Little Spain Lies

The title could have been "Little White Spain," but that seemed too pointed, even for me.

That cross is the tallest thing in Spain.

Anyway, it's actually been a pretty eventful weekend here in España. Friday was our final day trip with Ramiro of the semester (although we still have the weekend trip to Galicia coming up at the end of this month), so we spent the morning at the Prado talking about cubism, the surrealists, and civil war-era Spanish art in general, including a crash course on Guernica. Very interesting stuff, the time actually flew by (unlike our day talking about the Catholic Counterreformation aka the "How boring can we make this portrait?" school of art).

That afternoon, we drove out of Madrid up into the mountains to see the "Valle de los Caidos" (Valley of the Fallen), and I don't think any of us really knew what it was but were like "Wow, it's so pretty up here, smell that mountain air!" until we realized that "Valle de los Caidos" is actually "Valle de Franco" and is the monument he erected to himself to house his tomb once he died.


That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the Spanish government is still allotting tax money to fund the upkeep of FRANCO'S MONUMENT IN HONOR OF HIMSELF. We saw FRANCO'S TOMB on HALLOWEEN and let me tell you there were some fascists ghosts in that place, and we were NOT into it. It's very huge and creepy and Catholic and full of avenging angel sculptures and tapestries depicting the Apocalypse. It just reminded us all how very recent Franco's rule was and how real it still is to most of Spain. In fact, he still has a lot of supporters here, which makes me pretty ill.

That evening, we went to a little gallery for a Pasaporte Cultural event, which was just checking out this exhibition of sculpture and prints that took topographical depictions of rivers and mountains and translated them into abstract forms of shape and line. It was actually very cool, not at all a bad way to spend an hour. The artist's name is Maya Lin, and if you're interested, there's more info here.

That night we went out for Halloween, nothing super remarkable, except that Spaniards don't really do costumes so much as pick an outfit and add zombie makeup and fake blood. Some of them do choose costumes, like cheerleader or doctor or Princess Elsa, and then they add zombie makeup and fake blood. Made for an interesting night anyway.

Saturday, we went to Segovia with Riva and Alex. It's about a half-hour ride on the Ave, but you end up in this ancient city in the middle of the Spanish countryside that feels like a thousand miles from Madrid. The city's real claim to fame is its Roman aqueduct, but there's also a fairly impressive cathedral and a medieval castle. Also a lot of restaurants serving whole suckling pigs. We regrettably declined.

That night, we went with Hannah and Alex to a fairly fancy bar in Malasaña called The Passenger, which is done up on the inside to look like the inside of an old-fashioned train car, with music to match. One wall is lined with giant TV screens that play landscapes and cities and stuff rushing by at high-speed. A little nauseating if you think about it too hard, but if you concentrate on your-overpriced cocktail and leather armchair, it's not so bad. This morning, we and the girls went back to brunch at Carmencita--stunning as always--and then we and Riva spent the rest of the day at La Acuarela, that weird Viennese-style cafe we keep acknowledging as less than satisfactory and then keep going back to.