Does everyone know what a
mullet hairdo is? short on the sides and top, long in the back. gross, nasty haircut usually relegated to trailer parks and nascar. Well they are very popular here in Espana, we have photo proofs...
FIRST NIGHT IN SPAIN
To pick up from the end of the last post, on our first night in Madrid we went to a
flamenco concert in one of the many public gardens. In two parts, the first being a singer and guitar player. An older gentleman was the singer and story teller who got a lot of laughs from the crowd (we missed it all as he spoke to fast for us to follow anything). The singing seemed a bit adlib-ed and consisted of a lot of wailing... and short burts of lyrics. The flamenco guitar playing was outstanding for this section. Sharp notes, crescendos and accents. The guitar strings must have been heavy gauge and strung really tight for him to pluck as hard as he did. He also must've had 4 other invisible hands in order to execute all the strumming required for playing the instricate pieces. Not sure if this was my first experience with the flamenco style but i will not forget it. Go out and listen to some flamenco guitar today.
The second part was focused on flamenco dancing done by three people, a woman and two men (who seemed to battle back and forth over the women?), these folks were backed by a set of musicians, a fiddle\violin player, two flamenco guitarists (lead and rythm), a percussionist and two singers. The perucssionist played a large square ¨box¨ thing which made deep bass and high slapping sounds along with a hugh conga drum. Singers traded back and forth on vocals and would also cheer(or hoot) for the dancers, they said ¨dali¨ a lot. the music was central to accenting the dancers jagged movements, using percussion, guitar twang and hand claps. Speaking of the latter, the singers (and later the male dancers) did some impressive alternating hand claps, a rapid fire xoxoxoxoxoxoxo (for you musicians, 16th notes) notes. Overall i was really impressed with teh complex rythms of the music, especially with the earlier male singer and guitar - the two of which would trade off beats, almost of sync at times, only to then come together for a crescendo moment at the end or something other bridge in the song.
Also we meet some nice italians from milan who were vacationing in spain. they told us that cingue terre in italy is a big tourist area for other italians and that we would have a great time.. looking forward to it!
THE NEXT DAY - we had
churros, a fried dough specific to spain, for breakfast.. caitlin had hers with hot chocolate (which has slightly richer than US grade, more for dipping than drinking) and i had cafe con leche (traditional coffee drink, half coffee, half hot milk).. mmm good. not sure how spaniards eat churros everyday though, it was rich stuff.
On the advanced of a teacher from the states we met in our hostel, we took a bus to the small city\village of
Segovia, just north of Madrid. Three major points of interest we hit (in order of favor) were a castle with great views of the town, a marvelous cathedral and a Roman aqueduct. The city was a little hard to figure out at first, due to no maps or tourist center or anything inside the craphole of a bus station we arrived at, but after wondering a bit we found tiny little narrow streets that wound through really quant neighborhoods.
We found the cathedral on a large hill overlooking parts of downtown. Outside was cool, inside had huge vaulted ceilings with interesting patterns done in stone. Everything was segmented into several large chapels\shrines in the center and then a series of ¨smaller¨ shrines circualing the inside wall all the way around. I quote the word small because these shrines were still huge. Each area was devoted to a different saint, preist, person etc. Other rooms lay off the main hall, each one had varying degrees of elegance and odorment.
The castle, Alcázar, is on the tip of segovia where two rivers meet, for 1,50 euro you can climb to the top of the tower and get some fantastic views (
see caitlin´s blog for photos, soon, hopefully). On the way to the castle we saw a center for jewish education and a bunch of small touristy shops. On the way out of the castle on to the aqueduct, we noted a bunch of people taking
siesta (afternoon nap) in a small park (again, photo proof on the way!). Found more great tiny streets on teh way to a large aqueduct built by romans during their occupation of this area in the 1st century AD, nearby we found a main street with a lot of major stores and upscale merch which lead back to the bus station. If you go to segovia, avoid this street and the other downtown areas and stick to the small back alleys for a way better time!
SECOND NIGHT
We returned to Madrid via autobus and showered and maybe a little siesta and then out for dinner (aka
tapas) around 9 or 10pm. Again, this is the traditional time for having a ¨dinner¨ in spain. Eating schedule goes like so: light breakfast (coffee and maybe a piece of toast), big lunch between 130 and 330 and then a light dinner usually in the form of small appetizer like dishes called tapas anytime after 8pm and maybe late into teh night. Also don´t forget siesta in the afternoon, we have found many places deserted at this time and noted some places even close for an hour. That´s the way to do it!! Having said all that, you would think we would not have a difficult time finding tapas at 10pm,, no? well it must´ve taken us 30 minutes to find a place with tapas. a big part of the problem was in our wording, they use different terms for what we call tapas. And also our idea of a traditional tapas menu (e.g. Dali restaurant in somerville) was a bit different than the regional flare around here. After a few conversions in broken spanish we found a great place overlooking
Palacio Real. We had anchovy on toast, a fried patatas dish (potato), some type of smoked sausage and a spanish omellette. mmmmm!!
THIRD DAY
After some cafe con leche (coffee with milk) we bought tickets for a double decker tourist bus that runs around the city in two different routes, the old section and modern madrid. It was expensive but runs frequently so you can ride it like a commuter bus. The pre-recorded tour guide was so so but the views from the open roof deck on the bus were great. We headed for Centro de Arte Reina Sofia to see Museo del Prado to see a collection of modern spanish art only to find that the muesum is closed on Tuesdays!? Weird! So we headed for the Museo del Prada for a special exhibit on
Picasso, I liked
The Three Musicians,
Women in an Armchair and a great portrait of a women crying over her dead children (cubist style, lime green), can´t find a link to it at the moment..
Took the tour bus around more and snapped a ton of great photos of both sides of Madrid, old and modern. THe modern part looks like any other city with an injection of old buildings and the old section (central madrid, were we are staying) is a totally different feel, narrow streets, all old buildings... sort of like walking through teh north end. the city is growing on me.
Finally, before hitting the internet cafe (called ¨BBIGG¨), we went to Museo del Jamon (musuem of ham) which is chain of cafes in madrid which serve beer, coffee and ham related food items.. Ham is big here in madrid. this places was great, you stand at a bar and order all types of ham stuff, sandwhiches, sausage, plates of ham from cheap to expensive. Caitlin spoke with an old madridian who explained the diffences in all the ham and the history of madrid. The gist of his history lesson was that before the dictatorship in the middle of the century, madrid was full of music and art and that today there is not nearly as much. Muy mal. That´s it for now! time for siesta! Its 8pm, adios.
Juan
The jewish section of Prague is called "josefov". There are several synagoges still there, some quite beautiful (the spanish synagogue). Many of them have been turned into museums about the Czech jews and their sad history in prague. During hitlers time, josefov was turned into a ghetto, with the jews restricted to only this tiny section of prague. only one cemetary existed and it filled up quickly, people had to be buried up to 6 deep in a single grave. the tombstones are stacked and falling over onto each other. The above picture is the entrance to the cemetary. Please view a few more pictures of the josefov cemetary.
Went to the Mucha Museum, which highlights the works of painter, photographer and most importantly illustrator Alfons Mucha, native of Czech Republic.
During my hunt for warm clothes i ventured to a czech mall and found a bookstore with programming books :) the only word i understood was "java".
This mesuem of mechanical music players was hidden inside the walls of prague castle, i just happened to stumble upon it. Great stuff here, player painos, automated 1-man band, old phonographs, everything. All most all czech made and almost everything worked and was demonstrated by the friendly guides.
