Feb 20th – Day of Going to the Prado

Today, even though I don’t have history of art class, we had a class trip to go to the Prado Art Museum. I was excited because I had been wanting to go but decided to wait until we went for our class since our trips were free. It was a gorgeous day outside, which my friends decided to describe as delicious (good term), and it put me in a better mood. My friends in my class are some of my favorites to hang around because they are so relaxed and interested in taking in the culture. While we were waiting for our professor to arrive, my guy friends Nate and Nick were telling me about the cool lunar eclipse tonight. The weather was supposed to be crystal clear tonight and perfect to view it. Cool. At that moment, Carlos walked up and it was time to get the train into Madrid to go. Hanging out with my friends and joking around on the way was making me feel loads better and I really started to take in what Rachel said about me having more good friends and that I shouldn’t let them weight out the one bad. By that time we were at our stop and were walking toward the Prado. The actual location of the Prado is straight across from the botanical gardens so the area is really beautiful and the sunset was a great accent. As we were walking towards the museum, we saw parts of the body separated in giant sculptures; we took a picture with a set of lips, but there was a head, torso, legs, etc. Once we entered the museum we went to the first and most famous part of the Prado, the exhibit of Goya’s most famous works. You’ve seen most of them before, and if I could’ve remembered a name of any painting I would say one but I can’t. The museum is like a maze and they were very strict on everything…how loud you talked, how long you were there, etc. I think it was due to the theft (mom told me about) in Paris where the thief ran off with countless works that were very valuable to the louver. After the museum, we walked through the maze that was trying to leave the museum and ran into the guards who wanted to flirt with Olivia and I. One of the guards said, excuse me but were you painting in there? I pointed at myself and said me?! Yes, you what were you painting? Oh, Me? Nothing….we’ll see if it’s nothing and decided to take a look through my notebook for art history class; which is filled with sketches and drawings of definitions and buildings we see in class so that I can remember and understand what we are talking about. Well, with the exception of one day, all I could think about was food since I was really hungry so I had drawn pictures of food in my notes. The guards were flipping through and stopping on the page where I had drawn a heart with a decorated bow and arrow shooting through it for Valentine’s Day. They smiled and said aww, how cute! Then they gave me my notebook back and hoped I had a good time. I swear, older Spanish men act like the same as they did when they were younger and think that hitting on girls that are (way!) younger is cool and suave. Ahh, the Spaniards. Oh well, you get used to it. After we all met up outside, we got back on the train to head back to Alcala. Once we were there, Carlos also wanted to remind us to see the eclipse tonight if we could, it would be at 2am if we were to stay awake or wake up for it and last two hours. I headed back to my host home for some dinner and to meet an new guest staying with us! A friend of Ana and Pepe’s when they lived in Cuba way back named Danit. She was younger, I think in her late 20s early 30s, very friendly and very eager to talk to me since I was so new at speaking. Which made me a little nervous at first, but I got used to her. Then I went upstairs to do homework for a bit and go to sleep.