La noche nos llamo: The night called us

Started out the day fantastically...especially compared to the freezing cold and wind yesterday...(we even saw a few snowflakes)! We had breakfast at a place called Nebraska...imagine that! Then we walked over to Palacio Real where we admired the gardens, their symmetry, and the sun...I tried to get a tan to no avail.

From there we walked around to the front of the palace, which stands opposite the Opera House (which seems too plain to be separated into 2 horizontal portions as large as they are). We listened to a man singing and playing guitar...Mon and I wondered why all men don't sit and sing to us like that?! haha.

On the other side we could see the patio/plaza behind the palace, and the cathedral/church built in about 5 different architectural styles due to the expanse of time it took to complete it. I played soccer with a litte kid who had been playing by himself, then we headed on to see the main market still in use today.

The streets of the old city were not nearly as narrow as those in Barca, but it was interesting how the houses hugged the curves. I don't know if it's visible from the photo, but the lower 1/3 of the buildings are angled out, probably to fortify the structure. This picture in particular was taken right at the bottom of the staircase up to Plaza Mayor.

The plaza is huge compared to the enclosed plazas we've seen in Barca. There were lots of people milling about, taking pictures, eating lunch, walking around, looking at shops...it was really pleasant. The buildings themselves were all uniform in their inclusion of balconies, with equal floor heights and the pattern smacks you in the face...no need to go searching for it!

**Check out the video and see for yourself!**

This was the location of our first sketching assignment. I chose to do a facade and section study to capture the proportions through an elevation and the geometry of the section that can't be captured just by the facade because of the slanted roof as well as the arcade that screens a walkway beneath the buildings.

After the Plaza we headed to el Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. There we saw multiple mediums of art; video, sculpture, canvas, text, etc. Picasso's Guernica is there too. To be honest, I was not as impressed by it in person as I thought I would be. I was much more affected by the manner in which he refused to keep the painting in Spain until the end of Franco's rule. We also saw a collection of work by Bauhaus member Josef Albert and his wife on patterns and tiling. My favorite of those works was Abstracto.

The addition to the museum, pictured above, was done by Jean Nouvel. While it doesn't fit the building, as Nouvel is known to build object architecture that stands on its own, I did appreciate the way that the new and old building don't actually touch to be sealed together. I also liked how the street sidewalk continued underneath the roof that covered a plaza between the old and new parts shown here. The use of glass also helped to create an interesting feel. One of my pictures of this is shown on the main blog page under "Madrid."

I'm not sure if the furniture inside the addition was designed by Nouvel as well, but I really liked some of it, especially pieces like this that doubled in use: one end is a table and the other is a bench!

After Reina Sofia, we headed to one of the heavenly places in Madrid...also known as a Chocolateria, where they serve coffee mugs full of chocolate with baked churros to dip...yeah--that was good! We did dessert first, then hit up a local restaurant where Felipe used his people skills to get us the Menu deal, and I had the best steak ever! We sat in a room full of soccer fans, so clearly we were half-talking, half-futbol-watching!

Upon returning to the hotel, most people were really tired, but a few of us were wide awake and ready for another night of dancing at an Unce-unce club! Billy, Ben, Felipe, Sean, and I headed out to Joy Esclava, where we ran into..."issues" and ended up heading a few doors down to Palacio Girivina(?) which was basically a beautiful old mansion converted into a 2-story posh club with a bunch of bars, 3 dance floors, and a few lounge rooms full of comfy furniture. I did not take advantage of any of that furniture, however, and instead opted to dance the whole time! The music was the best when one of the employees came out and played a bongo-like drum to the current techno, house, or pop music-SWEET! We preferred him much more than the weird dancers that they had on stage...STrAnGE!!

anywho..."we stayed out until 5:30, came to the hotel, showered, then went out looking for a quick breakfast at 7:15, met everyone in the lobby at 8, and were officially inducted into the Madrid nightlife scene with an all-nighter."