Category Archives: Madrid

29th July 2025: Birds with great PR (Madrid, Spain)

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The National Museum of Natural Science Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid announced that they were having an exhibit called Dinosaurios entre Nosotros / Dinosaurs among us, a collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History (though the original exhibition was apparently called Dinosaurs among us: The ancestry of birds, which feels slightly more accurate).

When I was young, it was believed that dinosaurs came from birds. With the new definition of what a dinosaur is, it turns out that birds are dinosaurs. The key features used to define a dinosaur is that the animal belongs to the clade (natural group) archosauria, and it has hind limbs which are erect underneath the body – as opposed to growing sideways and bent. Currently, two groups of archosauria exist: crocodilians (with bent legs) and birds (with straight legs). I think if you ever look into an emu or a cassowary’s eyes, you’ll understand what a deinonychus’ (the real species of the Jurassic Park velociraptor) prey might have seen.

Dinosaurs among us sign, showing a feathered T-rex

The characteristic that originally defined archosauria was the hinge-like ankle structure. As time went on, protofeathers developed and some animals adopted a straight-legged stance, which is the start of the real dinosaurs – first the ornithischians (triceratops), then the sauropods (patagotitan or diplodocus), and the theropods (tyrannosaurus), the first with a wish bone. Then the forelimb became wing-like (deinonychus), yielding to the Avialae clade, which developed flapping flight. Some scientists declare that all Avialae are already birds. Others claim that birds are the subgroup Aves.

I took the train to Madrid and walked to the museum Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. It took a second to be admitted because their computer system was down, but I was carrying cash, so I could was able to purchase my ticket (I had not bought it in advance because entry is timed, and I did not trust public transport delays). It was around 10:30, still early enough so that the museum was not crowded even during the school holidays. I headed directly to the exhibition, which, mostly through panels, taxidermy, and mounted birds, summarised how dinosaurs behaved similarly to today’s birds – laying eggs, brooding those eggs, protecting the nests… The biology and anatomy of birds and dinosaurs, especially theropods, are very similar.

Fossil of Caudipteryx zoui (replica) and skeletons of a cassowary and an ostrich. They all share uncanny similarities, except the fossil is about one metre long and the current birds are larger

There was a very special exhibit – and no, it was not the Tyrannosaurus rex skull they’ve got. It was the original (and only) fossil of Iberomesornis romerali, a holotype from the MUPA, which you cannot photograph at its home, but you can here (just like my photography spree with the Concavenator at MARPA). Iberomesornis was the sparrow of the Early Cretaceous. There was a reconstruction of how it would look in real life (though I’ve read some texts that say it’s an outdated view?).

Iberomesornis romerali fossil and recreation. It was a crossing between a sparrow and a crocodile.

Similarly, there was a model of Archaeopteryx, the first ever-discovered feathered bird-like dinosaur. With only 13 specimens ever found, it was key in palaeontological studies before more avialans were discovered. This one was a replica, I’ve only seen one real slab ever in the London Museum of Natural History (I hope I can see the Berlin one at some point). The model was so ugly, the poor thing, but somewhat endearing.

Archaeopteryx fossil (replica) and life-sized recreation. It looks like a bald nightmare with a beak and teeth.

There was also a model of Anchiornis Huxleyi, discovered in China and named after Thomas Henry Huxley, the biologist who in 1869 suggested that maybe birds were related to dinosaurs. He did this comparing the hip of a Megalosaurus and an ostrich (for a while, dinosaurs were classified using “bird hip” and “reptile hip” criteria) amongst other similarities, and of course he used Archaeopteryx as evidence. Unfortunately, the poor guy is more often remembered for being a Darwin fanboy – he was even nicknamed “Darwin’s bulldog”. Palaeontologist Xu Xing described the species in 2009, and chose to call it “Huxley’s almost bird”. It has allowed to rebuild almost completely the colours of dinosaur feathers.

Anchiornis Huxleyi, proof that dinosaurs evolved into birds. Something between a rooster and a lizard

The rest of the exhibition was most… modern birds, sprinkled with children’s disappointed “Where are the dinosaurs?” wonderings. Truth be told, at the end of the exhibit there was a life-sized reconstruction of Velociraptor mongoliensis, the “real” one, not the presented in Jurassic Park, along with the explanation that Michael Crichton found the name cooler than Deinonychus, which is the animal he described in his book.

Taxidermy bird collection

Reconstruction of a Velociraptor mongoliensis, with a crocodilian face, long arms with proto-feathers and powerful claws.

So in the end, the exhibit was a lot of information about birds, hyped up with the buzzword “dinosaur”. Interesting enough but… not really what it was pumped to be. That’s what good PR does, I guess. And erasing half of the exhibition’s original title…

Back to Darwin though, the museum has a bit on him in its gallery of biodiversity – which is just a way to… continue exhibiting the old taxidermy specimens that they already had, some of them… made with more success than others – while some of the works they’ve got are extremely realistic, some others are… horror shows – such as the famous giant panda that the Zoo Aquarium first hosted.

One of the most interesting parts of this museum is the science cabinet Gabinete Científico, which recreates Carlos III’s scientific collection. It shows a glimpse of how science was understood at the time (though the human skeletons it used to host have been quietly removed).

Natural Science Museum Madrid - Diversity collection: elephant, giant squid, manatee skeleton, 19th century cabinet

Recently, the museum became the custodian of Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s legacy, including his Nobel Prize certificate and medals. Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish doctor considered the father of modern neuroscience. In 1888, he discovered how nervous cells work, even before they were called neurons, and that they were separate entities that created the nerves and the brain, explaining how impulses are transmitted through the nervous system. He described characteristics that could only be observed in real life almost a century after he wrote abut them. In 1906, amongst many other awards, he received the Medicine Nobel Prize alongside Camillo Golgi, who designed the methodology to colour cells, a process that allowed many of Ramón y Cajal’s discoveries. The museum exhibits microscopes, drawings, and his original office and library. For some reason, next to the ocean display and the giant squid.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal legacy: reconstruction of his office and Nobel Prize

This was all in the first ward of the museum. The second one is on the other side of the building that it shares with the Industrial Engineering School. To get there, you have to follow the dinosaur footprints, but I took a couple of detours. First, I got a bit distracted trying to figure out the “Mediterranean Forest” garden, but honestly it was too hot to stay there for long. Maybe some other time with better weather.

My other stop was at the Engineering School, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales (UPM). I had recently discovered that its main hall hosts an 1832 steam engine, built by the company David Napier & Son Limited. The machine was designed to power coin minting, and it was one of the first machines to arrive in Spain, purchased by the Royal Mint. It is not clear in the description if it was designed by James Watt, or just similar to his models, but it seemed a piece of history worth seeing – and the janitor was distracted while I snooped around. The engine was donated to the Engineering School in 1914, when the Mint replaced it.

Watts Machine

I reached the second building of the science museum Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, which is the palaeontology, geology and anthropology ward. Nothing had changed there that much since my last visit. Here’s a funny story though – they have a replica of a Diplodocus carnegii, of Dippy, exactly the same one that the London Museum of Natural history has – albeit on tour. Why am I so obsessed with the London one, having another replica so close? I think it’s because the “care” the NHM gave it, while in Spain it has just been set against a wall, mixed with all the other dinosaurs from whichever age. It actually took me a while to realise they were the same cast…

The original Dippy fossil was unearthed in 1898, and soon Andrew Carnegie bought it for his new museum in Pittsburgh, hence the name of the species. In 1902, King Edward VII convinced Carnegie to donate the original cast to the NHM while the skeleton was still unmounted (there was no museum to house it yet). In later year, Carnegie would donate a few more casts to other museums in the world, including Madrid, Paris and Vienna.

