A day in the city-- La Casa Encendida

A mí me gustan mucho los museos. Tengo que decir que sí entiendo el punto de vista de las personas que piensan que los museos son aburridos, porque, de verdad, a veces lo son. Pero en mi experiencia, los museos también pueden ser espacios muy buenas para aprender y disfrutar.

Por supuesto, hay un montón de museos famosos en Madrid. Todos los turistas van al Prado, al Reina Sofía y al Thyssen, y los turistas tiene razón. Estos tres museos tan famosos son impresionante y tienen muchas de las obras de arte mas importantes del mundo. Pero también hay museos mas pequeñitos que tienen obras interesantes. A mí me gustan mucho los museos así. Es decir, a mí me gusta un museo en el que yo puedo pasar tiempo tranquilamente con las obras, un café, o un libro.

Pienso que mi museo favorito ahora en Madrid es La Casa Encendida. La Casa Encendida está cerca del barrio de Lavapiés, en la Ronda de Valencia, número dos. La Casa Encendida es mitad museo y mitad centro cultural. En las primeras plantas hay espacios para exposiciones y un teatro para obras de cine, después hay aulas con ordenadores que el público puede usar y espacios donde hay clases para grupos escolares, y además hay una terraza con un jardín pequeño encima del edificio.

Yo fui a La Casa Encendida hace unos semanas, y me gustó mucho. Me gustó mucho el concepto de las exposiciones temporales. Hasta enero en las salas de exposición hay un exhibición sobre el arte de Rusia soviética. Se puede ver mucho de la propaganda política/económica de los comunistas, y también varias obras de artistas famosos de este época. Por ejemplo, tiene unas obras de Kandinsky, un artista ruso que me gusta mucho. Kandinsky es un pintador que pinta obras de arte moderno con colores brillantes en un estilo alegre, con mucho movimiento. Personalmente, el arte de Kandinsky me hace feliz.

Después de pasar por la exposición, yo fui a la terraza en la azotea de La Casa Encendida. Era un día muy soleado, entonces podía pasar más o menos una hora leyendo al sol. De verdad, fue perfecto para una tarde del fin de semana. Este terraza es un lugar muy tranquilo, que yo recomiendo para leer, escribir, o pensar. También hay una sala para exposiciones en la terraza que ahora tiene una exposición sobre la inmigración. En una esquina había un tablero en que muchísimas personas han escrito su ciudad de origen. Como puedes imaginar, muchísimos diferentes lugares del mundo están escrito allí. Fue muy interesante.

La Casa Encendida también tiene un café que vende varias meriendas, y una tienda que vende comida y ropa de marca Comercio Justo. Entonces, si quieres sentarte con un café, ¡no tienes que salir del edificio! A mí me gustan mucho los museos que son así ‘agradables’… porque si puedes pasar varias tardes en las exposiciones, en la terraza y en el café, vas a aprender mucho y conocer a gente muy interesante.

*pending a few edits, I know...

In the Mountains

There’s something refreshing, even quite literally, about facing raw, stormy nature. With an understanding, at some level, that we are no match for her, we human beings live protected. We don’t go outside if it’s snowing or raining too much, and, in our cities, buildings protect from the wild wind.

But just a few days ago I found myself, much to my excitement, in pure stormy nature with my Environmental Science class. In the mountains just north of Madrid, we made our way through the various ecosystems, feeling fall turn to winter as we gained elevation. All in the name of science.

A group of the bravest students and I took it upon ourselves to hike up the mountain, even though the wind was swirling fog around us, driving icy rain right at our faces, and, sometimes, threatening to blow us right off the path. We were just 30 kilometers north, and yet what we were experiencing could hardly be any more different from the Madrid city center. By the time we returned to the bus, we were soaking wet, cold, tired, and exhilarated. We napped on the way back to campus… some days Science can be particularly demanding.

But it was refreshing to be there. It was refreshing to see what we are learning in its real-world context. It was refreshing to see my professors eyes light up as he talked about the wolves who, though we didn’t see any, do live in those mountains. And it was refreshing to feel the rain on my skin, as it brought me face to face with wild, stormy nature.

And So The World Goes 'Round

Friendship, like most things, is a relative concept once you cross cultural boundaries. Not to say that friendship isn’t valued throughout the world, but rather to notice that it is expressed differently in different places.

In Spain, it’s not uncommon to live your life in the city in which you were born. The Spanish grow up in a place, surrounded by family; they go to college in the same place (provided it’s a big enough town), they may go abroad, but they’ll probably end up back in Spain, close to family and friends. Because really, why would anyone want to leave? The societal and familial benefits of this aside, it also has an interesting effect on friendship. It’s not uncommon for a Spanish woman in her thirties to have friends she’s known since high school.

In the United States, by contrast, these ties don’t seem to exist at the same magnitude. Americans travel back and forth across the country, leaving family and childhood friends behind, usually at the behest of their careers. It’s hard to keep friendships up with this jet-setting mentality, and so over the years many seem to fall, peaceably, by the wayside.

That’s why I was so happy the other day, to find myself on Skype with one of my best friends, an amazing young woman I’ve known since pre-school. We shared the events of our lives as she sat sipping her morning tea in Carmel Valley, California, and I listened to car horns fill the darkness outside my bedroom window in Madrid, Spain. We’re far apart, and I miss the days that I could meet her, real time and in person, for a cup of coffee. But still I’m not about to let all those years fall by the wayside, because no one knows me better.

And after our conversation, as I stepped out into the city, off to my Thursday night, I felt unbelievably lucky, and even a little Spanish.

Lost in Translation

Some things just don´t translate. If you´ve ever taken a Spanish class, then you probably know that "embarazado" does not, in fact, mean "embarrassed", rather it means "pregnant". This is one of those stereotypical cognate mistakes that you don´t want to make- the one that your Spanish 101 teacher will insist on warning you about quite a few more times than is really necessary. But it´s not only language that gets lost in translation, culture too can be misinterpreted, for better or for worse.

In the U.S., Halloween is that one night of the year where every young woman competes to see just how little clothing she can wear without being completely naked. American men, presumably, just enjoy the show. The Spanish, by way of contrast, have chosen to really embrace the scary aspect of Halloween. It´s not a typical Spanish holiday, so those dressed up were relatively few, but when they did dress up, they truly committed to the experience: full zombie, mummy, monster outfits, etc. In other words, not the least bit sexy. To the American eye this was sort of adorable... like a whole nation of trick-or-treaters before puberty set in and, with it, the desire to start taking off one´s clothes.

So maybe the Spanish just didn´t get the memo, or maybe they´re trying to revive that apparently forgotten aspect of fear. Either way, I fully support the Spanish in their Halloween endeavors. Because personally I think cultural translations, or mistranslations, make the world a more colorful, and more endearing, place.