It has come to my attention that this blog is missing a crucial something-something: a focus on Spain, Madrid in particular (you know, that city I live in?). This may be the first blog post I’ve made since early October specifically about my adoptive home in Spain… shameful. Anyways, I’m going by events first, then will be putting out some shorter blog posts about places I love here, things I’ve seen, etcetera so that I don’t have to dump every little thing here. So to that effect, here we are–various ramblings to prove that I have done more than just travel haphazardly around the Occident!
First of all, WINTER HAS COME, and with a vengeance:
Ice Queen (feat. blanket-sized scarf)
A chill has set into Madrid, although take that with a grain of salt–I’m the sort of Southern belle who cannot handle weather below 50 degrees without a) draping herself in sweaters, gloves, coats, etc. b) drinking coffee/tea every hour on the hour merely to keep warm, and c) seeking refuge in my extremely blanketed bed in the middle of the day just to conserve warmth, or d) becoming comatose. Spending time in Alabama, New Orleans, and even a summer in Cuba has pretty much made me immune to heat&humidity, but at the cost of my internal heating system being completely shot. There’s a reason I chose Spain instead of Sweden, and let’s just say it wasn’t just so that I could practice Spanish: the coldest it gets here still pales in comparison to the snow-laden winters of more northwards European countries. But that said, the typical lifestyle in Spain makes a laughably light winter anywhere else actually quite harsh, and that is that Spaniards rarely, if ever, heat their homes–it’s just too expensive, I suppose. Instead, they compensate by wearing ridiculous amounts of layers starting in early October. Coming home from the cold, you don’t return to a warm house with a fireplace, but more likely an un-insulated apartment whose core temperature is about the same as outside. It’s a little disheartening: the cold gets in your bones and never really goes away.
Autumn comin’ a knockin’ on our metro steps.
Classes here have been fine. I prefer Tulane’s classes–more interactive, smaller class size, plus I know and like the professors in my specialties–but the Reunidas classes have been interesting enough; I especially like my class on Spanish literature between the 18th and 21st centuries, and there’s also a Politics/Economy of Current Spain class whose professor’s lecturing style is really intense and interesting. I really have learned much more outside of class, whether in active political debates with my host mother, reading Spanish news and novels, or just walking around the city and taking it all in osmosis-style.
[School anecdote: some students from the Anarchist Union at Complutense set off fireworks inside the building of Edificio B, where our classes are held, so that was fun. A ~political party~ if you will…?]
We have a few traditions, and we’ve fallen into some nice routines: dinners every night with the homestay fam…
Our lovely lil fam, from left to right: María (15 but not the whiny-emo-15 year old that I was…), Alexa, Cristina, and this dingus
…passing afternoons on the weekend in Retiro park (for example, rowing with my friend Gabby, who’s from NYC but is here for an internship)…
…my weekly English lessons with ma kids out in Majadahonda…
Cheese on a roof. It’s all part of the English-learning process.
…and Wednesday afternoons spent in the Prado museum (see previous post) for our Spanish Art History classes.
Me and some fellow WIP-Ters chilling on the steps after one of our trips to the Prado.
But of course, besides that, there’s been some sweet highlights:
Live Music
I knew going into this journey that live music in New Orleans would be one of the things I’d have the most FOMO (fear of missing out; yes, this is a real term) for. It’s an incomparable scene: not only is there live music every night, any day of the week–I mean, there are other cities where that’s true–but the quality and variety gets you hooked. The kicker is that so much of it is startlingly good, and there’s just about every genre imaginable represented, to one degree or another: my faves are jazz fusion/improv/experimental, but there’s blues, pop, country, electronic, metal, noise, really anything, and many are free or close to nothing. Plus, at least in the alternative scene, there’s such a sense of community: these musicians take care of their own. It’s really an amazing thing. They’re definitely some of my favorite people in the city. And I haven’t found anything close to that here (and probably never will anywhere else… sigh), but I have been pleasantly surprised by some of the cats I’ve managed to catch here:
Oct. 27: Jazz legend Chick Corea & The Vigil, live in Madrid at the Auditorio Nacional. Apparently, the Spanish love him. Some background: I’m a big fan of Chick, and often spin his records on WTUL, the radio station I work at in New Orleans. So when I found out he was coming to Madrid, I bought a pair of tickets in a heartbeat for me and the Lexster to soak up the jazz magic (also, the National Auditorium in Madrid is an AWESOME space):
Packed house for Chick.
A much-deserved bow.
