Hola Valencia

Another quick post unrelated to Valencia… we got some great pictures and took a video during our recent trip to Madrid, and need to share!

Madrid is completely unlike Valencia; huge and cosmopolitan, where waitresses are likely to answer your bumbling Spanish in perfect, world-weary English, and the number of sights and events is overwhelming. If we ever write a blog called Hola Madrid, we’ll have to take on additional staff. I love the city; boisterous and exciting, but easily navigable and with plenty of quiet corners. We had a couple days there, recently, and saw…

The Atachoa Train Station – with a huge palm garden in the middle of the station, Atachoa greets newcomers in a splendid fashion. The garden is breathtaking, and we spent probably 15 minutes at its pond watching hundreds of turtles climb over each other in a slow-motion (but frenzied) game of King of the Hill.

The Reina Sofia – One of the best modern art museums in the world houses innumerable works by Picasso and Dalí, including Picasso’s heartbreaking meisterwerk La Guernica. Just don’t try and take a picture of it, unless you want its hawkish guards to yell at you! It’s my favorite painting ever.

Easter Procession – On Sunday night, our dinner was interrupted by a solemn street procession, with men in black hoods carrying a huge statue of the crucifixion. My parents hadn’t yet experienced the pointy-hooded and quietly creepy Catholic brotherhoods of Spain. While the crowd stood still, respectfully, the bars were out of control; the Real – Atlético Madrid derby was in full swing, and when Atlético scored, everyone pretending to be religious ran back inside. The poor guys in the procession were visibly jealous.