This morning after a nice 30-minute jog in Aranjuez´s Parque del Principe, I jumped aboard the bus to Madrid with the gang, all 36 of us. We spent an amazing hour in the Reina Sofia (could have used three) checking out Picasso´s Guernica, Dali´s surreal hallucinations, and Goya´s ´3 de Mayo´. Amazing. And the best part was, before I left the museum, I snuck down to their basement cafe and had churros with my espresso. WWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOHHHHHOOOOOOO!
We herded the group along Paseo del Prado and the Prado museum, with Velazquez´ statue smiling down on us, and through the Puerta de Alcala where a famous battle had been celebrated during the Spanish Civil War (what an oxymoron...civil...war. Did you know there´s no equivalent for óxymoron´in the Spanish language? coño.) Anyway, after a stroll in Cervantes´ shadow to check out Quijote and Sancho, larger-than-life as they are in the Plaza de España, we ate at at an amazing Peruvian joint with the best Ceviche in Europe. after Inka Kola and some ´mate de coca´ (tea of coca leaves), we ran to the local shopping center to appease the students´ appetites for consumerism, then to a ´chocolateria´called VALOR for Spain´s famous ´chocolate´ which is more like hot pudding than what North Americans consider to be hot chocolate.
Back to Aranjuez tonight at 7PM, and I took a last stroll past the pueblo´s Plaza de Toros and ran intop a small tobacco shop that had Cuban cigars. Tomorrow I may have to indulge. Damn Castro. We´re off at 9AM tomorrow for Santiago de Compostela, and classes begin Wednesday. No more fluffy trvael...time to work.
My co-worker/partner in crime on the trip, Laura, has a cool blog. Sorry it´s in SPanish. It´s just that it´s her native language, you know?
VALE.
