Now that we got all the shopping done yesterday, today was a day to get out of the crowds and immerse ourselves in the fancy schmancy culture of Madrid. *pinkie up*
Everything starts a lot later here than I’m used to but because I’m halfway adjusted from jet lag, it doesn’t really feel like a big deal. Normally, leaving our place at 11am would give me anxiety or make me feel like I’m missing out, but considering we’re eating dinner at like 9-10pm (the norm here) and going to bed past midnight, it all sort of works out.
We wanted to check out the botanical gardens before the afternoon sun got too hot. Joanna stopped us for a quick photo op because the street we were walking down looked so “Spanish”.
It was about $4 to get into the gardens and a good way to spent an hour-ish of our time. The plants and flowers kind of blended in over time but I found an area of vegetables and fruits that caught my interest. There were olive trees, various pepper plants, a big bush that ended up being hops, and flowering artichoke which I’ve never seen in person before.
Here’s a compilation of Joanna touching things
There was a small pond with fish and frogs in it. I took a pic of these two frogs on a lily pad and ended up getting a shot of one of them eating a bug.
It started getting hot so we grabbed a quick lunch and then went to the museum to check out some art. We intended to go to the Museo Nacional del Prado but ended up at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía instead. Both national museums and within a 15 min walking distance, whoops.
At the Reina Sofia museum they had Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso art on display. I’ve seen the Picasso piece with the cow before but I didn’t realize it was so big. I’m sure there’s a lot of history and interpretation stuff with the horse but I liked it because horse. The Dali one was kind of weird, she’s sniffing some guy’s junk in the back. It’s art I guess?
We headed over to the other museum and there was a looong line in front of it. It turns out that the museum has free admission starting at 6pm until it closed at 8. It was 5:30 and we didn’t have anything else to do so we decided to wait. The plan worked out pretty well because we paid $12 for admission at the other museum so we just treated it as a BOGO otherwise it would have been an additional $15.
This museum was huge and just a labyrinth of separate rooms and hallways. I wanted to take more photos but a security guard stopped me and said I wasn’t allowed to. Kind of weird since the other museum we were just at encouraged photo taking. I kind of sulked and sat on a bench to look up why. Some of the reasons that I found were: flash photography could deteriorate the paint (not really relevant with phones nowadays), some museums don’t own the copyright of the art, people can be stupid and damage paintings/statues when posing for pics (ok I can see this one). However, I feel like there is value in sharing a piece that you think is important with other people which would encourage them to seek it out in person for themselves. Kind of like when Joanna and I walked most of the Lourvre in Paris to find this painting of Joseph Ducreux.
I think I value historical art more than the modern interpretive stuff just because it can be more literal and there’s usually some interesting story behind it. Since we only had about an hour and a half in this museum we looked up which works were more famous to rush through and get to them before we ran out of steam. The Mona Lisa popped up on my search and I was like “Wait but we just saw it in Paris last year, how can it be in two places at once?”
To my uncultured eyes I would think that the more colorful and detailed painting would be the more famous one but actually it was done simultaneously by one of Leonardo da Vinci’s students as when the original painting was done. It was seen as just another copy until it was restored in 2012 to be the one with the most historical value.
The other painting I was interested in checking out was Saturn Devouring his Son by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. I don’t remember which tv show or movie I first saw this painting in but it’s based on a Greek myth of the Titan Cronus eating one of his offspring.
The vibe in the gallery this painting was in felt interesting. All the paintings were in black frames, the lights were very dim, and the theme of the room was like war and death. Best I can do is a google photo.
We were all art-ed out as it was getting close to when the museum would be closing. I didn’t have energy to try to figure out Spanish menu items so we went into the first restaurant we saw with an English menu. I didn’t care that it was likely for tourists, I was hungry, tired, and knew they had $12 pitchers of sangrias on the menu which was the most important part.
The table next to us at the restaurant had a few older Chinese tourists who were speaking with a Beijing accent. The waiter was at their table taking their order and one of the ladies at the table waived at me and in Mandarin asked me if one of the dishes we were eating was fried potatoes. I also kinda helped them with the rest of their order in Spanish and they chatted with us for a bit. Just a funny interaction where I had to translate Mandarin to Spanish which made me feel fortunate that my parents raised us speaking multiple languages at home and that I’m able to use it abroad.
We were pretty full but not so full that we skipped going back to the gelato place we went to last night. We got a bigger bowl this time with raw almond and pistachio flavors. Good way to end the day!
