Clouds

Today I woke up around 9 again and ate my cafe con leche and croissant. I had plans to go to the park this morning and read. I just started Into the Wild and am really into it, so I wanted to find sometime to read. However, it was cloudy and kind of cold this morning, so I scrapped the park and just went to El Prado, the art museum, first (hoping that the sun might come out later).
El Prado was nice. I spent a long time there because there were so many rooms, but I found it a little repetitive. Many of the paintings were religious and every woman's face looked the same. I swear that a man form the 1500's to the 1800's did not look a woman in the face. One person painted one one time and it was copied for all eternity since.
I really enjoyed de Goya though. His paintings had expression, passion. It was different than the rest. The faces and the dark images. It wasn't conventionally beautiful, but it was powerful. They also had a special presentation of the butterfly bull or something of that sort. It was a series of de Goya's sketches with a flying and bull theme. The sketches were so cool. you could see the strokes of the pen/pencil.
I can see why people like to see art. It is nice and it is staggering to try and image painting them. I would realy like to know the amount of paint that goes into each. It is nice to be able to say I saw it, but it will not be my favorite memory of Madrid.
I did enjoy watching a man who was recreating one of the pieces. There are a lot of artists there with paint and canvas working on copies of paintings. IT was relazing to just sit and watch as the canvas transformed.
After the museum I was hungry so I started to walk back home to find lunch. I found a organic/vegetarian place and was in need of a vegetable very badly. They don't eat them here. So I piled the take out container with all this stuff, half of which I don't know what it was. I walked back to the hostel and sat in the patio. It was amazingly good! When I finished I read some of my book, then went upstairs to read in bed, but there was someone taking a nap so I went back to the patio. I met a guy (he's married, so we don't have to go through the "was he cute?") there who was from Chicago. We talked for a while. He is going to Egypt to learn Arabic for five months. I was going to take him to the place I went the other night for paella, however we got very lost. We walked past a place advertising paella for 6 euros so we went inside. It was a pleasant dinner and good paella.
Now I'm back in our hostel bar. There will be a band starting soon and I have a large glass of sangria so it should be a good night.
Tomorrow I meet up with Valerie from the plane. It should be a nice day.

Jenn