-over and a shot of him holding up the apology letter with a slow zoom into it. I was laughing. The best part was, after the piece, they definitely had him on a live satellite feed from somewhere to talk about the horrible experience. They finally acknowledged it was more funny than serious towards the end. That evening during my session with Jorge, the guy I´m teaching English, I gave back Duck Soup and borrowed A Night at the Opera. How cool that he likes the Marx Brothers!

Part 8 includes our trip to Barcelona.