This time around (call it selective perception, or plain looking out for them) I spotted the trilobites from the Murero palaeontological site, one of whose characteristics are how deformed they are, due to the earth’s internal forces and movement. The museum has a large mineral collection too, but I think it lacks something. Maybe it’s me mentally comparing to other natural history museums in Europe, or even other incredible museums in Madrid itself, such as the Geomineralogical museum nearby. It is missing… loving, in a way. I think the Natural History Museum is a bit of an ugly duckling in the cultural system, because even if it’s considered a “national museum”, it is not part of the national network, so there is something weird going on there.

Natural Science museum Madrid - diplodocus, deformed trilobite from Murero, allosaurus, geode

As I left the museum, it was incredibly hot. It was early for Spanish lunch, but some places had already started opening. I had been looking at an “Asian Market” called Oiko, but then I read that you have to order through a machine (okay) and input your phone number so they call you on WhatsApp when your order is ready, and I get too many spam calls already. I was not planning on giving out my phone number to anyone who does not need it. Even if they had taiyaki desserts.

Instead, I found a burger joint called Steakburger, which self-describes as a gourmet burger restaurant, trying to become a franchise. I later realised that they are not 100% upfront with their prices, as the online menu lists one price, but the details shows another – and the desserts don’t even come with prices. It might also be a coding issue, since once you’ve checked the details, the correct price shows everywhere. Also, the machine translation is awful. Anyway, I had seen that they carried a burger with matured Angus and a topping of raclette – red cheddar, Gouda and mozzarella which were poured onto the burger, alongside Batavia lettuce and tomato, La melting cheese madurada. Honestly? It was good but not worth the price. The desserts looked decadent, but the burger was enough for me.

Hamburger being bathed over with melted cheese.

Afterwards, I just headed off to the station to take a train back, and for once I was there when a train was about to arrive. It was just too hot to look for something else to do, and during August a lot of things close at 15:00.

5th July 2025: Cheese, archaeology, pancakes (Madrid, Spain)

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I am not completely sure how the conversation came up. My sibling said something about cheese tastings. I mentioned something about knowing about a shop in Madrid which organised them. Next thing I knew, I had been tasked with planning an escapade to try. However, closing on dates is not something my family is fast at doing, so by the time my sibling confirmed, the June date we wanted was sold out and I had to book for July.

The final date was Saturday the 5th of July at 13:00. The evening before, there was an explosion and fire in a factory in an area alongside both the speedway and the railway lines, and that forced me to reevaluate transportation – the warehouse worked with lithium batteries, which burn for a very long time. In the end, I decided to try for an early train, with a plan B to drive to a station halfway and meet my sibling there. While you could see the smoke from the wagon, there was no weird smell or anything and the train ran smoothly for once. Maybe we were five minutes late to Madrid? Funny, when I was warned at the station that there were delays. I had planned an extra activity in case we were early.

There was also Pride to take into account, as it was the main Parade, and that causes a cascade of station closures, including Recoletos, the station we had to go to. That would only be an issue to consider when we had to go back though, since they started at 18:00. We could always get the underground and find our way to Atocha.

We started off at the Museum of the National Library Museo de la Biblioteca Nacional. I had seen the museum already, but I had read that there was a temporal exhibit. However, we were unable to find it – it’s been apparently “temporarily closed”. It worked to pass the time out of the heat though. We were done at 12:30 – a bit too early to directly go to the store, but too late to try to see anything else. We decided to walk towards the shop, and we missed it at first, but we soon backtracked and walked into… a literal fridge.

Formaje (an old-fashioned Spanish word for cheese) is a specialised / delicatessen cheese shop. Created in 2020, it aims to “create community around artisan cheese”. They work with farmers, craftspeople, and traditional cheesemakers to distribute environmentally-conscious cheeses from producers who respect the natural processes, the landscape and of course the product. The store is designed to be a warehouse too, so it is… cold. Good thing I was carrying a jacket.

Formaje Castelló: Shop. A cheese shop full of pieces and whole cheeses

We waited in the shop, trying not to obstruct the customers, and gawked at all the types of cheese in display, all of which could be bought, and tasted beforehand! We saw some regulars who had their thermal bags ready for their shopping and debated getting a cheese subscription, and people wandering in out of curiosity. Around 12:55 a lady came to check us in. I was the closest to her, so I was able to take a picture of the whole set up and find a seat closest to the speaker. I have way too many attention issues not to want to be close to someone who is going to do some explaining I care about.

The tasting Cata de Quesos Edición Primavera involved fresh sourdough bread, butter, seven types of cheese, sweet quince paste, red and white wine, and “ice cider”. I am not a fan of alcohol in general, but the ice cider was magnificent. I am not going to gush about how all the cheeses were delicious. Assume I loved them.

Formaje Castelló: Cheese tasting. Long table and a tray full of sourdough bread

To begin with, there was real butter from the farm Airas Moniz in Chantada (Lugo, Spain). Made from the raw milk of Jersey cows grass-fed in the north of Spain, it was fresh, yellow, creamy and salted, and the bread was delicious. The first cheese was Olavidia (from Jaén, Spain), made from goat milk. It had a small layer of smoked wood halfway through. Even if I don’t care much about “the proper order you should eat things in”, I discovered that goat-milk cheese is supposed to be a “soft-tasting” cheese, I have always found it pretty strong. The cheeses were organised from softer to stronger, which apparently is how you should consume them.

The second cheese was a Camembert (protected designation of origin, AOP from its French acronym) from the region of Normandie, France; it was creamy, made from raw cow milk, with a slight moulded rind (with Penicillium camemberti) which protects the inner creaminess.

Then came a Manchego (protected designation of origin, DOP from the Spanish acronym), made with raw sheep milk. It originated in a farm called Finca Valdivieso (Alcázar de San Juan, Ciudad Real). In my opinion this one was the weakest cheese, as I am a fan of older Manchego and this was less than a year old, though still nice.

Number four was a cheese I had not heard about before, Tronchón (from cheesemaker Los Corrales, Almedíjar, Castellón). Tronchón is generally made from raw sheep milk, though sometimes it might be made with goat milk or a mix of both. The one we tried was made from goat milk. The rind is dark and unappealing on sight, but it was nice enough. Despite my ignorance, this cheese is old enough that it was mentioned in Cervantes’ Don Quijote.

Another discovery was the German Blossom Hornkäse. Hornkäse comes from the Bavarian region of Allgäu. The cows that provide the milk are fed with local grass and they don’t have their horns cut (Did you know that a cow’s horns are connected to her throat and they are part of the digestion process?). The cheese is made in wood recipients using only wooden tools. This version comes with a crust of dry flowers which makes it… just amazing.

Sierra Sur was… the icky one. It smelled like literal stable – and not a clean one. It is made with raw goat milk and you have to fight yourself a little bit to take a bite of the rind. It is a seasonal cheese, which I wouldn’t be able to say whether it has gone bad… It did look like it had gone bad… But it was nice enough, if you could ignore the smell. Not something I would buy on my own though.

The last cheese, Savel, came from Chantada – like the butter at the beginning. It is made from raw cow milk, from Jersey cows, injected with Penicillium roqueforti. This was extremely strong, but really good, especially with the bread, and the ice cider called Bizi-Goxo. Though this one brand comes from the north of Spain and is made from Errezile apples, ice cider originally comes from Canada. To produce this particular spirit, the apple is kept through the winter on straw mats, and it does not rot. The resulting drink is stronger and sweeter than a regular cider.

