¡Bienvenidos a España!

¡Hola a todos!

The next morning after Steph arrived, we had to wake up super early to take the train and bus to Ciampino airport for our flight to Madrid. We arrived in Madrid slightly early and jumped on the metro to get to the city center. Unfortunately, we probably got off the metro a few stops too early and ended up lugging our huge suitcases about a mile to our apartment. We got our keys and took our time settling in the apartment. It is tiny but nice and cozy! After unpacking for our 11-night stay, we started to walk around our neighborhood to get our bearings. Since it was Sunday, most of the stores and bars were closed, so we weren't able to do much that night. We were super exhausted, so we decided to call it a night and get organized the next day!

Well, little did we know that most stores and museums are also closed on Mondays!! So instead of researching, we walked for 3-4 miles that day around the entire city to get acquainted. We saw a bunch of the museums, like the Prado and the Reina Sofia (that I will be returning to for my research) and walked around our barrio (neighborhood).

Parque de Retiro- a HUGE and BEAUTIFUL park in Madrid. I go running there in the mornings...

The Prado Art Museum

We are staying in the Barrio de las letras, which is the oldest and most historic area of Madrid.

The street we're living on for the next 11 days!

There are a bunch of museums, monuments, old theaters, restaurants, coffee shops, and bars all over, and it is right in the center of the city. It is so easy for us to get wherever we need to go! We finally found a supermarket and did a bunch of our grocery shopping for the week. We made a delicious dinner and then organized ourselves for our research here this week.

Lemon-Garlic Linguini with Chicken and Peas

Since Friday is a feast-day here for the patron saint of Madrid, Saint Isidro, a lot of places are closed then as well, which we weren't anticipating. We're not quite sure what's in store for that day, but we'll keep you all posted.

On Tuesday, I was all ready to get started on my on-site research. I was really excited to visit the Casa-Museo Lope de Vega, because it is the house Lope de Vega, the famous Spanish playwright (who I'm studying for my project), spent the last 35 years of his life. Because of our fabulous location in the center of the Barrio de las letras, the museum is only two blocks away on Cervantes street. But, when I got there, I found out that I had to make an appointment to enter the museum! All the tour slots were filled up through Sunday, so my plans for the day were a bust! How disheartening. However, it was a beautiful day, so I took some good photos for the multimedia portion of my project.

Lope de Vega street: located between my street and Cervantes street where Lope de Vega's house is...and Cervantes' house? Nowhere near here...so why did they name the streets like this??? Just one of my unanswered questions about Madrid.

Lope de Vega's House

Lope de Vega sign on our street: the guy must be popular!

Lope de Vega's buried here, a couple blocks away from our apartment.

Lope de Vega quote inscribed in the pavement on our street. The whole Barrio de las letras has quotes like these from famous Spanish writers that lived in this area.

Since my visit to Lope de Vega's house was postponed until Sunday, I had to do some schedule re-arranging. Next, I headed to the Teatro Español: built in the 1600's, and where Lope de Vega premiered a lot of his plays. It's basically like the Spanish version of the Globe Theater. It's still a thriving theater today.

Since Lope de Vega's new kind of plays were so entertaining, he basically single-handedly turned Madrid into a theater-going public. This is apparent in the theaters built subsequently in Madrid. A lot of them have characteristics similar to the Teatro Español.

Next, Steph and I partook of the Spanish literary tradition of the tertulia. The tertulia is sort of like the French salon, where a bunch of scholarly-type people got together to discuss cultured topics. In Spain, they took place in coffee shops. So we went to a coffee shop next to our apartment and discussed our research projects over cafe con leche and pastries.

Dulce de leche cake...yum!

After all this hard work, Steph and I decided we needed a little retail therapy. There's this store that sells the popular Spanish shoe called the Espadrille. My Mom cut out an article from a magazine about this store the LAST time I went to Madrid, which was my junior year of high school. Since I was traveling with a school tour group I never had the chance to go, but I found it again this time around! Apparently the store was opened back in the 1800's, and is kind of famous...it's called Calzados lobo.

Only 8.50€, what a steal!

Modeling our new purchases!

To cap off a day of immersion into the Spanish culture, Steph and I decided to make traditional Spanish cuisine for dinner. We made homemade Sangria, and paired it with the Spanish rice dish called Paella.

The paella gets its bright yellow color from the saffron added to the rice.

Cheers!