March 23, Day 65: And Then Suddenly It Was Summertime

There are no two ways around it: this past week has been absolutely gorgeous. I've spent several hours the last few days perched in my windowsill filling out apartment rental documents and reading Canterbury Tales, carefully gathering up what little sun my dainty Irish complexion can handle. Actually, it got a bit too toasty for me on the sill, but then sun just followed me around the room so I gave up and went back to my usual sunbath spot anyway.

The last few days - well, more weeks - have been a complete torpedo of activity, with postponed Spring Break posts, photos to edit, homework to read, sleep to catch up on, trips to plan, finances to document, finances to worry about, drafting a Rome post, unpacking, laundry, Castle Cabaret auditions/production meetings, helping organize the scavenger hunt (honestly not as much as Ali!), packing for Belgium, and finalizing the house for next year.

Wow, I haven't actually looked at the whole to-do list yet. Maybe it's good that I'm considering another weekend at home.

As of now, the big Belgium weekend is finally upon me. There are no words to describe how excited (yet anxious) I'm feeling right now. I looked at the ISB virtual tour and while some things looked familiar, there were a lot of things that seemed very different. Honestly, if I don't see the red cacti in the ECC playground, things are gonna get sassy.

Concerning Spring Break, I paused the tape way back at the end of the first day of Madrid. I'm going to rewind my life back to then, hit play, kind of fast forward to now, and just generally complicate this VHS metaphor. Aaand... <<

(Pause for Scavenger Hunt, dressup and 80's themed American Night)
Oh wait, now it's 3am. Oops!

Anyway, Saturday morning in Madrid, 3/3/12, our plans said to go to some museum around the city and be guided through with a teacher or two. However, at the last minute our professors decided to switch things up and go to the higher quality museum, so there we went - only to find out that voices above whispering level are not permitted in the museum.

Hmm.

A class lecture about art in an art museum that doesn't allow speech?

Hmm indeed.

We finagled our way through that little loophole by studying pictures and discussing them in the stairwell with Dulcia and Dojna as our chaperones. Honestly, I'd give my right arm for those two to chaperone my group through the Sistine Chapel, if not a whole leg along with it.

Lunchtime was a mixture of emotional tension, oblivion, and ignorance on several parties' part, but we found a good place with €2 sandwiches, so that at least worked well. Unfortunately, lunch was both preceded and followed by various argumentative and biased two-person discussions that I hadn't been interested in joining to begin with; that particularly tense episode was followed with some chocolate-dipped churro and yet another Loading of the Buses.

With that, we drove to a monastery about 45 minutes from the center of Madrid, perched at the top of a small village. For some unknown reason, said village had a surprising American twist - as Chris B said, "Hey guys, we could've stayed in a Best Western!"
"Oh, so is today the day we just say whatever stupid sh** pops into our head? Hey guys, I could punch that baby! Hey guys, I could kill Mel! Hey guys, I could cut Bekka's face off!"

...Let's just say that Emily was a bit fed up with the various tidbits Captain Obvious had thrown around throughout the day.

Monastery/religious "retreat" for some Hapsburg King

The monastery itself was gorgeous but all in all a bit time-consumptive for me, as I was stressing about getting back to the city in time for the required 20th Cent. Art Music concert. There was really no need to stress, as Lucy reminded me, but honestly there were a few interpersonal things upsetting me that were best expressed through general stress. It happens. We got back a bit ahead of schedule anyway, so I got more dressed up and then found  the promised land a block away from our hostel. The promised land, for those who don't know me, refers to that magical, caffeinated land of Starbucks. Mocha frapp yes please.

Taryn, Emily, Jen, and I figured out the location of the concert hall; despite all of my time worries, we were the first of our group there and a good half hour early. I know, rare for me, but it was also nice to get a bit of chill time. The evening followed a very interesting concert. One of the pieces had a cello solo that was kind of like listening to free-association cello thought; it was very experimental and weird but I actually loved it. The whole thing ended with Firebird, which was of course magnificent, but the conductor's shirt had come untucked during the night and was frequently showing off his rather corpulent figure. A bit distracting, honestly.

Later that night, I wound up having KFC for dinner (horrible I know but it was so good), and then we went out to one of the biggest clubs I'll probably ever be in - Discotheque Kapital, 7 stories tall with a different atmosphere/music selection on each floor. Again, my favorites were the hiphop and radio hits floor, but I met someone out on the hiphop floor who seemed to take a liking to me. Then... well, my history professor said the day before leaving, "One rule about Spain: Don't kiss Fascists."
So, while I and this Madridian Whomever were dancing, I stepped back for a second and...
"Wait. Are you a fascist?"
"Uh uh uh"
"... Sorry, I need to go."

Granted, it was also 4:30 and we had a wakeup call at 8. Yeesh. Chris, Emily C., and I went to grab our coats from the checking counter, only to find that the Florentine scarf I'd stuffed down a coat arm had vanished. Chris ethpañoled into the bouncer's good humor, but the counter-ladies' two checks around the coat room yielded nothing.

Sigh. -1 accessory.

If Kapital was one of the biggest clubs I'll ever be in, the next morning is probably one of the hardest ones I'll ever have (although the last night in Barcelona can definitely match it). We were again tromping through a museum, but this time our chaperone (again Pieter) was actually familiar with the work. It was pretty fantastic, not to mention how I have a whole new respect for museums after my basic art classes in high school. We saw the Garden of Earthly Delights, among many others, and while at first it was gorgeous by the fifteenth minute the Hellish scenes were even making me a bit queasy.

After the museum, Lane, Emily, Alessandra and I went off in search of food - no seafood, for Emily, which was a little tricky in Spain - and eventually found a small place with surprisingly good and filling food. We're not sure what drink Lane ordered though; she asked for a white wine and got what we're pretty sure was a shot of sherry. Oops. Dessert was another Starbucks trip, where again the barista completely botched my name:

Bilanca, I mean honestly

 We all reconvened for the next activity, only to find that both it and the next morning's activity had been scratched. Welp, gelato-in-the-square time it is then!

 I had a glorious two-hour nap, and that night the ALEMLB group struck out in search of tapas and mojitos. We found a great place around the corner from the hotels and chatted until closing time; the bartender, who seemed to like us, gave us shots on the house of some Baileys-ish drink, served with whipped cream and supposedly drunk through a straw. We didn't know that last bit until later. Oops.

Honestly, I should just rename this my "Oops" Semester, because honestly "oops"s are happening a lot more often than "living at the castle" seems to be going.

The Duke toured us around the giant Madrid park, stopping only to watch Scott squirrel-whisper, buy us ice cream, and let us all go wild on the playground.

Entrance to the park

Obviously we are all very mature

Lunch was paella and pain au chocolat avec chocolat here

We all mobbed the Mercado for lunch and all in all it was lovely (for almost everybody), but things got more dramatic when we went to "grab the bus tickets before shopping." That's an epic tale in itself and practically deserves its own movie, let alone blog post, but for now I'll wrap up and at least pretend to do some homework before passing out. By now I'm two weeks ahead of Madrid and comfortably in Miss Kate's house post-wolfing around with a Hug Mug full of tea, so staying up won't be for long.

Until then, bon nuit, buona sera, and buenas noches!
-B