Seeing his song “Spain” performed IN SPAIN has been one of the chiller things I’ve experienced in the last decade. Here’s that song:
Nov. 16 Jazz Fest in Madrid: Esperanza Spalding. Another favorite of mine to spin on TUL. I knew her mainly for her jazz-fusion-y reimaginings of samba; her version of “Inútil Paisagem” with Gretchen Parlato is a top pick:
But for this concert she was performing songs from a new upcoming album–Pop-Art-Rock-Jazz sort of stuff, which I was totally into.
Here’s one of the songs I got to see her play, and you can really see the Pop-Jazz-Rock mix well:
I had never heard anything in particular about Madrid’s Jazz Festival before arriving here–in fact, I didn’t even know it was happening, my mom pointed it out to me while she was here visiting!–but the lineups were impressive. There was also an Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) show scheduled, but sadly it was cancelled the day-of for undisclosed personal reasons. Merp.
Then, of course, there’s been flamenco, that most Spanish of music and dance:
Impassioned flamenco based on a romantic drama at Las Tablas.
Lighthearted flamenco at Sala BarCo.
Theatre
-Nov. 3 El Burlador de Sevilla (The Trickster of Seville) by the playwright Tirso de Molina with Chris and Rachael, two friends from the study abroad program I’m in. Now, typically, even though “El burlador de Sevilla” is literally about Don Juan and his amorous conquests, it’s pretty atypical for Spanish theatre to be super sexual, much less Golden-Age Spanish theatre from the 1600’s (the category this piece falls under). But not so with this version. In addition to being ridiculously artsy, there was quite a bit of full-frontal nudity and more than plenty sexual innuendo, with the play starting with two of the actors on the floor, y’know, getting down in the down & dirty. Talk about a modern re-envisioning. Obviously, I loved it.
Nov. 21: During her visit, Laura and I went to a show called La del Soto de Parral at the Teatro de la Zarzuela (Zarzuela Theatre), known, appropriately, for its zarzuelas. As Wikipedia will tell you, a zarzuela is “a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance.” Kinda like a “folk-musical,” if I had to label it? Would highly recommend catching one of these shows if you’re in Spain.
Laura and I in front of the Theatre.
Visits
-Nov. 10 Mom’s visit: my mom came to visit me in November and, aside from heading to Italy, we also had some fun in Madrid.
We went shopping…
Moms and I on Gran Vía, the big shopping street in the commercial heart of Madrid. Zara was our main target.
Then headed to the Sorolla Museum, situated in the home of Luminist painter Joaquín Sorolla:
La madre
(This art is incredible. One of my favorite artists, for sure.)
And then on to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, one of the premiere art museums of Madrid. Together with the Prado and the Reina Sofía, it forms the “Trinity” of museums here.
Exterior of the Museo Thyssen.
Munch, Dalí, Miró, Derain, Hopper–oh my!
Both of these museums fall on my Top-10 list, for sure.
That night, we headed to Benarés with Alexa. This restaurant just opened, but it’s been ranked one of the hottest–and tastiest–places in the city. Plus, it’s Indian fusion food, and I’d been seriously missing my ethnic cuisines in my time here.
Probably my favorite moment during her visit, though, was when we all went over to my homestay for dinner. Cristina, being the angel she is, had prepared a variety of tapas for my mom to try:
The amazing assortment of tapas that Cristina lovingly prepared for my mother and I so that she could try homemade traditional Spanish food ❤
My mom doesn’t speak Spanish, and Cristina knows barely any English, so they had to communicate mainly through me/physical gestures. It was really quite sweet; Cristina said that they “understood each other through the eyes.” After we left, my mom turned to me and said, “You know… I could learn Spanish.” I’ve never felt prouder. I’m the only one in most of my family that knows any second language, so it was validating for her to see the real value of it: being able to connect with people who would otherwise be beyond your reach because of linguistic barriers.
Nov. 23-24 Laura’s visit: Laura, one of my former high school classmates, came through Madrid in late November, and we had the good fortune of meeting up and doing quite a bit. She’s an amazing girl, studying Pre-Med at UPitt, and on top of it has a beautiful Colombian Spanish–somewhat of a nice break from Castilian, I have to admit. Starting with a Sunday morning at my favorite open-air flea market, El Rastro, in La Latina…
…to some dope Basque food at the ever-solid Txacolina…
…to tea time with the homestay, Alexa, and Alexa’s grandparents, who were also visiting Madrid…
…and we ended our day with Alexa and chocolate con churros at Chocolatería de San Ginés, by far the best I’ve had in town.
Later in the week, for her last night in Madrid, we went to El Mercado de San Miguel (see previous post), and ended up hanging out with a couple traveling in Europe but originally from Brooklyn, Jessica and Zachary, probably two of the chillest people I’ve met in a hot second. Jessica, as it turns out, is from Cabo Verde, and speaks Portuguese. We exchanged words in a mix of European-Brazilian Portuguese flurry and laughed–there are ALWAYS more Lusophones than you’d ever expect in any given place.
