Madrid

(Fri. Oct. 23rd to Mon. Oct. 26th)

So the week after Granada I went to Madrid. My great friend from college and now from Denver, who I still wanna visit to go ski and do brewery tours, came to visit me for a week the Wesnesday before we went. (Jenny Stahl). Unfortunately but I guess expectedly, I was busy with school work and couldn't really accompany her on many of her touristy things in Barcelona like I'd hoped. Shame, cause I have one free weekend left in Barcelona and lots to see before I leave. But we did get to the Picasso museum. We also got to walk around downtown in the absolute POURING TORRENTIAL downpour rain, thankfully it wasn't that cold out, but we were SOAKED, even with an umbrella. Soaked.

So after two days of her largely entertaining herself ande making dinner for us at night, we went to Madrid. Myself, Jenny, Katie, Dave, Britta, Kat, and Shawna. Our first really big city besides Barcelona. We of course set off on our architecture agenda. City parks, museums, notable buildings we'd seen in pictures, etc.

Our hostel itself was actually pretty cool. It used to be a.....I forget what, but it had a big courtyard space in the middle that was covered by a stained glass canopy, and it had a bar with a dance club kinda space down below. Not too shabby, and we had a private 6 person room (for the 7 of us- Dave offered to take a bed in another room).

So all this space is just social space in the center of the hostel. Pretty great! We started here, studying maps before we set out on our day's adventures.

On closer inspection, the stained glass was filthy. You can see a few parts that are brighter-colored- they're the clean parts, for some reason. It woulda been like...30% brighter in there.

Madrid like any other European city has lots of plazas in the city. Unlike other cities I've seen though it has VAST amounts of park space. And in the middle of the city too. Madrid was very different from Barcelona, my first real other big city of the trip.

My friend Kat loved our hostel, since it was named her name. It was pretty easy to find from the Metro, after two different transfers. Man it was a complicated Metro system. The hostel (ranked top 10 by some group or website across some geographical area) was pretty nice- we had a suite all to ourselves with three bunks as well as lockers that were operated by the fake watch things we had that were basically RFID chips to open doors and such with.

The first photo-worthy building I saw.

We quickly headed out on adventures though. First thing we found was Plaza Mayor (that doesn't mean Plaza of the Mayor). It was big,(reminded me of Piazza San Marco in Venice) surrounded on all sides by buildings with collonades under which were entrances through to the streets. It was like 11am and there was a lotta shadow in the plaza, but it was moving quickly. It was chilly in the shade, temperate in the sun, and we went looking for a place to get some food.

We discovered the awesomest Spiderman of all time, first. This plaza, like most popular public spaces in Europe, had street performers, reminded me of Piazza Navona, the first place in the world I saw people like this (even before Chicago, but I didn't live here when I went to Rome the first time). This guy was.....standing there, trying to look like his Spidey toy sitting on the ground. He didn't move except to occasionally turn the opposite direction for a bit. He had a gut. Spidey, you really let yourself go dude.

The plaza was lined with restaurants on the sides with hoards of outdoor tables, most of which served paella (rice and vegetables/meat/seafood- I didn't know what it was for awhile even though all the girls were always talking about going and eating good Spanish paella somewhere- I thought, okay, what the heck is this stuff). Every restaurant (all right next to each other) had hosts that vigorously invited us to eat at THEIR place and tried to show us menus and offer their prices. Weird. They kept saying how they had the best prices and best food. Yeah. (I'm hungry now).

This guy I think just returned from Iraq. I guess he wasn't getting his pension...

This lady was covered in mud, and quite entertaining to young Chinese boy.

Chief Wiggum over there glared at me when I tried to take his picture and pointed angrily at his change pot- last I checked, I can take a picture of whatever I want. But just to be safe I waited until I was around the side of him to snap the photo :)


As soon as we left that plaza after lunch, which frugal me did not eat, we discovered the crown jewel of Madrid- the Museo del Jamon. That's "Museum of Ham". Yeah!

Turns out that it wasn't actually a museum, and also turns out that there were a few of them around the city.

But hey, the important part was this- 1 euro bocadillos (sandwiches). They even had croissants with meat AND cheese on them- one euro!! I had one then. Two another time. One another time. Yum.

So after that it was time to see the rest of the sites. We headed off to giant park on the map number one. First we kinda walked across town down the main shopping and culture street- one thing I didn't see much of in Barcelona is movie/acting theaters like we saw there. There was also a plaza with a water fountain, of course, and some booths to buy cheap generic jewelry and nice expensive hand made jewelry.

I found this to be funny since just the week before we had found out that RIo won the Olympics (and sadly not Chicago). Funny that they still had this up though.

This was a nice fountain, that apparently the birds loved...

...for taking showers in. The bird was standing under the stream of water!