Formaje Castelló: Cheese tasting. Seven small pieces of cheese perfectly aligned on a tray

We spent some time chatting with the lady who had given the explanations, then went on our way. We walked to the archaeological museum Museo Arqueológico Nacional, where they were running two temporal exhibitions. One was a personal-turned-public collection of Egyptian Artifacts called El Egipto de Eduard Toda. Un viaje al coleccionismo del siglo XIX (Eduard Toda’s Egypt: A trip to collecting in the 19th century). Eduard Toda i Güell (1855 – 1941) was the Spanish Vice-Consul in Egypt for a couple of years, during which he amassed a rather impressive collection of artefacts, which he eventually donated to public institutions. The bulk of what he owned is now held in the archaeological museum as part of both the permanent collection and the archives. He had antiques, carbon copies of reliefs, photographies and a hefty number of fakes – apparently, knowing they were so.

Treasures from an Egyptian tomb

The second temporal exhibition we wanted to see was Alas para la guerra. Aratis y la Celtiberia: Wings for war, Aratis (a town, now an archaeological site) and Celtiberia. This one focuses on the Celtiberian culture and how it warred, using soldier helmets as a storyline. These particular helmets have a convoluted history – it turns out that between the early 1980s and 2013, someone used metal detectors to find artefacts from the ancient town and sell them out. This “gang” found and illegally auctioned up to 6,000 artefacts, including twenty helmets which had been forged between the 5th and 2nd century BCE. The archaeological site of Aratis, now called Aranda del Moncayo, would have been probably the most important Celtiberian site after Numancia if these guys had not systematically destroyed it.

The Aratis helmets are the most complete items of their kind that have ever been found. They were not really used for war, but were part of funerary treasures. Truth be told, Germany sounded the alert at some point around 2008 about the legality of the auctions, but the Spanish government did not stop them. Seven of the helmets were returned to Spain in 2018 thanks to the European buyers who learnt that they had been illegally exported, and 11 more have been located. The seven helmets are deposited now in the Museum of Saragossa, but that one is currently closed due to construction work (scattering some of its collections to be shown elsewhere), so they have been lent to the Archaeological Museum.

Celtiberian helmets with decorations on the sides

The exhibition also holds other weapons, parts of armours, and Celtiberian artefacts such as coins and brooches. I had seen some of the messed up spears in the museum in Tiermes, which makes sense, considering it also held Celtiberian items.

Afterwards, I finally (finally!) managed to find the reproduction of the Altamira Caves Neocueva de Altamira open! It just had not worked any other time I had been in the museum for the last ten years, and I had seen it once when I was really young, and something similar in the museum on site a lifetime ago. It was smaller than the one I remember from both times… And it makes me sad that I will never be able to see the real thing, because there’s a waiting list you can’t even get into any more, and only 50 people per year see the actual cave…

Reproduction of the Altamira Cave, with bisons, horses and bulls painted on the ceiling.

My sibling was not ready to go home just yet, so I thought they might like a stop at Kawaii Café before we turned in. We could take the underground and in under a change and 30 minutes – since I had been there just a couple of days before, I remembered the underground station. I was not sure whether there would be a queue to enter or not, but we were lucky. We alighted at Tirso de Molina and went into the café without problem – it was half empty at the time, around 16:30. They really wanted to order something cute – which is not hard. In the end, they chose teddy-bear-shaped pancakes with chocolate spread Ositos rellenos de Nutella, with chocolate syrup, whipped cream and banana slices. This time I went for a matcha frappé.

Two drinks with cute rabbits drawn on top, and pancakes decorated to look like teddy bears

Afterwards, we walked down to Atocha Station down one of the shopping streets. We made a few stops, and reached the station just before the Pride Parade blocked the streets. There, we settled to wait for a train. On the way back, the factory that had had the accident was still smoking, but the dark cloud seemed weaker. However, I never thought I would have to consider “lithium explosion” in my adventure planning, to be honest…

2nd July 2025: Sabina’s Hello & Goodbye (Madrid, Spain)

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Lots of things came together on the 2nd of July. First of all, due to weird work schedules that I had no control over, I had a day off in the middle of the week. Second, I had a doctor appointment in the morning – lucky how I could fit it there. Third, Jurassic World: Rebirth, the new film in the Jurassic Park franchise came out. Finally, back in January, I had bought tickets to watch a concert in the goodbye tour by the singer who composed the soundtrack of my teenage-angst years.

So it was just a stroke a luck that work just happened to give me the day off because of unrelated reasons. It would have been luckier to have the following day off too but what can one do? Actually, I propose an unpaid leave called “I had a concert yesterday and it’s not that I’m tired or sore or anything, but I don’t want to go back to reality just yet, I deserve to bask in post concert ‘the world is okay’ bliss.” Think about it, it’s a great idea.

Since I had the doctor’s appointment, I could not plan a whole day out. Once I was done there, I changed clothes and then drove off to the train. Of course, there were delays, what else is new? Halfway, one of the doors got stuck open and we could not start until that got closed manually. But instead of blocking it, they allowed it to keep opening at subsequent stations – so it got stuck again and again.

I reached Atocha just in time to change trains and get to Sol using the same system without a wait, so in a few minutes later I was out in the heat. The original idea had been a light lunch at Yatai Market, but the air conditioning in Kawaii Café was stronger. I had been to another of their shops before, and the food was all right, so I thought why not? I ordered a strawberry frappé and a “sleepyhead bunny” Conejito Dormilón – a Red Velvet crêpe filled with strawberry compote and decorated with cheese cream and blueberries, along with a vanilla-jello bunny mascot. Adorable and delicious. Quite pink, too, due to all the strawberry…

A collage of pink café and a meal - a strawberry frappe with a cute koala face drawn on it. and a crepe which looks like a bedding with a sleeping rabbit on top

When I finished, I headed towards the nearby Yelmo Cines Ideal to watch Jurassic World: Rebirth, a monster movie with a homage to the Jurassic Park book. I guess the film is better if Scarlett Johansson is your type. The film retcons the whole “Jurassic World” premise: now the dinosaurs are dying (and nobody cares about them any more!) and only surviving on an island near the Equator. It turns out that they somehow hold the key to cure heart disease. And then the palaeontologist says that they need to collect samples from the three biggest dinosaurs: Patagotitan (okay, it’s famous now), Mosasaur and Quetzalcoatlus, both of which have already been featured in previous films and are not dinosaurs. Then there are mutated freaks and a Tyrannosaurus with the head of a xenomorph and some extra arms, because the dinosaurs can’t survive, but the “mutated experiments gone wrong” are alive and well? The best from the film was a scene taken from the book, with a Tyrannosaurus and a raft. Unfortunately, this new Tyrannosaurus was not Rexy. Furthermore, the special effects are… not good. Too much bad CGI makes the creatures less believable than those in the 90s instalments, which is… a huge faux pas.

I am glad I saw it on opening day, though – I was able to avoid most spoilers and went in with an open mind. It was not a good film but I didn’t hate it. I will just probably ignore it exists (until the next film comes out, we all know that). Points for the pro-planet message, but it falls a bit flat when you know that Michael Crichton, the original author, was pretty much anti-science…

The film was around 133 minutes long, but oh god, the previews were long. Thus, I left the cinema around 19:30. I had to take the underground, and I knew that some stops would be closed due to Pride. However, last year I had learnt that you’re still allowed to transfer even if you cannot enter or exit the station. I used that knowledge to get myself to Movistar Arena Madrid for Joaquín Sabina’s final tour Hola y Adiós (Hello and Goodbye). I am happy I bought the tickets when I first saw them, because most concerts have sold out, and I got quite a good seat considering the event and the venue.

