ART

The next morning, Ross waltzed into the breakfast room at 9:30am looking well rested. The ride to Madrid had been good.

We decided to visit El Parque del Buen Retiro first, since it was morning and cool. The park was beautiful and right beside La Puerta de Acala, which is a great, brick-stone gate in the middle of a traffic circle outside the park. The gardens below the gate are immaculately groomed.

Inside the park, small dot statues carrying books, standing pensively, or just looking quirky were scattered throughout the entrance to the park. Fountains and horse-drawn carriages occupied the spaces between lush greenery and great monuments to famous Spanish conquistadors, doctors, and scholars lay about the park. The main attractions are at the center on the lake, where the Crystal Palace and a museum lie on the lake. At 10:30am, the museum was not open, but it is free from 6-9pm, according to my book!

We eventually happened up on a garden that looked straight out of a Lewis Carroll novel. It had squat, perfectly groomed trees encircling round, symmetrical fountains within mazes of hedges. A set of grand staircases led down into the gardens, which used to be the royal gardens when the Museo del Prado was a royal palace. Under the staircases was a fountain. An old, leathery man was bathing in the fountain and reading the newspaper. Matt and I took pictures, musing at the architecture, when Ross appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and without a shirt. Everybody - this is Shirtless Ross. Collect all six!

At a vending stand, we stopped for a Magnum ice cream and then exited the park. Next stop: Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. We decided to do this one without Sable, thinking that she was more into classical art than modern art, which is what the Reina Sofia boasts as its advantage. The great glass elevator at the front bears its names and the concrete structure makes you think modern instantly. We subjected our bags to yet another X-ray search and bought student tickets with our student cards that made the cashiers wrinkle their noses when they read "University of Alberta", then shrug and wave us through. The first sculpture at the base of the stairs was a recent exhibit that showed statues of men hanging by their necks from the ceiling. Interesting. We proceeded through 60s graphic art, then 80s pop art, then really timeless modern art. Our first Dali spotting was a painting of whirlwind geometrical shapes - a small one, with bulletproof glass encasing it. The guard eyed us sharply as we looked casually at it.

There is simply too much art there for me to describe. We took a break for lunch at 3pm at a cafe just around the corner from Reina Sofia. The Madrid sun beat down on us hard, even under the umbrellas outside. Ross and I had gazpacho with little croutons shaped like baguettes and cheese-veggie toasts. I drank some agua con gas and eventually traded places with Ross, who offered to do so because he had a hat and could be in the sun while I was hatless. We ate a leisurely lunch - forced to do so, really, by the rather leisurely Madrileno service - and eyed the full basket of croutons left by the business man beside us.

"Are you going to take that man's bread?" I asked Ross, who was eyeing the basket more enviously than the rest of us.

"I am not above it," he answered. Matt casually draped his arm over the chair behind him. Then reached and pulled the basket toward our side of the table. Yawning and stretching to check who was watching, he then switched our empty bread basket for the man's full one. No harm done - the man had already left. Ross ate his bread happily. We had dessert; I had tiramisu and we paid. Back to the museum for more art!

The Juan Munoz temporary exhibit consisted of little sculptures of Chinese men, all with the same expression but all with different body language, making each man appear to be doing and expressing something different. Ross caught some excellent moments in this exhibit before we got wary of the guard and left the exhibit. One exhibit was like a living David Lynch movie, complete with men dressed in animal costumes and running around a grand 18th century Victorian mansion. The guard was a pudgy, mean-faced blond woman who perpetually followed me and yelled,"Photograficas SIN FLASH!!" I told her, in a flat voice, that I understood. Even in the adjacent dimly lit room where the animal costumes lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, she followed me to pester me.

"Hay un problema?!" I yelled back. She just glared.

By the end of the day, we were arted out. We walked back from the Reina Sofia, feeling the intense heat rise from the streets and clog the flow of thoughts in our brains. At an ice cream vendor where we stopped to get some water, I noted a collectible Hello Kitty ice cream. Note to self: tell Sable. We rested on the grass in the Parque del Buen Retiro and watched helplessly as strong, tanned, sweaty men with gigantic muscles and no fat ran around in the 45 degree heat of 7pm. My. God.

We walked through the park and took the Metro back to our hostel, where we changed and talked with our roommates before heading out for dinner. Our roommates were from Atlanta, Georgia and Santa Barbara, California.

"Where y'all from?" asked the obviously gay man on the top bunk.

"Canada."

"Canada? No way! I have a cousin from Ontario, Ottawa ... Ottawa, Ontario ... I can never remember the city."

"It's Ottawa, Ontario. Ottawa's the city," Matt replied drily.

"Yeah - y'all know him?" We shook our heads definitively no. Canada is big.

Ross suggested we go to FresCo, which sounded good after a long, hot day. We walked to Puerta del Sol and up a few streets until we found it, nested on a side street. Only tourists occupied this FresCo, but we weren't embarrassed. I mean, here, they had bubblegum pink Sopa de Sandia! Watermelon soup! We loaded up our salad plates and sat down to a long, satisfying dinner before Ross suggested we go to Plaza Oriente before picking up Sable. We stopped instead at the Royal Palace, where the Infantry gates looked like they stretched on forever. Matt said he expected to see ocean past those gates, but we knew Madrid was completely landlocked. Around the other side from the palace, there is a garden, which is more of a dog park/make-out point. Near the entrance, dogs ran around their owners, other owners, us, through hedges, into fountains, and alongside other dogs. It was doggy chaos! The more secluded areas of the garden included couples who "assumed the position". It seems like every couple in Madrid takes on a specific position or some variation of one fundamental technique I will attempt to describe. Essentially, the man sits or lies down on his back and his partner straddles his waist (or ... whatever) with their legs and sits up. We sat at the back of the park, watching three couples simultaneously makeout. Ross' eyes widened and his brows arched.

"Well ... she's not in the position anymore. She's going for acrobatics."

Apparently, the couple behind me were going for gold. All of a sudden, a squat man yelled out, "Senoras y senores! Time to go!" He ushered us out quickly because the square was closing. No bother. We walked to Plaza Oriente and saw patrons get misted inside of a restaurant courtyard. Ahhh Madrid. How clever. There was a musical instrument store, which sold guitars. Tempting. Very tempting.

We took the Metro to the airport to pick up Sable and realized that we did not have any flight information. British Airways? Terminal 1? The magic of texting saved our asses and we met Sable at the terminal. We went back to the hostel to check her in, which was more of an ordeal than our check-in because the receipt printer ran out of paper and the receptionist couldn't fix it. He also only spoke Spanish to Sable, who speaks only English in this country, so gesturing was more help than anything. It was during this receipt-language fiasco that Matt discovered Aquarius and an undying love for all things sodium-ridden was confirmed.

Matt and I went looking for a place to fetch my cafe con leche but could not find one!! How terrible! Even as we walked back to the hostel to see if we could try the cafe just outside our street, we saw that it was dark and they were stacking chairs. For a city that never sleeps, they sure turn in early! I went to bed, sans my caffeine and without a clear picture of why people rave about Madrid so much.