Cool rows of trees. European cities like tree-lined streets like this. So do I.

So then we go to the park. It was by a palace of some sort. Very sculpted gardens and bushes with water fountains. Here's the palace, or what used to be a palace.

And the view across the park from the road up above.

The sculpted bushes.

THIS is what I call a sculpted bush though!

I sorta liked this view, of the two people back there taking naps, knee to knee.

This is one of those meaningless pictures that I took that just looked cool, and turned out really well. I didn't set this up, just saw the leaf and seed thing sitting up on top of the fence- I hadta zoom in and reach up cause the fence was tall...

After spending like half an hour or more there, we found out that it was basically the nice side garden to a MUCH larger garden that was really a forest. It was huge. Aaaaaand this forest was much smaller than the BIG park on the map. Man. So here's more palace, looking like the White House at the end of the lawn.

Same tree that was lining the streets, lots of these in Europe, I realized the bark looks kinda like an Impressionist painting.

This park/woods happened to have a peacock. (Actually a couple peacocks, who weren't afraid of us).

This random little hut covered in sticks was sorta in disrepair but it looked cool. We peeked inside...

It had stained glass clerestory windows up in the roof...

and elsewhere inside.

Further on in the park, a cool little twisted cluster of vines, something I saw many times also.

The tiniest rose of all time. My hand showing how small it is.

Dave, again, was thirsty. Trying to reach the water. He won!

Then Dave decided to hang from the arbor. It was actually quite sturdy.

More people taking naps in the sun. Looks fantastic. But all the benches were taken! Is there a waiting list?

After we got out of there we saw from the other side of the park The Cathedral. And then we saw more churches, until we got to a small intersection where I realized I could see five church steeples within like two blocks of us. Crazy.

Here's the Cathedral, that we didn't go it cause it was up a hill that people didn't feel like climbing. Nuts.

A cool bridge we got to walk under, below the Cathedral. Lots of concrete. Surprising for a bridge this tall and heavy to be just crossing a road- looks like its going over a gorge!

Past the bridge, I saw this little area that looked cool for some reason- the multiple little terraces separated by stairs, with areas of outdoor seating, just looked...cool...

We kept walking back to the hostel to take a rest and plan our evening.

The largest quantity of potato chips that I have ever personally witnessed.

Octopi for sale in a store window. Wow, look at those things...

When we got back, we had a rest and had some drinks, which were strictly forbidden by the hostel (cause they wanted your patronage at their bar). We had some...pear juice that was specially treated. And then we had some cava- Spanish champagne. Rose. It was yummy. We sat around on the bunk beds (Jenny was below me) while Britta, under Dave and Kat, and Shawna under Katie, took naps.

After awhile we went on an adventure to go find food. We ended up at a pizza place that was pretty good, that had these tiny little cast iron cutter things that they gave to each person, with their pizza on a wooden board. It was odd, a bit like being a viking or something, but everyone enjoyed cutting their own pizza with their cast iron. Jenny and I called it a night early after dinner cause we had a long day the next day and I knew we'd be staying up that next night watching ND football.

The next day was momentous. The first thing we did, after I believe a quick trip to Museo del Jamon to supplement our lame hostel breakfast (how could we NOT, cmon!) we headed out to the Caixa Forum. Caixa is a Catalan word for bank, and is one of the biggest banks in Spain, as far as I could tell. And they owned this museumy kind of place, that was famous (to us architects) not only for its architect (Herzog and de Meuron, whose office Chris and I saw later- they also did the giant ugly-ish blue building that's silver underneath, in Barcelona) but also famous to us just cause its cool. It was an existing building that was gutted and had the first floor cut out of it with the building held up, so the entry is underneath the building in the middle, extending the plaza into the entry. Then they stuck a giant corten steel box on top, where a restaurant is (it rusts and then the rust seals in the rest of the steel and protects it from the weather).

Next to the Forum, which is a museum, is an art installation that is pretty well known as well and almost always appears in pictures with the building- a wall of hanging growing plants. They're growing out of some kind of wall of felt with built-in little pouches for the plants and the dirt.

This is the entry, underneath the building, all covered in stainless steel, or aluminum, or some shiny metal.

On the backside you can really see where the building is lifted up off the ground.

Whole building, lifted up, over the plaza space.

In the entry you immediately climb a set of stairs, also covered in the same metal, as is the whole main floor inside.

The main first floor, with crazy lights up above.

A view out one of the view giant picture windows, towards the growing wall and the plaza...

These pencils we saw everywhere, cause we were constantly going to the types of places that had gift shops. Swarovski crystal pencils. They always looked very cool, and unless you *pulled one out* you couldn't even tell that they were pencils really.