New frands!
Like I said, Alexa’s grandparents were also visiting around this time, and one of their last days in Madrid, they were kindly asked me to accompany them. We started with lunch at Maceiras, a Galician restaurant in Huertas.
Me, Alexa, and Mimi in front of Maceiras in Huertas.
The food was amazing, and the company even more so. Her grandparents, Mimi and Opa, two born-and-raised Texans, are the most adorable people I think I’ve ever seen. Even though they’re old, they still get out and travel, and they’re so obviously in love with each other despite decades of marriage that it’s maybe too sweet to handle.
We spent the rest of the day wandering into shops to sate Alexa’s insatiable shopping addiction. Later, all of us headed to a Thanksgiving dinner put on by our program at Casa Adolfo near the Argüelles area (not that Spaniards, or really anyone outside the U.S., celebrates Thanksgiving, but hey, we’re American still… I guess?).
Mimi and Opa, Alexa, *yo*, and Amy Olson, our study abroad coordinator at the Complutense.
Other Events/ True Misc.:
Nov. 21 El Clásico: The biggest football game of the year. This game was the most epic event of my 2015 experience, hands down. I mean, just look at this sheer CROWD…
In Spanish, this would be “un montón de gente”…
I normally classify myself as a sports atheist, but I’ve really come to appreciate soccer (football) since I’ve been here. You kinda have to; it’s ever-present. Choosing a team to root for in this game, though, was a bit hard… Real Madrid, my home team, or Barça, the objectively better team? Plus, there’s all these current political underpinnings–the fact that Cataluña, the region to which Barcelona belongs, is actively trying to secede–that gave the match a heightened level of meaning and intensity. In the beginning, I tried to root for both, buying a little scarf with both team colors on it, but as the game got going, I found myself shouting whenever Barcelona made a good move and wincing when Real Madrid got close to scoring. Then again, Barcelona killed it (they finished 4-0 over Real Madrid), so maybe I just got caught up in the excitement of their immense success…
The game was like a delicate game of chess: strategic moves pulled off with a sort of artisan-level of quality. I was entranced.
Victória!
The couple next to me throughout the game were hilarious, throwing out “coño! payaso! joder!” every other second (obviously, they were Real Madrid fans). Thankfully, they didn’t give me any grief when I cheered Barça on. Their energy, the energy in the stadium, everything–so powerful.
The only bad part of the experience was getting called a c-nt in the street by a Real Madrid fan for wearing Barça colors… No matter how much I’ve grown a liking for football (soccer) here, that sort of shit will never fly with me. You betcha I snapped at him in Spanish. That alone has probably got me converted to being a lifetime Barça fan.
Los Mercados Navideños/ The Christmas Markets: In Madrid around the holidays, it’s very common to see little street markets with trinkets and such pop up. These, combined with the newly installed lights, help set the mood for the season real nice.
Also, Alexa and I went to an art talk about some Japanese ukiyo-e prints given in Spanish; that was dope. Lot of overlap with the stuff I studied over the summer at Berkeley. Seeing a talk about Yoshitoshi’s illustrations for Genji monogatari (one of the works I studied), in SPANISH, was the best of all possible worlds:
Art talk at the Japanese center in Madrid (wish I had known this place existed months ago….)
Also, um, there’s a “Cat Café” (La Gatoteca) in Madrid… the drinks are ehh but do you really go to a cat café for the coffee?
On a similar note, our homestay cat has finally accepted Alexa and me as one of her own!!! It took long enough…
According to Cristina, we’re the first homestay girls that Tuca has ever been affectionate towards–she said it must be our “good energies” (what does that even mean…? Gotta love Cris and her hippie ways). Now she won’t leave us alone.
Tuca sleeping on my arm, ie, making it impossible to work or, in fact, move.
So that’s more or less been the last forever of my life! Crazy to think there’s only about a week left…
(Doing a separate post for all the food. Prepare your stomachs.)
rubiafromamerica 
I love this! It’s crazy to see how much we’ve done. O sea, hombre, claro, hemos hecho un montón de cosas pero a verlas todas… que impresionante!
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^Hehe 🙂
But in all honesty, I’m going to miss you so much next semester. Lol, I’m sitting in my bed typing this to you even though you’re like 5 feet away. See you in a couple of hours, nugget!
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Gahh. Qué fuerte 😉 I love you and will miss you so damn much ya nerd. Excited to possibly visit in May though!
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