Joaquín Sabina is a Spanish singer and songwriter born in 1949 in Jaén, in the south of Spain. When he finished his studies, his father offered him a present, and he asked for a guitar. Due to his leftist ideas he had to exile himself in London for a few years during Franco’s dictatorship. When he came back, he lived a life of debauchery, mostly in Madrid, and he probably was not the best role model. But between 1994 and 2000, when I was an angtsy teen, his music was important to me, though I eventually moved away from it. When I heard he was retiring (again) early in the year, I thought I wanted to see him at least once, despite the fact I have not consistently listened to his music much in a couple of decades – there are a few hits in my car playlist. And then there is ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril?, Who stole the month of April from me?, which hit me very hard during Covid lockdown and I’ve skipped since then, but never had the heart to delete from the playlists.

Security let me in with my tiny water bottle, thankfully, and I found my seat about 45 minutes before the show was due to start, and 15 minutes after doors – it was weird, I had expected a larger crowd, and I had been a bit stressed leaving the cinema 20 minutes later than what I had calculated. I was on the side stalls, on a ninety-nine-euro spot. There is a whole etiquette about concerts with seats, and while I am quite happy to stand up when it is appropriate, and in this case, I decided I would stand up when people in front of me stood up. Pretty easy.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: empty stage

Setlist:
 Un último vals (One last waltz; recording and MV)
  1. Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha)
  2. Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears)
  3. Lo niego todo (I deny everything)
  4. Mentiras piadosas (White lies)
  5. Ahora que… (Now that…)
  6. Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street)
  7. 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights)
  8. ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?)
  9. Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies; band intros)
  10. Camas vacías (Empty Beds; vocals: Mara Barros)
  11. Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen; vocals: Jaime Asúa)
  12. Donde habita el olvido (Where oblivion dwells)
  13. Peces de ciudad (City fish)
  14. Una canción para la Magdalena (A song for Magdalene)
  15. Por el bulevar de los sueños rotos (Through the Broken Dreams Boulevard)
  16. Y sin embargo te quiero (And yet I love you; folk copla song; vocals: Mara Barros) + Y sin embargo (And yet)
  17. Noches de boda (Wedding nights) + Y nos dieron las diez (And the clock struck ten on us)
 Encore:
  18. La canción más hermosa del mundo (The most beautiful song in the world; vocals: Antonio García de Diego)
  19. Tan joven y tan viejo (So young and so old)
  20. Contigo (With you)
  21. Princesa (Princess)
 La canción de los buenos borrachos (The good drunkards’ song; recording)

Well, what can I say? Sabina has got old since I was a teenager. His voice has cracked – after all, he is a smoker – and he has swollen up. But his concert made me feel 30 years younger, and I enjoyed it immensely. I’ll freely admit that I bought the ticket back in January purely out of FOMO. However, I am happy I did. I did not get any of my personal favourites, and I am okay with that. Most of what he sang was part of those times.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: musican ensemble

The concert started with Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha), a description and homage to the city of Madrid, which the singer holds particularly dear – despite the fact that he has a bad record with concerts in the city – he once had a panic attack and another time he literally fell of the stage and ended up in hospital. He started sobbing right at the end of the song. Figures.

The venue, of course, cheered and applauded, and stood up to bounce to Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears), which has too dark lyrics for how… perky the music is, but I guess the message of “survivor, yes, damn it” is what matters. It was during Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street) when the old guard took over, so Sabina turned the microphone towards the attendees, which did not only sing chorus but brought down the dome with their voices. He was visibly moved.

Good thing that next came 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights) a getting-over-a-break-up song during which people can yell, and broke the spell. That made me strong enough for ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?), the first time I’ve actually listened to the song since 2020 – “who stole the month of April from me? I kept it in the drawer where I keep my heart” did not sound so threatening surrounded by hundreds of other people.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: playing guitar

During Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies), which is a list of all the good things in life and “over a hundred lies that are worth it”, we got the band introductions. Sabina sang himself, and played the guitar for some songs – he stayed sitting down on a tall stool. Safer for him. Antonio García de Diego played guitar, bass, and harmonica; Jaime Asúa Abasolo and Borja Montenegro also played guitar; Josemi Sagaste played sax and non-drums percussions; Pedro Barceló played drums; Laura Gómez Palma played the bass; and Mara Barros did the choruses and had some solo vocals.

Sabina retired to rest for two songs, alleging that it had always been a dream of his to have a song of his sung by a beautiful woman – Camas vacías (Empty Beds), performed by Mara Barros – and by an actual “rocker man” – Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen) with Jaime Asúa on vocals. Soon after Sabina’s return came a song which holds one of the song lines that has impacted me the most in my whole life: Noches de boda (Wedding nights) hopes that “the end of the world finds you dancing”. I really hope it does.

I guess part of the fun of a concert is that you feel special. Of course that the singer has a speech for every city, and holds each one close to their hearts, or are the best or whatever. But this one did hit differently. I guess my inner child enjoyed it immensely, and even if neither of the songs of the encore did much for me in terms of nostalgia, I was incredibly grateful and happy that I had been able to attend. If it is the last tour indeed, I will have said my hello and goodbye, even if it has been 30 years after the time Joaquín Sabina’s was the only music that played in my room.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: waving goodbye to the public

Also, another extremely convenient thing: though I went by train, I had a ride home, as my parents were in town and driving back around the same time. Which was great, considering that a storm was brewing, and that there were many underground and train stations still closed due to Pride…

30th May 2025: Retiro Park, Alice’s sushi & Jurassic World (Madrid, Spain)

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I had been on the waiting list to buy tickets for Jurassic World: The Exhibition in Madrid since it accepted sign-ups, so I was able to be amongst the first to buy tickets – albeit a few days later than originally scheduled due to the blackout. Thus, I got tickets for the first session on opening day, at 17:00 on the 30th of May. Exciting! And – almost as important – it guaranteed a spoiler-free experience…

I decided to fill the morning beforehand, and I arranged to meet some relatives at Retiro Park Parque del Retiro north-east corner. There stands one of the Romantic constructions of the park – the artificial mountain known as Montaña de los Gatos. It is a space that can be used as an exhibition venue erected during the 19th century, when follies where all the rage. A folly is a decorative building placed in a garden, usually extravagant or out of context, without a real use save from looking cute for the owner’s amusement.

The artificial mountain is literally a hollow mound covered in flowers, with a waterfall that was turned off, a sad-looking pond with a duck family, and a glass ceiling to illuminate the inside. It was closed so I could not snoop the “archaeological remains” that were found during the recent restoration.

Montaña de Los Gatos in Retiro Park, artificial mound covered in flower

Next to the mountain there is another folly, La Casita del Pescador (Fisherman’s little house). Besides that stand the remains of an old church Ruinas de San Pelayo y San Isidoro. This tiny hermit church was originally erected in Ávila during the mid 1200s. Built in the Romanesque style, it was first dedicated to Pelagius of Córdoba, and then this was changed to Isidore of Seville. During the Spanish confiscation of the Catholic church properties, it was dismantled and eventually rebuilt in Madrid as Romantic decoration in a project directed by Ricardo Velázquez Bosco. It looks weirdly out of place, but rather pretty.