This was a book inside the small bookstore/gift shop. Quite the unnerving photo isn't it? I couldn't help myself. It was too weird not to take a picture of.

Upstairs, we got lucky. Their museum space was having an exhibition on Palladio, one of the oldest and most famous architects I'd say, a Renaissance architect very interested in a Neo-classical style, and in symmetry. He did a number of villas and other public buildings, all columns and pediments and Greek/Roman type stuff. Cool to see his original drawings, 500 years old, and a bunch of models made of his buildings. There was strictly no photography allowed in the exhibit. So I had to be careful :) Thankfully they were all nicely lit! Just hadta wait till the docent in each room turned their back for a sec or walked behind some people and I'd snap a photo from chest or waist height. I had decided at some point on my European travels that I didn't really care about no photo rules because I wasn't stealing or reproducing anything, and I'm an architecture student trying to learn :) And in public places like museums and churches, worst they can do is make me leave...or so I thought. We learned differently in Paris...

After the exhibition, and while everyone else was pooped sitting down somewhere, I went upstairs to see what was up there. I got into the restaurant, which was screened in by the corten steel, and had a pixelated look to it.

There were a bunch of 70s looking lights hanging from the ceiling that were like rubbery. Weird.

See the pattern that the cut steel made from farther away? Still let in lots of light...

And cast awesome shadows on the ground!

Looking down the pristine white stairwell from the restaurant, quite an abstract view.

I found these kids still sitting here when I got back, told em that the restaurant was sweet, and asked what was downstairs- found out there was a big theater space, that was open, and yet pictures weren't allowed, and instead of closing the doors there was simply a guard walking around NOT allowing pictures. WHAT? They said she was guarding two floors at once, so I went to investigate...

(Katie Dave Jenny Britta Kat Shawna...)

The inside of the theater was covered in steel too, rusted, but a much finer mesh like a coarse screen. And yes, there was a smiling guard there at the door that came out of nowhere, as I was standing there, and said that it was closed. I see, but the doors are open... In Spanish I said I was an architecture student, and was it okay to take pictures? She smilingly said no. I smilingly looked in for a minute, walked away...and then when she was out of sight I dashed down stairs to the other floor of the theater and snapped a couple photos before she came smilingly down the stairs, and I stood there smiling and looking. Then I casually disappeared...and dashed back upstairs and took more pictures. Next time if its closed, close the damn doors.

Outside again finally, Dave and Jenny needed a good stretch.

There's the picture window that I saw from inside...

The sign for the place

From there it was time to continue our day of museums. We headed just down the street to the Reina Sofia, because it was free that day, and we went to the Prado later, cause it was free then, after 5pm or whenever it was. When a GIANT line formed around the block. Oh well, it was free. Madrid was a cheap trip!

Here's the external glass-enclosed elevator that climbs the museum. Pretty cool.

Here's...a baby's shoe, on a trash can.

Here's the worst mistranslation of English that I've probably ever seen. It took me awhile of staring open-mouthed at the "I'am" mistake before I even realized it was also supposed to say I HAVE. It was a poster, plastered on a wall in the plaza outside the gallery!

Elevator.

Inside, a cool colonnade in the original part of the museum, with some black art installation underneath.

There was some exhibition on World War II stuff, and a cool model.

And the world's largest Picasso, that I didn't even know was in this museum until I saw the signs for it. Called Guernica, its about the Spanish Civil War of...some...time.

These are um, sweet costumes.

This is another installation by Richard Serra- also extremely heavy steel, but much less interesting than giant sheets of steel standing up that you can walk between. It was an older one of his works. His work kinda stays where he puts it.

More war-time exhibition. I just liked the orange.

And this kid liked the chess table. The table and chairs were all one piece of furniture.

Out in the courtyard, an Alexander Calder mobile- we have lots of his stuff in Chicago.

On the upper floors, outside on top of the building, was an escalator going up into another part of the building...

The view from up to of Madrid...not actually that interesting.

I took the escalator down, and got to see the glass up close.

And see the plaza from up above.

Then we all met in the courtyard again. Dave, as usual, was having fun doing something, usually related to climbing, jumping, or picture taking. He was apparently looking into his lens and my friends sitting across on other benches said they could see his eye. So he took a picture of it. Then took a picture of it closed, and switched em back and forth really quick so it looked like his eye was opening and closing. Funny thing is, all the people walking by didn't notice, they just stopped and didn't wanna walk by, because they thought he was taking a picture!

After the Reina Sofia we crossed the street to this cool old train station. It seems like all old train stations look similar- they all have huge open spans with steel beams and semi-circular roofs.

(This government-type building was across the street)

Inside of the train station roof.

Inside of the front glass facade with a nice old clock on it.

Pretty long station.

It didn't even have trains in this part though...just a jungle!

