Nieve?

It's true, for the first time in about 4 years, it snowed in Alcala de Henares. My host family seems to think we brought it with us from Utah. What's funny is that if you turn on the news here in Spain, the only thing they talk about is the snow. They show people sledding and waiting for buses and just talk about how cold it is.

Yesterday we went as a group to la plaza mayor. It's supposed to be a pleasant place to hang out, but not so much in the snow.


Something humorous: so I guess that High School Musical was a big hit not just in the United States. I just may have to get tickets to this performance of the first movie on stage and in Spanish. Take note of the similarities between the Spanish characters and the American. Sharpay seems to be Ashley Tisdale's twin, and Ryan...the blonde looks oh so natural.

After some time in Madrid, we headed back to Alcala. This is la plaza de Cervantes:

And here's a close up on those awesome trees:

Today I went to el Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, which is an art museum in Madrid. It was packed full of wonderful and famous works of art, at the height of which is Picasso's Guernica:

I was slightly concerned before I saw it that it would be a disappointment in real life. I found it to be quite the contrary though. It was HUGE! If I stood next to it, my head would probably hit a little over halfway up. Though it's in black and white, the different grays stand out much better in person. The museum also had many other works by Picasso including Mujer en Azul. There were also paintings by Salvador Dali, Diego Rivera, Alexander Calder, Francis Bacon, and many many others.

The building itself was really cool. It was a rectangle with a courtyard in the middle, but the coolest part of the building were the two glass elevators on the front. Thi picture is taken from within one elevator of the other one:

Basically, it's an all around awesome museum with an outstanding permanent collection.