Some Oddities of España

12E Haircut
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Hola familia de otra vez! (that means 'hello again family", or maybe 'hello to my family of another time')

Time seems like it's moving very quickly now and somehow it seems like there won't be enough time here.  I've heard feelings like this ebb and flow over the course of being abroad, but for the time being it just seems like there's SO much to explore!

Madrid is famous for, as many cities claim I think, a Golden Triangle, which, in this case is of art museums.  The Prado is world-famous, but I don't know what is has in it.  I just know it was worthy of my señora putting on lipstick to go there.  However, I went to the other two, the Riena Sofia and Museo Thyssen, last week and they were very cool.  The Reina Sofia is full of 21st century art, with many many Picasso's, and works from Salvador Dalí and another one called Miró.  I have come to the conclusion that Dali and Picasso were absolutely nuts, as was Miró probably, but at least he used lines and dots instead of sort-of-recognizable, fantastical shapes.  Dali I actually really like as far as I know.  He is an amazing technical painter (and more importantly, sticks to those techniques) but has a wild imagination, so he ends up with works that are sort of cartoonish in character but absurd in content.  My favorite was one titles, literally, "Dream Caused By a Bee Flying Around a Pomegranate--One Second Before Waking Up", which shows two tigers jumping out of a fishes mouth, which is respectively jumping out of pomegranate--with a bee flying around it, per the title--and elephant on stilts walking by in the background.  I think I'm going to take a class on him.

OTHER THINGS THOUGH:

I've been keeping a running tally of me against Spain.  For instance, when I got my haircut the other day, I think Spain won.  I'm trying to look at the bright side, which is now I know why I should pay more than 12 euros for a haircut.  Another one was yesterday, when I said for the first time to a clerk, "In America, it's much more ______ (something good)," and I'm sure it won't be the last.