Madrid!

            Ah it has been a crazy weekend! Emily and I went to Madrid to visit one of her sorority sisters who is studying there. We caught a bus after classes Friday and six hours later, we were in Madrid. The bus ride wasn’t terrible. As it was the siesta hour, and we knew we would be going out for the night, we slept most of the way. When we arrived in Madrid we caught a taxi to her friend’s apartment and didn’t have any issues finding it. The first night we were in Madrid we went out for dinner and then to a disco and we were out dancing until 5 am. Culturally, staying out till 5 is normal, even a little early. Most people my age, who go out, stay out till 6 am so they can catch the metro home in Madrid. The metro is closed from 1 am to 6 am, so might as well stay out! Even just hearing about their adventures till 6 am made me tired, but if the siesta is long enough and the music is good, it happens. I’m not sure I’m up for it every weekend because I am definitely paying for it today.

            Saturday in Madird we woke up and did as many touristy things as we could. We visited the Puerta de Alcalá, Parque Del Buen Retiro, Puerta del Sol and the Prado on Saturday. Sunday we made it to the Almudena Cathedral, Palacio Real, Plaza de Oriente and Gran Vía. PHEWWW it was a lot, but Emily and I really wanted to see everything.

 

            While all of Madrid was fantastic, The Prado stole my heart. The other girls didn’t want to pay to get it (It was only 14 Euros, just about 20USD) and I wasn’t leaving Madrid without going inside. I spent about two hours or so wandering around the three-story complex. And being the art history nerd I am, I had to see the masterpieces located there. I saw Raphael’s The Cardinal Roger Van Der Weyden’Decent from the Cross, Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, Albrecht Dürer’s , Adam / Eve, Titian’s Emperor Carlos V on Horseback, Tintoretto’s The Foot Washing, Paolo Veronese’s Venus and Adonis, Nicholas Poussin’ Parnassus, Claude Lorrain’s Landscape with the Embankment of Saint Paula Romana in Ostia, Rembrandt’s Judith at the Banquet of Holofernes, Peter Paul Rubens The Three Graces, José De Ribera’s Jacob’s Dream, Bartolomé E. Murillo’s The Patrician’s Dream, Majority of Goya’s Black Paintings and probably the two that I was most excited about was Diego Velázquez’s The Lances or The Surrender of Breda, and Las Meninas or The Family of Felipe IV. I could have spent hours inside, but I saw the pieces I knew I really wanted to see, so I just need to go back another time!

Sunday afternoon, after we had walked through all of Madrid (or what felt like it) we boarded our bus and left for Sevilla. Another 6-hour ride and we were home! It was a wonderful weekend just because of everything we saw, but it was also amazing because Emily and I did it, all by ourselves. Instead of being scared or overwhelmed or freaked out, we rolled with the punches (there were a few big ones) and kept going. It just went to show us that we can do it, and I completely trust her now and I wouldn’t want to travel with anyone else. I cannot wait to see what other adventures we will take on, our time here together. I think this week we are planning France! SO EXCITED!!!

Coming off the adrenaline rush of this weekend, I realized that Fall Recruitment at school had also happened, and Sunday was Bid day, where all the hard work pays off, and the new girls are welcomed to the chapter. It was bittersweet to hear that we welcomed 30 girls to our chapter especially after last years fluke and because I spent all of last semester trying to fix recruitment for this year. I know that Panhellenic was more than capable and did a wonderful job, but it would have been awesome to do it with them after all the work I put into it. It’s also weird that I don’t know the girls, and I won’t meet them for almost a year. Just knowing that it happened without me is an odd sensation.

            But I couldn’t leave here right now if I tried, I’ve fallen for Spain and Sevilla has captured my soul. I can’t wait to leave the house every morning to see the people and the streets, to smell the coffee and to hear the language, to charlar with my friends and eat jamón. And I still feel like I have just scratched the surface of my life here, like there is so much more to see and experience and learn, and I cannot wait. I miss everyone at home so much, but I can’t help but never want to leave Europe. I realized last night on the bus that my home is always in flux and may not every materialize. Seattle is where I am from, and I love that city, it will always be that way. But part of my heart is in McMinnville and another part is in Sevilla and I feel myself growing more and more attached as the hours pass. I keep asking myself, whose life is this, to be so lucky? This can’t be mine? And I keep reminding myself, this is mine, all mine.