My 3rd Weekend in Madrid part 1/2

I am back after a long break from blogging. Last week was a crazy week. Almost every day I would have a visit either by ISA or by the University. Towards the end of the week, I was exhausted and just did not want to do anything at all. Not wanting to do anything and did something is two totally separate things. How can I spend my weekend sleeping in my room? When it came Friday and Saturday, I was all pumped up once again to explore the night scene in Madrid.

28^th of Jan, Joanne threw a party at her place to celebrate her 20^th Birthday. I really enjoy partying with the Dutch. They are one of the most relax people to talk to and it is really interesting to talk to them because all of them are studying journalism, which means they are well read and could easily start off a conversation about anything under the sun. This time round, more people from our beginner’s Spanish class turned up. Dino, Yulia, Adam, Edward, Stephen, Noah, Gavi who is Yulia’s friend, and another girl who so happen that I totally forgotten her name. Check out the photos:

First shot of tequila of the night with the Birthday girl



Well, I wasnt prepared for that tequila, it tasted pretty awful...





Dino, Adam and Jordann



Just found out that Joanne is constantly having headaches and that is why is extremely use to taking aspirins.

Anyways, it was fun hanging out and getting to know your classmate outside of the classroom. However, it was such a pity that Bram and Joanne were not feeling well and therefore, the entire Dutch crew did not want to go out to a club after the drinking session or should I call pregame ended. All of us left their place around 1am. I guess I drank too much of some alcohol. I remember drinking a can of beer, 2 shots of yager, 2 shots of tequila, and I think 4 shots of some peach fruity alcohol. On our way to the club in Sol, I nearly threw up because I was full because of the drinking. I was feeling tipsy or anything like that but I just felt really really full. It could possibly be the beer. That would be my guess and that is why till today, I have never really enjoyed drinking beer. Friday night was a fun.

Great company..



Edward having an intense "conversation" with Joanne. Wonder what are talking about?



What the hell are we doing? hahahaha



When you have single guys at a party, this is bound to happen... Well done, Noah. Finally showing your true colors.



This is just half the alcohol that was captured. With that much of alcohol in a party, the ambiance is definitely going to be fun..



Oppsss... caught in action.. I wonder whose hand is that? :P

To be Continued...

A Tough Day in Class

Today is the worst day thus this far I have lived in Madrid. I started the morning extremely sluggish. Class was at 10am and that means I do not wake up around 6am, but I could sleep for another hour. However, due to the stressful and hectic schedule that ISA and University of Nebrija have arranged for us students, I was not able to siesta for the past 2 days. On Monday, I visited the Museo Reina Sofia and yesterday I was at the Prado Museum for the second time in 2 weeks. Walking and looking at the paintings in the Prado Museum drained most of my energy. By the time I was back home, I just wanted to have my dinner and sleep.

I woke up still feeling tired and exhausted from the visits. I had to finish my homework and it took me about an hour to complete it. Went to school and the first thing we started to learn was the family tree. Even though this is not my first encounter learning the relationships, but it was confusing.

After that class with Chari, Marrisa an older Spanish teacher started teaching us about food. It is 12 in the afternoon and she has to teach us about FOODD!!!!. Oi Dios Mio ( translation: Oh My God)!!!! I am hungry and tired from learning about the different relationship in the family and here she is teaching about the various vegetables and seafood. To make matters worse, in the seafood section there were 8 different kinds of fish. When I wanted to know the names in English, she could only tell me 3 out of the 8 fishes. Why on earth do you want to introduce us the different kinds of fishes when I do not go shopping for groceries? What pisses me off in the meat section is that there are 3 different kinds of sausages. When she showed us the pictures of the 3 different types sausages, it pretty much look the same to me. May be one is slightly redder compared to the other two but seriously!?!?

Chari taught the last class for the day. She taught us how to use de, del, al, a, and por. When I asked her what does “a” and “de” mean in English, all she could tell me is that it is really complicated and I cannot explain to you. WHAT!!!! You cannot explain to me but you expect me to understand how to use it. This is crazy. How would you expect me to construct a correct sentence without knowing how and where to put the “a” and “de”? Finally, for the first time in Madrid I spaced in class for a good 30 minutes. I could no longer handle the information. It was definitely information overload for me.

Luckily, after lunch I got to siesta (a nap) for about an hour. That did improve my mood. I was looking forward to Mercedes cooking because I was hungry. She cooked sausages and mashed potatoes. Some good old simple American food. I scoped the mashed potatoes and put it into my mouth, expecting it to be like Soka’s mashed potatoes where they would use milk and butter to bring out the flavor. But it was EXTREMELY SALTY!!! It tasted good but just too salty. I could feel the salt grains as I swallowed the mashed potatoes and the entire sausages and mashed potatoes was covered with a lot, I mean A LOT of soy sauce.

I could not tell her that her cooking was not good. I had to suck up and eat it. I just placed the sausages at the tip of the plate so that it does not soak up more soy sauce. Mercedes saw what I was doing and asked me why. I finally told her that it was really salty. She taught I did not want to eat the mashed potatoes, but I told her I would finish it. At the end of dinner I had eat three quarters of my mashed potatoes and I guess she figured out that I was just trying to finish it even though it was really salty. Thank goodness, she is a very intelligent woman and took those salty mashed potatoes away from me before I get high blood pressure from consuming too much of salt. She finally found the culprit, which is the sauce that she added into the mashed potatoes.

