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Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ko04bv5i2ljdozj/AADakO7KdeZYYyFv8GXoQP6Ea?dl=0

Today is the museum, and the soccer (football) match. I'm looking forward to both.

Last night I taught a couple people the card game "Oh Hell", and it was good. I hope to teach more today, it's a good game.

I had a dream last night that I worked for a movie company, and I wanted to hire more people for a movie I was doing (because the people I had couldn't to their jobs, and for some reason I couldn't fire them) so I went to the two people in charge, a man and a woman. They were vague and just said no, that there wasn't any money. They took some glasses and balanced them on their finger, and said one side was the money they had and one side was the money we've spent and look, they're equal. I asked for a numerical value of our budget and they still wouldn't admit they didn't know. So I went to accounting. I had a piece of paper with the details of a movie that was filmed years ago, staring Mira Kuroyedov and written by her dad. The paper was typewritten. The lady at the accounting counter said that this other guy could help me, that it was his first day, but that he could probably do it. He couldn't help, only comment on the movie itself, and I ended up really frustrated. Then I woke up. I never learned what the budget was.

The Prado art museum, 1500 paintings. Can't see all of them in 2 hours, just the most important ones. El Greco, from 1400ish, very religious paintings (because of the social context of the time- they had to be for him to be successful). Velasquez from 1600, painting the royal family and the court. Goya from 1790-1810, painting about Napoleon invading Spain, dark paintings post-invasion. I can't take pictures in here, but I'll take note of anything from the audio guide that is really interesting or particularly cool.

Looks like I can't use my phone in there. So I'll try to remember things.

Wow. That was an incredible two hours.  I feel inundated by art and facts and stories. It's amazing how many of the paintings are depictions of classical stories of fables. The most gruesome story depicted was one about a husband and wife and son; the husband raped the wife's sister and cut out her tongue, so in  revenge the wife killed their son and served him to the husband as a feast. The painting is the moment when the wife shows the husband the dead child's head, revealing what the husband has just eaten. On the other end of the spectrum, there are paintings depicting happy royal families and smiling children riding horses and future princes. There are the two paintings by Goya of the clothed and naked Maha. All I could think of was the Jacky Faber books; in them Jacky is the Maha depicted in the paintings. In reality we don't know who the girl was, but in the fictional world of Jacky Faber it was the sailor, soldier, lady, thief, pirate, artist, musician, dancer, gambler Jacky herself.there was the famous Las Meninas, which was really impressive. It's from the perspective of the royal couple being painted, looking at their five year old daughter and her "Meninas", her ladies-in-waiting. There's a dog and some jesters and the painter Velasquez himself painting the couple.

I think my favourite painting was the annunciation by el Greco. I loved the colours and the detail, but it wasn't super detailed like some other ones. I also just really like the look of the angel wings, and bright green robes and bold colours. A lot of the paintings in the Prado are so good, but with really dark colours. But El Greco used bright colours a lot more, and I like that. There were also angels in the clouds playing instruments, and I liked the detail in that as well. The angel Gabriel was the one coming down to Mary, and of course I thought of Supernatural again. This painting really captured the spirit of Gabriel as depicted by the tv show, I think. So I really liked the painting for lots of reasons, but none of them were because I'm actually religious… Just a fan of bright colours and of a TV show that uses Christian beliefs in its plot. But it's also just a really good painting.

There was another painting there that I really liked the composition of, I forget who it was by but it was of the story of the girl who would race her potential suitors, marry the winner and kill any losers. The guy tricked her by throwing down some golden apples, so she stopped to pick them up. And he won. But the painting is really nicely framed, with him on the right with his hand in a stop gesture, and her vending down to collect the apples. The lighting is beautiful.

Every painting and sculpture in there is something I could admire for hours. The horses are so realistic, as are the dogs. The fur and hair is detailed in every painting. The sculptures are amazing in-person, the folds of fabric and the faces and the hands and toes and sandals look absolutely real. There are lots of sculptures that were made in antiquity and then redone and restored in the 18th century.

The audio guide was helpful at times, but most paintings didn't have an audio accompaniment. I wonder how much of the paintings were done by the masters who got their names on the painting and how much we're done by the students. I know in some cases it actually said on the display card that most of the painting, including details on clothes and backgrounds, were done by anonymous students. But some were done entirely by the professional.

After lunch and down time back at the hostel, we are off again. Shopping and the Real Madrid football match.

The diversity of people on the street here is incredible.

Now we're on the metro after shopping fir an hour. Nice prices at the store.

Back at the hostel after the game. I'm so tired. Everything hurts and I have a headache. But the game was so much fun!! One cool thing: there is a part of the stands reserved for the official Real Madrid fan club, and throughout the entire game they were clapping, chanting, singing, and drumming. At one point you could hear them clap on time with the drumbeat, but the drumbeat-and-clap sound was not lined up with the sight of them clapping. It was a whole half second off. I'm sure there's some physics you could do to calculate how far away they were from us in the stands. It was a really good demonstration of how light travels noticeably faster than sound, and also how huge the stadium was. When everyone cheered (four times for the four Real Madrid goals- Sevilla got zero), the sound was so loud. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of the game. A lot of people were smoking though, so that wan't so fun. We also had to sit alone, because Henderson couldn't find two seats available next to each other. But of course, for the entire game Eryn and I both had empty seats next to us. But we didn't know and there were so many people that it would have been impossible to find each other at halftime, for example.

At halftime (when the neat sprinklers popped up out of the ground) I ate my strawberries (everyone else got pizza for dinner, I got strawberries) and a lot of people were trying not to stare. There were lots of people eating sandwiches, though. I guess fresh fruit is not expected at a football (soccer) match.

After halftime people got more into it. There was lots of yelling if someone missed something, and lots of yelling at the referee. The cheers when Madrid got a goal were incredible. Someone had confetti. One final thing I noticed: the players were totally not afraid to go all out. People fell a lot; on their heads, on other people, on three other people, with somersaults and bellyflops. I think it was definitely worth going, in order to experience such a cultural phenomenon. And I had fun.

The showers at the hostel are incredible. Drench showers right straight down from the ceiling. Now I have to pack for tomorrow; we're headed to Granada via bus tomorrow morning early.