Apologies for this being so late after my week one and two blog posts! Even so, I figured I’d write up some reflections for my time abroad for my own memories.
During week three, I had felt really confident navigating around the town. I tried some new local restaurants, although there are still a few I wanted to try and never got to. I even tried some items from a Spanish McDonald’s!
In the middle of the week, I signed up for an extra excursion to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain’s national museum of modern, 20th-century art. Because I was in the history of Spanish painters class, my professor led my classmates and me on a personal guided tour of the museum. Although I prefer paintings in the older, 16th and 17th century style, it was cool getting a more streamlined, personal tour tailored to our class.
I didn’t get to see very much of the art, but that was fine with me, though I am glad I got to see some of it.
One really impressive piece of art was Picasso’s “Guernica.” It was amazing to see it in person. It’s huge, for one thing. I’d recommend looking up the significance of it. There were two staff people, one on each side of the painting, to ensure no one got too close or took photos.
You’re not allowed to take pictures in the museum, but I snapped a few before I realized that. Oops! Here are three of them:
Probably the best thing about this week was I could feel my Spanish getting better. I found myself thinking in Spanish. Also, one time when I was taking a train back to Alcalá after a long day, I was so tired that I stopped caring about people thinking my Spanish was bad. Since I got lucky to be with a group of people in my program who wanted to speak in Spanish as much as possible, that added another level of caution thrown to the wind.
The most notable thing about this week, though, was a daytrip to Toledo. TLDR: I highly recommend! However, beware that it’s a very old city, and somehow everything is uphill? (But seriously, the whole town is on a mountain, and there are so many inclines.) On the other hand, though, there are amazing lookouts, like the feature photo of this blog post.
It’s one of the cities in Spain that has a strong tricultural influence, those cultures being Catholic, Islamic and Hebrew. The Muslim influence can especially be seen in architecture. Pictured below is the Sinogoga de Santa María La Blanca. The curved, horseshoe-like arches are very common in Muslim architecture.
I saw a lot of great art, including the original “El Entierro del Señor de Orgaz” (“The Burial of the Count of Orgaz”) by El Greco. (Not only is this painting pretty fascinating, but so is El Greco.) Once again, it was so cool to see art that I’d studied in my art history class. Of course, though, no photos! I was not about to get thrown out of that chapel.
I stumbled across one of the best restaurants I’d encountered thus far called Los Cuatro Tiempos (The Four Seasons). It’s a little pricey, but their menu of the day came with three courses and bread for 24 euros.
Also in Toledo, marzapan is a pretty hot commodity. I tried it and didn’t like it, but here’s a photo of it anyway, haha.
Well, that’s all I can remember from week three! Maybe I’ll update this if I remember more. Anyway, tune in for week four! (Hopefully it’s on the way soon, haha.)
Mel Lemon Blog 