I am off to do my homework and may watch “The Mask” before I go to bed. I am sure things are going to be much better tomorrow. It better be!!!! :P

Museo Reina Sofia

Have you ever felt that you have so much respect for an artist but when you finally see his or her paintings and understand the history behind each paintings you just want to mimic or make fun of the paintings itself. I was at Museo Reina Sofia and this museum house a couple of Spanish’s greatest paintings.

A brief introduction:

The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992 and is named [after] Queen Sofia of Spain. The museum is mainly dedicated to Spanish art. Highlights of the museum include excellent collections of Spain's two greatest 20th century masters, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Certainly the most famous masterpiece in the museum is Picasso's painting Guernica. The central building of the museum was an 18th century hospital.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_Centro_de_Arte_Reina_Sof%C3%ADa

My impression after walking through the Museum is that sometimes we put certain artist too high on a pedestal. We praise their artwork for being magnificent. I would like to apologize beforehand but please don’t get me wrong. I am not disrespecting the culture or the artists itself but after I have looked at a few of the Masters Artists works and I have come to a conclusion that all these paintings are open to personal interpretation.

Pablo Piccaso for example does not really explain the meaning behind his artwork. When he paint things, it is usually based on the mood that he is in and the understanding of his paintings is based on the viewers own interpretation of his paintings. Extremely abstract but at the same time it is supposed to have certain meaning to it.

There are many painters that share a similar concept as Piccaso where the viewer are partially responsible for the meaning they give to the art work. Therefore I have taken up the challenge of interpreting the different paintings of different artists based on my own mood at that time. I hope you do enjoy my interpretation of the paintings of Spanish’s famous painters.

Pablo Picasso's work:

Picasso's work entitled the swimmer 1934.

Piccaso's Mother with Child (II) 1937

Picasso's most famous work Guernica

The statue:

Try my best to be one with the statue.

I am trying hard to paint like the great painters in the museum:

Am I behind a glass or in front of a mirror?

Yup.. In front of a mirror

Sitting beside ....

Dali Salvador work is heavily influenced by Sigmud Freud:

Dali's work: "The Great Masturbator" (1929)

Dali's work: "Girl at The Window" (1925) with me standing beside the painting

I was extremely happy that we were allowed to capture pictures in the museum. Most of the artwork are playful but at the same time tells the history of Spain. I am starting to enjoy museums more now.

Maarten's 25th Birthday

I had midterms yesterday. I wouldn’t say the exams were hard, but I just had made some careless mistakes. I should have studied more diligently before the exams. I will do it during my finals exam. It is great to wake up on a Saturday morning where the Sun is shining into my room. Yesterday, Palacio Domingo celebrated his birthday in Madrid at the Real Theatre. It was a grand affair with Royalties and celebrities celebrating his birthday.

While Domingo had his celebration at the Real Theatre, I was invited to Maarten’s 25^th birthday party. Maarten is in my Spanish class. He speaks 5 languages. They are Spanish, English, Dutch, French and German. I went over to his place to pregame before going out to a club. We were expected to be there at 9pm but most of us arrived after 10pm. He lives with 3 other Dutch, Roland, Bram and Joanne. They are all extremely friendly and nice.

During Maarten’s birthday party, all of us were just talking and getting to know one another. We have only known each other for about 2 weeks just because we are all classmates. This is the time where we get to know each other better and enjoyed each others company. However, the conversations are about politics and a little about ourselves.

I spent 2 hours talking to Roland about politics in Malaysia, Singapore, North Korea, the US and shared some details about myself, and how I ended up studying in the US. Roland might seem like a party animal but he is well read and extremely knowledgeable.

We drank and chatted until about 1.20am when Dino asked me how I was going to go back. I told him the Metro, but the Metro in Spain closes at 1.30am. By that time Maarten suggested that we go out to party in a club. I was down since the place that we plan to go is only 5 minutes away from my apartment. Everybody was taking their sweet time talking and just chilling before leaving for the club.

When we were finally outside, Dino showed Bram how to do a shotgun beer. Bram trying to puncture the can with a key before opening up his shotgun of beer.

And now trying to chuck it...

It was -2 Celsius and we waited for 15minutes before the bus finally arrived. We took the N8 straight to Banco de Espana. In the bus, Laura was laughing and it was definitely fun seeing Laura and Maarten talking to one another. Maarten is a Dutch where else Laura is Danish. Both their first language is not English and either Bram or Roland had to help translate certain words.

From left to right: Dino, Bram, Laura and Maarten (the Birthday Boy)

From left to right: Jordann, Joanne, and Roland

Embarrassingly we were extremely loud on the bus. I felt that everybody was staring at us at the corner of their and thinking to themselves this bunch of noisy foreigners think that they are in their own country.

When we finally reached Banco de Espana, we had to walk for 10 minutes to get to Sol. At one point after Roland and Maarten had withdrew money from the ATM, all of us suddenly felt like going to the toilet at the same time. We saw a theater and all of us rushed in. The person at the front desk was a bit shocked and at the same time he wanted to deny us the privilege to use the restroom. But it was 2.10am in the morning and I guess he figured that we had been drinking and need the washroom. When we were all done, Bram tipped him but he refused. That is peculiar to deny a tip. Who does not want money in this economic crisis?

We went to a bar called Dubelin if I remember correctly.It was hot and stuffy. Wasnt really club but it was free. :P The rest of them had beer but I over pre-game that Icouldnt drink anymore when I was in that bar/club. It was an amazing night.

Next week, it is Joanne’s 20^th Birthday. It is going to be another round of crazy partying with the Dutch. I am looking forward to another amazing Friday next week.