And a pond with some turtles in it...

Oh, quite a few turtles, who somehow climbed on top of each other...how'd they do that

Oh actually there's a whole ISLAND full of turtles!!

Turns out there's three islands like that- I counted over 100 turtles out of the water, and from all the tiny heads poking up out of the water, at least that many underneath as well. No idea how they feed them all or how that many turtles live in this little pond, and why they hang out on each others backs all the time. They don't even move. We started thinking they were fake actually, because many had their necks and legs stretched out in very weird positions that they couldn't possibly stay in...but oh, they did, in fact.

We went outside and Dave got back to climbing/jumping.

We made our way to the next giant park on the map after that, and walked down a pedestrian street first that was full of vendors selling things like old random books- who wants that stuff? RANDOM books.

In the biggest urban park on earth (maybe not literally but its huge) we split up and Jenny and I went to check out...the man made lake with people rowing in it?

And we found this giant statue, and I stood up on the back of his back leg.

Then we came across a small horse.

This weird thing was a graphic on the side of a building that looked like a real building going off into the distance.

We met back up and headed back towards things, walking down the pedestrian middle of this street where there were all these crazy giant sculptures.

Then it was time for lunch. Oh yeah. We had to go to this place by the Reina Sofia, recommended by a professor, and got the Bocadillo de Calamares- fried calamari sandwich. It was pretty good, surprisingly tender, but also like 6 euro. Killer, for a sandwich.

Inside the packed sandwich place, right on the plaza outside the Reina Sofia, they had new urinals I had never seen before. Quite industrial. Hadta take a picture :)

After lunch, since we were all together, we actually went BACK to the giant park, to see the rest of it- it was like 8 parks in one. We went to the nicely sculpted parts with the rose gardens and stuff...

I thought my Nana (and mom) would have quite enjoyed this part.

There was a glass palace that we checked out

And it was so shiny that in the reflection of the windows inside, you could see the rest of the building :)

Then we went to the part of the park where the cats nap.......?

And the part where there's a hut covered in bark with an elf on top...?

And a fake zoo with silhouettes of animals inside. ?

And sculpted bushes :)

After a much longer time in the park, that included some sitting, we headed to the Prado, and after debating how long the flippin line was, realized it was moving pretty fast even though there were hundreds of people in it, so we got in line and were in within 20 minutes or so. This museum is peculiar because its almost exclusively painting but also very focused on a few particular artists.

But they had cool urinals also :)

This round atrium space had fanTAStic glossy red walls, and it was great against the white ceiling and marble, and you can see the church outside through the window :)

Here's an abstract photo that is the red wall with marble and a brass door in it. It looks like a modern art painting though. Me likes.

The main lobby was even more marble, some red wall, and brass ceiling panels of some kind. Or maybe they were wood. I forget. Kinda shiny though.

Guess what we did after the museum? 1 euro bocadillos again. Two of em.

Then we headed back to our place and I popped open the rose cava. It was great. And cheeeeeeap!

Just like that we were back on the town. Some people wanted to get dinner, but I had my cheap sandwiches (dinner was expensive in Madrid) and Dave decided he wanted to go back to the place he discovered the night before- a Belgian bar ran by some Dutch, that had some truly amazing beers on tap. He had just been to Brussels with Nate and John while I was in Sevilla/Granada so he was newly edumuhcated. They had what I thought was my favorite beer in the world...until the second round when I got Kasteel after having tried Dave's. It's the nectar of the gods.

Everyone else caught up with us after eating, and we hoisted our beers (and Jenny hoisted her fist). All the rookies had blonde beers. Dark for me please.

Here it is up close and personal- it even has a castle built into the bottom of the cup. Oh my its good. And I found it for sale by the 750ml bottle at Binny's in Chicago! They have everything. Its the WalMart of liquor stores. It was so good that I had another that I split with Jenny, which we tried to drink at the same time. That picture was taken by someone else, and I think later I'll post a bunch of pictures that are from other people...

After the bar we hadta finish our other bottle of cava cause we were leaving the next day, sooooo Dave Jenny and I headed down the street around the corner and had a sit. I found a chair someone left out for the trash man and sat in that. We had a jolly good time.

Our final day before we hadta fly out we took a few hours for a few last things, like Real Madrid's stadium, which was kind of a hike by metro, and turned out to be super lame looking. Giant concrete thing.

BUT we were saved because I saw these buildings down the street that I saw on a postcard and forgot I wanted to see! They lean out towards each other over the street...pretty sweet I thought.

Oh and we almost missed the unofficial (or maybe official) logo of Madrid, for some reason- this bear climbing a tree. Or maybe he's knocking it down. Ask him.

And then it was back to Barcelona for another three days of hard work before I flew off to my next destination :)