Madrid - Toledo

Buenos Tardes,

Due to a mixture of cosmic unrest (anger at my mom for forgetting her Fodor's) and natural disasters (hurricane Ida), my mom couldn't come to Madrid this weekend. Don't worry, she rescheduled he flight for December, which means that this weekend was one of my last weekends in Madrid without exams looming or people visiting. I took advantage, don't worry.

This week, for starters, five other Duke kids and I finished an "enologia" class. We were led to believe this meant wine-tasting. Our vision was going to a restaurant with other Spanish students and sitting around a table and being educated on wine (ie: more social aim then academic). This first day we arrived, and were greeted by a sterile classroom with pens and paper blankly staring up at as. No wine in sight. We were a little disappointed when we found out that enologia actually means the art of wine making, not tasting, but the entire class experience was redeemed last Tuesday when we received an official diploma that when had finished a "curso preliminar de cata" (Picture 13, sorry I put them in backward today) in other words, after learning all about different types of wood used in barrels and the "fascinating" different ways in which you can pick grapes, we are now officially ready to take a wine tasting class (= cata). Thanks Torres.

On Thursday, a big chunk of the Duke in Mardid group went to a Flamenco concert. I enjoyed it, as I think everyone else did, but the thing that most stood out in the performance was the amount of sweat that flew from the one of performer's hair when he spun on the stage.

On Friday, we went to Toledo. A day trip about an hour away from Madrid, a really cool old city in Spain that's kind of a mixture of everything. It's been dominated by three different cultures (Jewish, Christian, and Arab), so it's kind of a mix of Andalucia and Segovia. Well known for its swords and marzipan. Pictures 12 -9 all show Toledo.

The weather in Madrid was very angst-y this weekend (Pictures 8 and 7), probably again due to the natural and supernatural phenomena that were going on elsewhere in the world. Nonetheless, I still explored some new places in Madrid. First off was the Museo Arqueologico (Picture 6), which is in a giant building, but is surprisingly small. They have kind of an eclectic mix of everything from mummies to altarpieces to prehistoric animal bones. The two nights of the weekend we explored the Huertas area, a street right next to Sol with a lot of bars and restaurants. This is probably one of the best places to go out in Madrid because it's so close to the center and there are some many options of things to do, including Penthouse, which is a bar on the roof of a five star hotel. While we were about 7 years too young to fit in there, we still had fun seeing it.

Sunday the weather finally cleared (pictures 5 and 4) and to celebrate we went to a folkloric, comic, Arragon-ic, version of Hamlet called "Jamlet (con jota). (Picture 3) This play was ridiculous. All of the characters were caricatures of the people from Hamlet. They wore clown noses and the like, and sang and danced, and while everyone died at the end, somehow they did it in a funny way. While we did not get all of the jokes, it was slapstick enough for us to be very entertained.

Monday after class I had plans to go to the other Museum in Madrid that I haven't completely seen (Museo Thyssen), only to find out that it is always closed on Monday. After coming home defeated I immediately got a call from my friend that a group was going to see the Opera. If you are under 26 and get to the theater and hour and a half before the show starts, the Teatro Real with sell you tickets for 90% of the original price. In other words, we got to see "L'italiana in Algeri" by Gioachino Rossini, for only 13 euros, which is a great price compared to the 150 euro normal entrance fee. (Pictures 2 and 1) .

Paz

Brent

Spanish Lesson

Erupción = sneeze. I like the imagery.

Por ejemplo: (literally = for example). This expression is not used at all in the same context as we use it.

Here are some ejemplos of how I've heard it used at home:

Miriam: Is the sandwich for me, Mom? Madre: Por ejemplo ( = If you'd like)

Madre (when severing food and asking how much we want) = Por ejemplo (= Tell me when)

So I'm not really sure how to define it, but there are a lot of other examples (just can't think of any right now)