Weekend in Madrid

Although I live in Madrid, I haven't stayed here for a weekend in three weeks, so I didn't really know what to do with myself at first! My cousin, Julie, and her friend, Ryan, stayed with me for the weekend, so I cleaned the apartment and did laundry on Friday (big day!) I've also been studying because I have my very first test of the semester on Monday...

I hadn't been to any of the art museums, yet, so I fit those into my not-so-busy schedule. Every museum has a day with free entry or certain hours during the day when it's free, so I managed to get very cultured for free :) I went to the Prado on Friday (with Julie and Ryan) and saw the painting, "Las Meninas" by Diego Velázquez. I studied this painting Junior year of high school in Spanish and never realized it was this famous! It´s the main attraction in one of the bigger galleries in the Prado...

Sitting in high school Spanish class, I never knew I´d see this painting again!

Friday night, a few of us went to a botellón (basically, young people drinking outside) at one of the residence halls and then we went to a club called, Pachá and danced the night away. Saturday was gorgeous-60s and sunny-so a few of us headed to a giant park for a picnic lunch and to study a bit. Today, I went to the Reina Sofia, which is one of the modern art museums. I mostly wanted to see "Guernica" by Picasso, but also saw some works by Dalí.

"Guernica"

The museum also had lots of pieces by Joan Miró (he´s from Barcelona). I know his work because when I work at the front desk at Techline, I stare at one of his paintings!