Yikes, I Really Shouldn’t Have Talked to the Old Man. ☹

Location: Madrid, Spain

Tuesday June 1, 2010

The building that IES uses in La Universidad Complutense has an outdoor swimming pool, which I fully plan to take advantage of between classes during our lunch/siesta time as many days as possible, especially when it gets into the 30s ºC (or 80-90 ªF) here. It felt so good swimming and messing around outside. Total throwback to days at the Bolt Manor, yo. I hurried through lunch to get to my Art in the Prado class on time, which didn’t happen, because I headed in the wrong direction after I got out of the metro. Hey, European roundabouts are confusing, okay? On my way to class, I bought my abono transportation pass for June at the metro. I’m so psyched to go everywhere in Madrid and have my metro and bus rides covered. Yay for unlimited exploring!!!

Looking at art in the Prado for class is great fun. I was so floored to see Roger van der Weyden’s The Descent from the Cross (1435) for the first time in real life. It was the only religious painting that stopped me in my tracks in Nemerov’s class. Don’t get me wrong. Religious works can be very astounding and technically admirable. But there really are just so many times I can see The Annunciation and not be bored. Something about Weyden’s altarpiece gave me chills. I love how he shows grief in his character without overdramatizing it.

It’s too bad my Spanish art history professor doesn’t allow us to consider nor discuss such things. Instead, he takes a way too literal approach at analyzing art, believing that there’s some kind of formula with breaking a painting or sculpture down: size, composition, setting, face, figures, details, and for whom it was painted. So as we go to each painting, he allows us five minutes (only!) to look at it on our own, gives us a spiel about the painter and painting, then makes each student comment about the painting using his formula by going around the circle. It’s way too structured for my taste. What if I don’t want to comment about Maria’s figure, but instead want to comment about possible ulterior intentions of painter. But no, apparently that is too abstract for my professor. Whenever someone says something slightly off-topic (but interesting, mind you), my professor dismisses it and says that’s we’ll return to that later. But we never do. I honestly enjoy looking at art with Isabella after class better, because we actually have discussions (which we did to check out Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights [ca. 1510-15 even though it seems like he must’ve painted them during the 21^st century!]. Talk about freakin’ amazing!!! I could spend hours looking at the triptych and other Bosch’s works in the room. Sooo many details.) Aw, I miss regular, free art sections at the Yale Art Gallery. But of course, looking at the world-famous paintings at El Prado makes up for it.

I hung out in the park area in front of the Prado as I waited for Isabella to go back to her homestay to organize her weekend plans. I ate my merienda (aka an afternoon snack) while people-watching, when an old man sat down in the bench next to me. Regretting how we ignored the nice old man in Mataró, I started talking to this one. He was very friendly and was great to practice my Spanish with, although his Madrid accent was pretty strong. He came to sit down at my bench. His was Roman, a 79-year-old and retiree. He lived with his wife just a little train ride outside of Madrid, but he goes into he city regularly to relax, people-watch, and talk to “beautiful, intelligent girls like you.” I felt awkward about this, like, when you don’t know what to say in reply, so you only laugh nervously, but I thought it was just a grandpa-like thing to say, since he didn’t have any kids, because his wife got a hysterectomy when she was younger. He told me all about his family and the ages of his nieces and nephews. This whole time, he was patting my thigh all grandpa-like. I thought about moving away, but remembered all the IES administrators and professors telling us about how Spaniards have a different concept of personal space, as in there isn’t any. So I didn’t want to be unfriendly by scooching away. We talked about places to visit in Madrid other than the Prado Museum and the Reina Sofia. He offered to take me to the Thyssen Museum the next day after lunch, but I politely declined. He said he had to go catch the train to have dinner with his wife. As he was leaving, he gave me a kiss on both cheeks, which I was dreading, because old-man spittle had worked into the corners of his mouth during our forty-five minute conversation. And then he kissed me on the mouth. And stayed. I immediately pushed him away, completely disgusted. What the fuck? I totally understand the kisses on the cheeks, but on the mouth? Okay, maybe his generation kissed on the mouth too, but staying there? What the fuckity-fuck-fuck? All I could think of was that disgusting spittle. Shudders. Roman kept talking like nothing had happened. Man, was I glad when he went to the train station. I seriously wanted to puke up my merienda. From now on, I am no longer talking to old men again just to be nice/practice my Spanish.

Me and my faux-hipster James Dean notebook

But no worries, hanging out with Isabella at El Retiro until it got dark (aka the time when the crazies/flashers/homeless people come out) made me feel better. I love Retiro, Madrid’s Central Park, covering 1.18 km² or 0.5 mi², because there are so many people jogging, walking their dogs, eating at cafes, and chilling. Admittedly, it’s smaller than Central Park (about a third the size), but it’s located in a much more accessible part of the city. I’ve also fallen into friendship love with Isabella. We share the same humor and sentiments, and no, I am not saying this because I gave her the link to this blog so she might read this very paragraph, :P. I’m sad we went through half of our Yale careers without knowing each other, even though we had mutual friends the whole time. At least we’ll have the second half together!