Art Expositions in Madrid and Savoring Salamanca

The weeks are quickly winding down until my day of departure from Spain, and as such, I have tried to enjoy things with an even greater appreciation and an even richer consciousness of the wonder around me. Fortunately, I can report that I think I have absorbed this whole year to the maximum, so despite my efforts to "live more richly" the past few weeks, not much has changed, which is a good thing. I've been living richly since I first set foot into this beautiful country!

Last weekend, I took a free tour of the Teatro Real (Royal Theater) where many famous operas are performed. It was an ornate building right off of the Plaza Oriente in Madrid, which is the large and picturesque plaza right next to the Palacio Real, one of the main palaces in the Madrid region built by the Bourbon kings of the 18th century. It's manicured gardens and sculptures are always an ideal place to take a stroll, and from the elevated vantage point afforded by the balcony off of the Teatro Real, I got this great photo.

An interesting Chagall piece in which a
rooster is mounted and hugged by
a rider

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Ana visiting an art exposition centered on Chagall. Chagall was born in Russia but lived much of his life as an exile in France. His Jewish ancestry and Russian heritage were key themes of his work, which used bold, intense colors in very symbolic ways. Ana and I had a great time walking through the gallery with our audio guides and comparing opinions and interpretations.

When Ana and I were finished with the art exposition, we went to my favorite movie theater in the city called the Cine Doré and watched a documentary that was a biographical look at the life of Arthur Rimbaud, a French symbolist poet about whom I had read a little. Rimbaud was a temperamental, prodigious boy who fell in love with Paul Verlaine, another French poet, but had a short-lived, passionately violently relationship with him that eventually ended. Rimbaud refused to write poetry or talk about literary subjects after ending his relationship with Verlaine, and he essentially spent the rest of his life doing endeavors that, unfortunately, the documentary made seem unbelievably tedious and boring. (Ana reports that my head kept bobbing from falling asleep at this point, so she asked me if she should let me sleep or try to keep me awake so I wouldn't miss the documentary, to which I apparently replied that I should be allowed to sleep. I don't remember any of it. :) )

Nolde's paintings had such thick
brush strokes and layers of paint that
they were quite three dimensional.
They were gorgeous.

This weekend has also been full of new adventures. Friday was Museum Day here in Madrid, meaning all museums had free entrance, so I took advantage and went into the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the only one of the three best art museums in Madrid that doesn't give teachers free access. The Thyssen is a rather incredible museum based on the private collections of the Baron Bornemisza and his wife. Because it is a private collection, it spans a large range of art history and art from many cultural traditions. The first rooms were medieval Italian art, and the museum takes you all the way up to extremely modern North American art throughout your visit. My favorite rooms were the ones that had North American landscapes (I had John Denver in my head the whole time, and oh how I pined to be back in, well...the pines (he he) and the peaks of the Rocky Mountains). I also enjoyed the Van Gogh, the Monet (what a master of impressionism!), the Gauguin, and a new artist I had never heard of before named Emile Nolde, a German expressionist. All in all, it was a great visit to another astounding museum.

The seniors cheer on their fellow classmates as they perform

On Friday evening was graduation for "seniors" at my school. Though I don't teach any of the students of that age, they invited me to their graduation ceremony and to the dinner afterwards, and I happily accepted. The graduation ceremony was both comical and poignant during alternating moments. The school choir sang a few songs, including "Hallelujah," a song that had caused an author controversy conversation when Mom and Dad were here in Barcelona but which we finally resolved by searching on Wikipedia and seeing that it was originally written by Leonard Cohen but that it was later covered by many singers, including John Cale, the version you can listen to here. After the graduation ceremony, we all ate a delicious dinner including many typical courses of a Spanish meal, such as "croquetas," as well as risotto and "cochinillo," which is an infant, tender pig (can you tell I still feel former vegetarian guilt for eating such a young and intelligent animal?). It was a great night, and it was wonderful to see all of these students about to depart on the next steps of their lives' journeys.

I was also invited by Ruth and Eugenio, the married couple to whom I teach a private class (in addition to teaching a class to their daughter, Adriana) to see a play called La loba (The Female Wolf) about an avaricious white woman of the Reconstructionist South in the USA whose cupidity and lust for wealth leads her to betray and disregard all of those around her, including her husband and her own daughters, people that she treats with frigidity unless they can be used as pawns for her devious ends. When the tragic but wonderful play ended, Eugenio, Ruth, and I went out for Mexican food and had a nice talk before walking back in the balmy nocturnal weather to our respective neighborhoods in Madrid.