Ruins of the Romanesque church Ruinas de San Pelayo y San Isidoro, in brick

The yearly book fair Feria del Libro de Madrid had started, but as my relatives were late, we could only have a quick walk before we headed off to Wonderland – The Kaiten Lab – , a running sushi restaurant with hot-dish orders on the side, with decoration inspired by Alice in Wonderland, with a twist. According to the restaurant “you step into Alice’s mind, though Alice was a psychiatric patient”. I am not sure how I feel about the mental hospital thing – I think they were just trying to cash on the entrance that was already there when they bought the venue. However, I can state that it’s a pretty mediocre sushi restaurant. With a menu price about 10 € over a Runni sushi, I was expecting something at least as good, not worse. It sells the decoration, and that is the only thing that makes it special.

Wonderland – The Kaiten Lab –. A funky restaurant themed around Alcie in Wonderland which serves sushi

We went somewhere else for dessert, and I had a smoothie. Afterwards we said goodbye and I headed off towards Espacio Ibercaja Delicias for the opening session of Jurassic World: The Exhibition, which was full of parents with children and a bunch of actual fans, some of them being parents too. I was actually the first in line to enter, but they pulled me to the side to wait for a card called “credit photopass”, which was a free perk from having been on the list. Unfortunately, the fact that they did not have that ready put a bunch of families with kids in front of me. I got my photo taken against a green screen and they added digital dinosaurs later.

As we were waiting, the whole “dinosaurs are for kids” thing popped up again. I knew things were not going to be as awesome as expected when one of the “park guides” said that her favourite dinosaur was Mosasaur. Despite what Jurassic World: Rebirth claims, Mosasaurs are not dinosaurs, but marine reptiles, which lived in the Cretaceous period (94 – 66 million years ago).

Like the previous show, the experience starts on the ferry to the island, which then opens to the main gates with a Brachiosaurus peering from overhead. The whole exhibition runs on the story that you’re a VIP visitor to the Jurassic World complex, getting a special tour. A couple of guys and myself stayed a bit behind to take pictures without kids and families, and the “ranger” scolded us because “we were going to miss the explanations” in front of a pachycephalosaurus. At that point I felt that they were herding us like cattle…

The second room is the laboratory, with Mr DNA included. There are reproductions of eggs, amber, and baby parasaurolophus, one of them a puppet brought out for kids to take pictures with. The staff did not seem to keen on catering to anyone older than eight, again…

The following two rooms were the Jurassic World movie velociraptors (Deinonychus, in real fossils): Charlie, Delta and Echo were in their confinements and there was a bit of a “training show” with Blue and Owen Grady.

Then there was a bit of a “reprieve” room with fossil replicas and a make-believe excavation, where they brought out a puppet of Bumpy, the baby ankylosaur from Camp Cretaceous. Afterwards came the hybrid Indominus rex jungle, which had a hilarious moment when a kiddo shouted “Hello Indominus, I love you” while the thing was supposedly mangling its food. This was probably the best-made animatronic, it looked a lot like the beast they invented for the movie.

The next room held the Gyrospheres from the Jurassic World film, and a baby velociraptor puppet. This one I could take a picture with after all the kids had had their turn.

Jurassic World The Exhibition. Gate with a Brachiosaurus peering above: Collage showing the velociraptors, a carnivorous dinosaurs skull, the Indominus rex and a Gyrosphere

Jurassic World The Exhibition Baby Bumpy the ankylosaurus

Finally, the last room was Rexy the Tyrannosaur – scars from the first movie and all. In universe, she almost broke containment and almost escaped. There were noises and sparks and roaring, honouring the exhibition’s motto: the closest you’ll ever be to real dinosaurs.

Jurassic World The Exhibition Rexy the T-rex. We know she's the one from the first movie because she has scars down her cheek and neck.

All in all, the dinosaur animatronics were amazing, but the staff had instructions to get everyone in-and-out in one hour, so it felt rushed and, as I said before, herded. And honestly, I am not going to listen to “park rangers” who don’t know their dinosaurs from their reptiles… Which would later be one of my beefs with the upcoming Jurassic World: Rebirth movie anyway…

However, there were dinosaurs, and they felt pretty real, especially the Indominus and Rexy. I missed the mosasaur, though (even if there was a super-cute plush toy in the souvenir shop). All in all, the exhibition was really fun. The animatronics were very lifelike and Bumpy looked exactly like she does in the animation. All in all, it was a good day with ruins, sushi, dinosaurs and geeking out. There’s not much more anyone can ask for…

13th May 2025: Three free niche exhibitions (Madrid, Spain)

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I planned a little escapade to Madrid. There was nothing really special going on, it was just going to be a sunny day with no rain forecast and I could go to a museum and have lunch. When I say nothing special was going on, I mean there were a couple of exhibits I wanted to see, but it would have been just as easy to visit them the previous or following day. I just timed it for the best weather forecast of the week.

I had a small work-related thing early in the morning so I ended up leaving the house half an hour later than I would have liked. The trains were around 10 minutes late and the underground was packed, but none of that is news. I reached my first stop, the Museum for the Blind Museo Tiflológico de la ONCE, around 11:30. This museum hosts models or miniatures of famous monuments in Spain and around the world, designed to be seen with one’s hands. That way, people with low or no vision can get an idea of how they are. It is part of the ONCE inclusion program for the blind, and I think it is a brilliant idea.

ONCE stands for Spanish National Organisation of the Blind in the local language, Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles. Its history and works are a bit convoluted, but keeping it short, the Organisation was established in 1938 with the goal of providing equal opportunities for the blind and people with visual impairments. One of its main income sources is the lottery known as El Cupón de la ONCE.

While the museum itself is free to enter and very relaxed, when you arrive at the building you have to fill out a questionnaire, for statistical purposes, I guess. I did find it a bit off putting that I was outright asked why I wanted to see the exhibition. Because I’m curious, all right?

The museum has three distinct sections – one with the reproductions of the monuments, one with works by low vision, blind, or artists with other disabilities, and a historical area. In turn, the monuments are divided in national (Spanish) and international landmarks. The models are faithful to their smallest detail, and just like the Eiffel Tower is made out of metal, the Taj Mahal is made out of marble! Some of the monuments were reproduced in different scales, such as the Alhambra in Granada or the Aqueduct in Segovia. This should give an idea of both scale and detail. However, I don’t think I would ever be able to imagine something like that without being able to see it.

There were lots of sculptures by artists with disabilities, with a disturbing amount of naked ladies, but whatever. I also saw paintings and a homage to Braille that was sort of abstract but was really cool. The historical section hosted a number of items to learn and write Braille through the years, general studying tools such a 3D map of Spain, and a few historical runs of the lottery ran by ONCE. In general, it was a fascinating visit.

Museum for the Blind - national monuments

Museum for the Blind - international monuments

I did some shopping afterwards, and while the sales lady was really nice, she worked rather leisurely- That, and all the pedestrian lights being red on the fifteen-minute walk, put me seven minutes behind for my lunch reservation – and I swear, they phoned me. I was reaching the door of Comic Planet at 13:07 and they were already calling to check I was coming. People wonder why I’m paranoid about reservation times with them… They decided to change my table to “a more private one” to keep me away from a family with toddlers, and I had no problem.

