I haven´t even been here a week and I´m already sick. I´m pretty sure the only time I got sick last year was in January too. I saw in the paper today that "el gripe" is going around. Whatever it is, I just feel like crap. My throat hurts, my nose is running and I´m so tired. And I can´t even sleep in tomorrow morning because we´re leaving for Segovia at 8:30 a.m. I thought about maybe not going, but I´ve already paid and I don´t know if they´ll give me my money back. So, I´m staying in and resting as much as possible tonight so that tomorrow I can hopefully feel somewhat decent.
Anyways, the Prado visit was nice. We split up into three different groups based on Spanish ability, and as this one Brazilian guy aptly pointed out, of my group of about 10 students, there were only two Americans. I thought it was funny that even the fluent Spanish speaking Americans chose to go on the intermediate guide, while some of the beginner-level international students were in my advanced guide.
Our tour guide, Marina, is the university´s resident art expert, and she also teaches the culture portion of my class. She´s so animated and speaks soooo fast, but I love her anyways. I think I´m going to be taking a class on art in the Prado Museum with her during the semester. She showed us works by Reubens, El Greco, Goya, and Velasquez. Although I´ve visited art museums like the Louvre, the Orangerie and the Art Institute of Chicago, I wouldn´t necessarily say I got very much out of the visits besides being able to say I´ve been there. But today, I realized that if you have someone who knows what they´re talking about take you through and explain the works, art really can be interesting.
After the tour, which was about an hour, we were allowed to leave and grab food and re-enter on the same ticket if we wanted. I joined two girls from my group, a Korean girl and a German girl for lunch at Burger King (their choice, not mine. I don´t know what it is, but it seems that all non-Americans want to eat is American fast food. When we went to McDonald´s on Tuesday, Anastasia told me that her parents don´t let her eat McDonald´s and it´s not as popular in Russia).
After eating we went back to the museum, but the more we walked the worse I felt. I could feel this cold coming on yesterday afternoon, and the fact that it is pouring rain today doesn´t help. After a little while, we left and I headed home. I made a cup of tea, that unfortunately didn´t taste like Mom´s chai, and watched the movie Chocolat. And now, all I want to do is go to sleep. I forgot that I haven´t told you about the Madrid tour or the opera, but that will just have to wait.
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