This morning I went to the Museo del Prado and spent four or five hours wandering. There was enough to see there that I may go back in a few days, but I left when my feet got sore.
After that I walked around Madrid searching for a bookstore, bought a book in Spanish, and settled down to read in the Puerto del Sol. My resolve to stay there for the rest of the day was slowly eroded by the realization that everyone around me was smoking, so I gave up and went back to the hostel to read. The smoking here and in London bothers me a lot. I'm accustomed to very strict laws that essentially restrict smoking to designated areas. Here, everybody smokes.
After a quick siesta I headed out to look for a movie in Spanish. This was easier said than done: all of the movies I found were American movies that had been voiced over, and the only one that was starting any time soon was the Hunger Games. I elected to save my cash and keep walking. This was really lucky, because around the next corner I found a flamenco theater!
The show was excellent and on my way back I found a fruit stand and bought a pomegranate, then saw someone dressed as a minion and got a picture with him. It's been a good day so far!
I really like Madrid. I enjoy being able to walk around without standing out as a tourist-unlike Thailand-and it's warm enough that walking around is actually pleasant. The sun has been shining and churros are a reasonable substitute for breakfast here. There are a lot of parks. There are benches in all of the parks and open spaces where people are just chilling. It's a great city for people-watching.
Madrid has a lot of history and that is obvious in everything from the buildings to the layouts of the streets to the names of the streets. What it doesn't have is a fear of breaking that history by changing anything in the city. It feels modern and lively, even as I walk down cobblestoned streets. The buildings are beautiful, and I'm starting to get my sense of direction back-not being on a grid was a bit of a struggle for me yesterday when I was trying to find my hostel.
I'm excited about the museums. I'm definitely going to the Reina Sophia and the Naval Museum. I would also like to go back to the Prado if I have time. I haven't planned beyond tonight's dinner, but a definite advantage of traveling alone is that I don't need to have a plan or even a specific destination when I start walking.
Being alone also means that it is not immediately obvious that I'm an American. I am not walking around with a group chatting in English. This means that people always speak to me in Spanish. So far I have discovered that my spoken Spanish is often unintelligible due to my accent and my habit of mumbling when I am not sure if I am using the right word. That I can fix. The much harder problem is that it is very difficult for me to understand spoken Spanish. I can do pretty well if I have a good idea of what the person will be saying from context, but if I lose those clues I can only catch scattered words. I am not sure what to do about that, other than continue my habit of trying to follow conversations in the streets. It also doesn't help that my brain can't filter out background noise and keep only Spanish, the way it can with English. It makes me wish I could spend a few months living here and working to force that sort of practice. But I'll save that idea for after I graduate.
No comments:
Post a Comment