I got to try the last item that I wanted to try from their menu – the Aquaman Burger, which had caused me some morbid fascination when I first read about it– Beef and king prawns? Garlic and pickles mayonnaise? It could be… either really good or really bad, I thought, and I really wanted to check it out. It was all right, I guess. There was much less of a flavour contrast than I expected, so it was most of a normal burger with a bit of an edge. And the edge was that the buns were blue. I also ordered a Vanilla Coke just because I could, and the waiter was nice enough to offer me tap water when I asked for some too. Cool.

Comic Planet Aquaman Burger

After lunch, I took the underground towards Fundación Telefónica which is running an exhibition called “Echoes of the ocean”, Ecos del Océano. I liked the idea better when I did not know that half of it was done using AI. It was – or tried to be – an exhibit centred around cetacean vocalisations. The first room was a mindfulness thingy in which a lady told you to become one with the ocean and then called you fat – “your body enlarges. You’re huge. You’re a humpback whale”. It made me laugh as it broke all the concentration thing. I also cackled when the voice told me that I went “deeeeep” as a sperm whale and met leopard seals there.

Then there were several huge screens with computer-generated graphs that imitated a sea prairie, dolphins and whales. That was the part that was made using AI, and it could have been a CGI or an actual video just as easily. The important part was that the images on the screen moved along the sounds of actual cetacean vocalisations. A room at the end hosted two actual underwater microphones, and headphones to listen to recordings of different creatures – sperm whales, seals, humpback whales – and ice sliding (this is important because for a long time, the sound of ice on the ocean was unidentified and it yielded to a lot of wild explanations / conspirancy theories).

Echoes of the Ocean screens

On the way out, there was a sculpture with glass reproductions of different microorganisms that love in the ocean: diatoms, anabaena, coccolithophores, dinoflagellates… Yes, this was totally me geeking out and identifying all the tiny little critters. The final room had to do with some photograph and schematics of a particular blue whale that had been tracked by the organisers.

Echoes of the Ocean plankton

I left the building and headed towards Palacio de Cibeles, which this time, was running an exhibit on its own architect Antonio Palacios. The exhibition is aptly named “An architect’s dream: Madrid as a metropolis” Madrid metrópoli. El sueño de Antonio Palacios. It uses photographs, designs, and models to present the works Palacios projected for Madrid – the ones that were built, the ones that were not, and the ones that have disappeared. It was an interesting collection, and the visit was free! Of course, I wandered the building a little before heading to the train station.

Antonio Palacios exhibit - models of buildings

Antonio Palacios exhibit - framed façade designs

Antonio Palacios exhibit - façade design and photograph of the actual Palacio de Comunicaciones building

On the way, there was a classic book fair Feria del Libro Antiguo y de Ocasión, but everything was way too expensive for me. I guess that in general it was a very budget-friendly day – three free exhibitions – if you do not count tiny shopping spree in-between, and it was around 20 €.

11th April 2025: Extant, extinct and extrastormy (Madrid, Spain)

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Since March was extremely rainy, I hoped that April would not be so. No such luck. However, there was a dinosaur exhibit in Madrid that I was keen on seeing, and I wanted to do it before Easter, because it would be packed during the holidays and I could not get there in May due to personal stuff. And since getting to the Casa de Campo area takes so long by train, I looked at combining it with something else around (it’s a four-hour roundtrip from where I am). What other thing was close? Somewhere else I never go because it’s far away by public transport and a nightmare to park around – the local zoo Zoo Aquarium de Madrid. There was after all only a 10% chance of rain…

Spoiler alert: while I was getting drenched (I’m being dramatic, of course. I had an umbrella) in the zoo, and later in the exhibit, the weather app said “partly cloudy” and there was no mention of storms nor rain. But the skies opened. Ask the peafowl…

I took the train and changed to the underground until I got to the Casa de Campo stop. There were not many people around since it was a weekday. There’s a bus that takes you to the zoo, but I found it more efficient to walk, since there is a pedestrian way alongside the road. I reached the zoo a bit after it opened at 11:00, and just as my ticket was getting scanned the first few raindrops fell. At first, it seemed like a small drizzle, but soon it started to rain in earnest. By that time, I had managed to get to the pandas, about 40 metres into the zoo.

I’d been to the Zoo Aquarium de Madrid twice in my life before. The first one I was very small. I have no memory of it, but there is a home video of three-year-old me chasing a peacock and a voice warning “come back, it’s going to bite you!”. The second time I was in third grade, and had my first camera. I remember that I was devastated because the pandas were very far away and I could only take a picture of a distant, tiny, black-and-white blur. That was decades ago, and I had never been back, though I had a recurring dream for years that involved one of the pools there.

The zoo opened in 1972 as an alternative to the “Beast House” or Casa de Fieras that used to be hosted in the Retiro Park, a few sad and crammed-looking cages that must have been horrible for the animals. As every animal park, Zoo Aquarium de Madrid is not free of controversy, especially related to the ethics of keeping great apes and cetaceans in captivity. They used to have dolphins, but those were surrendered and sent away earlier in 2025. Conversely, the zoo participates in over 60 conservation and breeding programs for endangered animals – they have breeding couples of owls, whose chicks are routinely released into the wild, and have succeeded in breeding pandas (they claim to be the most successful institution at breeding panda outside China) and white rhinos. They have non-breeding animals as ambassadors, such as a family of Iberian lynx.

The zoo is vaguely organised per continent – Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa and the Americas, and the home of actual wild animals such as storks and rabbits.

As I went into the zoo, the first thing I spotted was a small lake with flamingoes, pelicans and (squatting) storks. The storks are free to come and go, but they like to be in the zoo because they get free food, I guess. My idea had been to walk a spiral and try to see everything, but I got distracted by “Panda Land”, signalled by a big red gate – after all, they are the main attraction. I thought the pandas might be visible, and they were – much closer than I remembered indeed. I did get to see both the male and the female, who live apart within the same installation. I had time to take a few pictures before it started to rain in earnest. And no, they were not distant, tiny black-and-white blobs this time, and not only because I had borrowed a really good lens for the day. I had to put the camera away when the rain became too heavy.

Zoo Madrid - stork, flamingoes, panda

It rained for a couple of hours, and that impacted me a little. I ended up sharing shelter with a band of peafowl, and had to go from covered exhibit to covered exhibit at first. I found the orang-utan territory very sad, and I did not catch a glimpse of any gorilla. In the aquarium, I got stuck with all the school visits, but there were quite a few sharks and big fish in the ocean tank.

Zoo Madrid: peacocks and peahens sheltering from the rain

Zoo Madrid: Sea lion, small blue jellyfish, sharks

I ambled around the Australian area, where most of the animals were unfazed – especially the cassowary, which by the way is apparently the most dangerous bird in existence, even if I’m way more crept out (and fascinated) by emus. I did not see the koalas, and I walked past a tree which seemed fenced off just because. As rain cleared out, some of the animals started playing around, such as the binturong (Arctictis binturong), a distant relative of civets. At around 13:20, I had reached Africa, and I was in front of the hippos when it stopped raining. Awesome!

Zoo Madrid: Cassowari, binturong, Patagonian mara, and hippo yawning

Since I had borrowed a camera lens which is better – but heavier – than mine, I really wanted to try it out. Carrying it around without being able to use the camera due to the rain, at all, would have been a bummer. After the rain stopped, I was able to take quite a few good pictures though. Those included the Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), and its relative the domestic cat (Felis catus), whom I’m not sure is a resident or a squatter in the “farm” section of the zoo alongside the sheep, goats, and a very large pig.