Though you can't really make out the particulars
of his visage or form, here's the best photo
of Colin I got all day.

The highlight of my weekend, however, was yesterday, a day I spent with my friend Colin in Salamanca. Let me give you a brief background on both Colin and Salamanca. Colin and I met in Valladolid during the mid-year Fulbright conference since we randomly sat next to each other on the bus that commuted us from our hotel to the university where our sessions were held. On that bus ride, Colin told me about the novel he wrote during NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month) and about the Parisian marathon he was training for in April, and I instantly knew he was a person worth knowing. We've kept in touch since then, and he has known for awhile that he was terminating his Fulbright contract early to go back to the States and do Teach For America in Chicago. Knowing I wanted to see Salamanca and aware that he only had a couple of weeks left in Spain, I invited him to come along with me, and he accepted, much to my delight. Salamanca is a city that I have long wanted to see because it is renowned not only for being elegant but also for being the home of the oldest university in Spain, la Universidad de Salamanca, founded in 1218, and also where Miguel de Unamuno taught, one of my favorite Spanish authors. Suffice it to say that I went to Salamanca with high expectations.

Most buildings in the historic center of the city had
intricate spire roofs that were truly awe-inspiring

Fortunately for me, all of my desires were met and exceeded. To prepare for Salamanca, I had purchased and begun to read Unamuno's Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, his best-known philosophical work in which he struggles to reconcile the rational, scientific view of things that says that all we humans are is another animal on a planet of atoms and compounds with his heart's longing to have an immortal soul and a transcendental purpose and meaning in life. It's been a powerful work so far, and I've only read a portion of it. Unamuno is one of the most important authors I have ever read because of his novella San Manuel Bueno, mártir, a brief but puissant story of a Catholic priest who actively foments faith in his flock of congregants but who nevertheless is utterly bereft of belief in an afterlife himself. I recommend it to any who are interested since it so profoundly affected me my senior year of high school. Anyway, walking around this most beautiful of cities with Colin was incredible. To give you an idea of the astounding architecture of Salamanca, look at the following photos.

Colin and I are both walkers, so we just trekked all around the city and were pretty impressed by all that we saw. Many buildings had really nice enclosed courtyards and cloisters that reminded me a little bit of Westminster Abbey (not necessarily because the styles are all that similar but just because it was the closest thing in my frame of reference).

While taking this photo, a Spanish gentleman of about
fifty years asked us to take a photo of him and his family.
Upon recognizing us as foreigners, he asked if we needed
any help or suggestions, so we asked him questions
about what museums were open, where he recommended
we eat, and the like. He was one of the nicest strangers
I have ever met and is a testament to the goodness of
the Spanish people.

Colin and I had a delicious lunch right outside of the Plaza Mayor, a beautiful structure designed by the Churriguera brothers during the peak of Spanish Baroque architecture. Though my loyalty will likely always lie with Madrid, this town plaza might rival Madrid's Plaza Mayor for most beautiful.

Shockingly intricate facades often recounted
biblical stories and accounts of martyrdom,
and they stupefied Colin and me and made
us wonder about the hours of manual
labor necessary to design them.

Perhaps most stunning of the entire city, however, was the Catedral Vieja and Catedral Nueva, (the New and Old Cathedrals), both essentially occupying the same space. (Colin and I were never fully able to tell why the same building bore two different names, though one part of it was definitely built after the other.) The facades on the cathedral were some of the most intricate that I have ever seen (like the one above), and the whole thing had a majestic, lofty, yet slightly stern air about it that felt very Spanish indeed.

As with all of my trips this year, the quality of the company and conversation was once again one of the main delights of my travels. Colin is a thrilling conversationalist, and he and I talked about everything from injuries sustained while running to social justice in the American education system to whether or not humans have free will. Colin is an avid reader and just a warm-hearted, bright guy, and it was a pleasure to share this journey with him and solidify our budding friendship.

Iglesia de San Esteban, another example of Salamanca's
grandiose architecture that almost looks too perfect to be real

All in all, it's been a great couple of weeks. I only have a few more to go, and I will continue to update with the last of my adventures during this brief epoch of mine spent in Spain.