Sundays...

Well it’s my first Sunday here in Madrid and to be honest it’s pretty darn boring… I get the whole “day of rest” thing, but really? Everything’s closed? What are you supposed to do if worshiping Jesus isn’t your cup of tea?
















Anyway today we went on a walking tour of the Parque Retiro. This large public garden used to belong to the aristocracy and some years ago was gifted to the state and opened to the public. Due to the increase in population however, the park is now somewhat smaller than it’s original incarnation but still extremely gorgeous. While lost this morning (I seem to be doing that a lot lately…) I stumbled across an outdoor concert where of all songs “The Sun’ll Come Out” from Annie was playing (I want to understand the choices of music around here, I really do… But so far I can’t…) It was absolutely wonderful; so much so, in fact, that I almost considered ditching out on the group to sit with the locals and watch. But instead I trekked on to meet up with the rest of the group. After walking through the park for some time we came to the Museo del Prado, the Spanish art museum containing works from before the 19th century (those and all contemporary works are housed in another museum, the Reina Sofia). The museum, which has a new annex opening in October, will be one of the primary destinations of one of my classes: Arte en los museos de Madrid. On that more classes start tomorrow so I just went to the Corte Ingles (think Dominick’s meets Marshall Field’s meets Best Buy meets Barnes and Noble meets Blick Art Materials meets Office Max meets Toys “R” Us) and bought myself a notebook and some writing instruments and then ended up back at my home stay for lack of anything else to do at all… So it’s probably time for siesta….

















Oh… PS. I went to this restaurant last night (recommended by Lisa, I think) that sells little mini sandwiches for around €1,20-€1,50. Very good… The name, however, escapes me at the moment. Hasta luego…