Zoo Madrid: Jiraffes, zebra, black bear and Siberian tiger

Since I’d been to Emociones al Vuelo a few days earlier, I did not mind the lack of Raptor Flight exhibit due to rain. I did miss the Exotic Birds one, but I caught the Sea Lion exercise (hello, swimming pool from years of recurring dreams). Around 14:30, it had stopped raining, the animals had eaten, and I caught many of them. Unfortunately, most – especially the carnivores – were napping. I did however saw a very active red panda (Ailurus fulgens) around the tree that I previously thought was fenced off for no reason.

Zoo Madrid: Red panda, common rabbit, grey wolves, brown bear

By the time I left, the workers had also dropped off a few Easter Eggs throughout the zoo as the holidays were about to start. At 17:00 I had to be at Escenario Puerta de Ángel to see Saurios, a dinosaur exhibit, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Most of the animatronics I had already seen as “Dino Expo XXL” – I recognised it because of the broken neck on one of the brachiosaurus. The exhibit had a first part with a few skeleton replicas – the coolest thing, as I had never managed to see a complete cast of a Spinosaurus before. Then there was an open area with some life-sized replicas and photo-ops, but it was completely made for kids. There were actors and activities for them, which I guess were extremely fun if you’re younger than five. Yet another “dinosaurs are for kids” activity.
Saurios Madrid - skeleton replicas

Saurios Madrid - models

And then it started storming again. A black cloud, a clap of thunder, and the skies opened. Thus, we all had to hurry to the last section, which was most of what I’d seen in “Dino Expo XXL”. I was really not impressed by the whole thing – remember folks, “for all the family” means “designed for kids”. I guess I would be more gracious had the weather been nice, but… having seen most of the exhibit before for half the price, I was not impressed. Fortunately or unfortunately, there is a Jurassic World Exhibition coming up soon…

Saurios Madrid - models

27th March 2025: The Raven Age at ReviLive (Madrid, Spain)

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Sometimes one has to wonder what guides music promoters to make certain decisions. It would be interesting to be aware of factors like costs of renting a venue, fuel, ticketing and so on. Because on occasion, it feels like tour schedules are suboptimal from all angles – acknowledging the lack of information. In the case of The Forsaken Tour by The Raven Age featuring Disconnected, I think that the most important factor that was considered was minimising bus-tour kilometres. Unfortunately, that placed their Madrid show on a Thursday, in a venue which… I’m pretty sure was inconvenient for everyone but myself.

The Raven Age is an English heavy metal band formed in 2009 by guitarists George Harris and Dan Wright – though Wright has since left the band. Current members are Harris and Tommy Gentry on guitars, Matt Cox on bass and backing vocals, Jai Patel on drums, and Matt James (MJ) on lead vocals. They have released three studio albums, and supported Iron Maiden, Anthrax and Apocalyptica during the Apocalyptica Plays Metallica Vol 2 Tour 2024. Though I saw Artics supporting that tour, my friend A****d saw The Raven Age and highly recommended them – actually she was the one who informed me of the upcoming tour and the Madrid date and place.

The Raven Age Tour Schedule

The concert was held in ReviLive, a concert and party venue associated with the musical studio ReviRock, which provides recording equipment, sets, rehearsal spaces… It is located near the Vicálvaro train station and Puerta de Arganda underground stop in Madrid. Unfortunately, it’s pretty far out from most commuting hubs. I had first thought about driving there, but my Sat-Nav has been failing lately. Furthermore, I did not feel comfortable parking and walking around the area – not the best – without knowing my way.

Since Vicálvaro was close and the way was rather straightforward, I decided to drive to a nearby station, then take a high-frequency train. But in the end, that day I had a headache, so I wanted to drive as little as possible. That meant risking it with the trains. I had previously checked finishing times and with doors at 19:00, I should be out at 22:30 latest. I had no intention to queue, so I took a train that arrived at the station around 18:50. That got me to the venue at 19:05. I was all right with staying back, but the crowd was so small that I found a spot at the barrier… And I was not wearing barrier shoes, at all. The good thing of a small side-lined venue is that security is nicer – and you are allowed to do outrageous things like bringing in your water bottle.

Supporting act throughout the tour was the French artists Disconnected, an independent French progressive metal band. Formed in 2016, it features Ivan Pavlakovic on vocals, Adrian Martinot and Florian Merindol on guitars, Romain Laure on Bass and Amaury Pastorelli on drums.

Doors ended up being at 19:30, not at 19:00, which was mean to the poor fans that had been there since early, particularly the meet & greet ones. I have to admit I did check for M&G tickets, but found no way to get them, else I would have. Maybe they were fanclub-only, I don’t know. I was hoping the venue would fill up more – similarly to La Riviera, where the crowd (that I’ve seen) skips the supporting act and drips in without queuing.

At 19:50, Disconnected started their act, and it was quite all right. What was unfortunately not so good was the sound. For such an empty venue, it was a pity, because it was not as if there was a roar from the attendees. The vocalist had great energy, and he was fun – though painfully aware of how few people there were. They sang in English and French, but the ratty sound made it a bit difficult to follow.

Disconnected’s setlist:
  1. Living incomplete
  2. I Fall Again
  3. The Wish
  4. La Puissance
  5. Unstoppable
  6. A World of Futile Pains
  7. Life Will Always Find Its Way
  8. We Carry On

The Raven Age Madrid Concert: Disconnected

The Raven Age Madrid Concert: Disconnected

Unfortunately, the venue had not filled up when it was time for the main act, and that was a bit sad. Despite the ongoing sound problems and the small crowd, The Raven Age had a great presence. The music did not sound as powerful as what I had been listening online though, and I am sure that they did not have any tea in their thermos bottles…

The Raven Age’s setlist:
  1. The Guillotine
  2. Promised Land
  3. Forgive & Forget
  4. Nostradamus
  5. Surrogate
  6. The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships
  7. Scimitar
  8. The Day The Earth Stood Still
  9. Essence of Time
  10. The Journey
  11. Seventh Heaven
  12. Angel in Disgrace
  13. Serpent’s Tongue
  14. Grave of the Fireflies
  15. Fleur de Lis

The Raven Age Madrid Concert: The Raven Age

It was extremely amusing to hear a heavy metal singer with such a strong British accent, talking in a natural way and dropping swearwords without sweating them. The members seemed to be quite happy taking over all the stage, and there was a lot of interaction, which is always good and fun. Unfortunately, considering that promoter was giving tickets away, I don’t think I’ll ever have the chance to see them close to home again.

The act was not long. They started at 20:50 and finished at 22:10, so it was a relatively short show, but it went by really fast. There was no real encore, because MJ said “this is the time when we go backstage, you guys yell for more, we come back and sing some more, so we’re going to skip all that and go on.” I approve of that.

The Raven Age Madrid Concert: The Raven Age

The Raven Age Madrid Concert: The Raven Age

The Raven Age Madrid Concert: The Raven Age

The Raven Age Madrid Concert: The Raven Age

The whole event had a weird atmosphere from start to end – the lack of a queue, the… chairs outside so we could wait… The… “hey, hold my spot, I’m going to change into this merch shirt I just got” and “Sure, but then hold mine while I go to the toilet” conversations… And especially, the lack of people. I really hoped that there would be more concertgoers after 20:00, and at least some more enthusiasm. When I saw Kamijo in Barcelona there was a small crowd, but it was loud. Here, it was lukewarm. I felt a bit heartbroken for the bands, because they both did a great job.

The train I was supposed to take back did not pass, so I had to wait almost 45 minutes at the Vicálvaro station. That was not fun because the only seats were in the open platform and my lower back hurt – bad choice of shoes. It was extremely cold, too, so I just huddled on a bench, and it felt good when the train finally came. I got to my car just before midnight, and home soon after. I was so tired I almost hit the kerb on my last curve, so it is good that I did not drive back and forth on the speedway, actually.

All in all, I enjoyed the day, the supporting act, and the concert. Would I travel abroad for The Raven Age? Probably not. Will I buy their CDs when I have money to spare? Probably yes. Although I keep getting sidetracked by activities and places to see and burning through my fun budget… Just you wait until there is a concert somewhere I want to visit, and I’ll be taking this whole “not travelling for The Raven Age” back.

9th March 2025: Expominerales 2025, the other half of the weekend’s plans (Madrid, Spain)

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Since I had to be in Madrid to watch the fantastic concert by the Wiener Sängerknaben, the plan had been to attend the yearly Expominerales mineral fair in the Mine and Energy Engineering School Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Minas y Energía (ETSIME) that same day. However, the fair closes on Saturdays between 14:00 and 16:00 for a lunch break, so since the weather was so horrid, I decided not to wait. On Sunday, the weather forecast was slightly less miserable, and in the end I was lucky with only some gentle rain as I walked between the train station and the Engineering School, nothing like the sleet deluge the previous day.

Expominerales fills the ETSIME with stalls selling minerals, fossils and crystals offered by reputable sellers. Here I’ve seen the biggest megalodon teeth in my life, held a plesiosaur vertebra – which I regret not buying when I had the chance – and discovered that moldavite exists – and which I regret not buying when I had the chance… do you spot a pattern here? I did not break it anyway, because in the end I cannot afford most of what is sold, and I already own most of what I can…

Overlook of ETSIME during Expominerales

I arrived at the School shortly after the exhibit opened around 10:00, and the area was still pretty empty. There were fewer stands than the previous years I’ve been there, and the moldavite stand was not there. Actually, there were very few meteorite-related stands this time around. I did see amazing modern-times frog fossils from Owens Lake. Owens Lake is called Patsiata in the Mono Native American language. In 1913, the lake dried out when the water from the Owens River was redirected and with years it has become a deadly salt flat, a source of alkali sand storms with a side of carcinogen materials. One of the minerals found in Owens Lake is trona, a crystal formed by the precipitation of sodium carbonate, making it a type of evaporite. In 2023, an atmospheric river caused floods in California, filling the lake up for the first time in over a century. The floods damaged infrastructure and created a surge of floodwater to the lake, which eroded surfaces and dragged a lot of small hibernating animals towards the lake, where they were killed instantly. Their soft tissues were quickly replaced by trona salt before the bodies even decomposed, creating a perfect cast of the poor critters. There were two on display at Expominerales and they were creepy!

Something else that caught my eye (and was actually within my doable price range) was a polished abalone shell. The Korean abalone (Haliotis discus) has been used for centuries in the art of najeonchilgi [나전칠기], which refers to decorating items with mother of pearl. The abalone can be polished in full, creating a whole iridescent body of nacre. These mollusks used to be collected by haenyeo [해녀], traditional female divers from the Jeju province, but most of them are farmed for food today. A small polished abalone came home with me.

Items from Expominerales

The School opens its classic museum during the exhibit, and I always enjoy visiting it. However, after wandering around for a bit (and spending some money), I moved onto what basically is the next building over to the ETSIME, the Spanish Mining and Geology Institute IGME – Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, which hosts the Geomineral Museum Museo Geominero. The original design of the building was conceived by Francisco Javier de Luque, and work started in 1921. Though a congress was held there in 1925, construction went on until 1941. The building has not been extensively restored, but it presents deviations from the original plans, and even from subsequent ones.

The museum is hosted in the former hall, and to get there, first you have to go through a very bored security guard – who first asked if I was sure I wanted to be there. Once inside the building, one goes up the main staircase towards the gallery underneath a glass-and-iron skylight with the logo of the Mining Institute. It was designed by Luque himself and created by the Madrid workshop La Veneciana, a glassware shop dating from 1876 and which, under a different name, still exists today.

Entrance staircase to the Geomineralogical museum

The museum is an open area, located underneath another incredible skylight. The displays are hosted in wooden cabinets in the main floor. The upper balconies can be accessed through spiral staircases and are protected by metalwork railings. One of the details I absolutely adore are the glassworks displaying geological sample cores of different surveys. I’ve never seen the library, but I was once part of a group which was allowed to play with some of the “lesser value” items they have as part of a training session, and that was super fun. The museum is probably one of my favourite spots in town.

The Geomineralogical Museum

From the architecture point of view, I like the building and the skylights. However, there are way more things to love in the museum, such as the wooden cabinets, full with samples of minerals, fossils and meteorites. The museum’s collection are divided into “Mineralogy and Petrology”, “Flora and Invertebrate fossils from Spain”, “Vertebrate fossils from Spain”, “Foreign fossils”, “Systematic invertebrate palaeontology”, “Micro-palaeontology”, “Fossil resin”, “Fossil tracks”, “Stromatolites”, and the “special exhibits”. One of these is a complete cavern bear (Ursus spelaeus), another one is an Ibex (Capra ibex). The last two have honour spots, with their own display.

When you come into the museum, one of the first things that you see, in front of the door, up on the first-floor balcony, is the cast of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skull ever found – Stan. Specimen BHI 3033, Stan, was found in 1987 and excavated in 1992, in South Dakota’s Hell Creek Formation. Stan lived around 65 million years ago, in the Cretaceous period. We know he fought for his life more than once – his ribs were broken and healed, two vertebrae were fused together, and he suffered a bite to his snout. Stan remains one of the most complete skeletons ever found, and probably the most-often cast. The skeleton made mainstream news when it was auctioned at Christie’s in New York due to money disputes among partners of the original owner-firm, Black Hills Institute. An anonymous buyer paid $31.8 million for it in October 2020. In 2022 it was disclosed that the Department of Culture and Tourism of Abu Dhabi had bought Stan for their projected new Natural History Museum.

On the ground floor there is a mastodon fossil Anancus arvernensis found in the 1990s. These animals related to modern elephants lived throughout the Miocene and went extinct in the Early Pliocene (two million years ago). The could have been around the size of a modern African bush elephants, but their tusks were mostly straight. They would have lived in steppe with dry and warm climate, but close to water. The fossilised bones were recovered are dated around 3.2 million years ago, and were dug from the Las Higueruelas site between 1948 and 1991.

Exhibits at the Museo Geominero

After I wandered the museum for a while, I left towards my train which was delayed… 43 minutes. Fortunately, so were the ones that had to pass before, so I ended catching one in the right direction after only a twenty-minute wait. And then I got junk food, because some days have to end in junk food…

8th March 2025: Wiener Sängerknaben Spain Tour, half of a weekend’s plan (Madrid, Spain)

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Where should I get to see the Vienna Boy’s choir Wiener Sängerknaben? Vienna? Of course not! Madrid, of course. We did try to see them in their home town, but it did not work out, because they sang before we arrived, and while we were on our way to the airport on the day we left. However, chance wanted that their Schubert Choir Schubertchor would be touring Spain in March, and Madrid would be their first stop. We got good tickets by a hair’s breadth, because my parents do not believe in booking in advance – nor in me booking for everyone – but we got them, literally last row of stalls.

Nobody knows exactly when the historical Wiener Sängerknaben was established, but there are records of boys singing at the Imperial Chapel back in 1296, even before the chapel was in Vienna. The Boys Choir just performed for the Court until 1918, when the Austria-Hungary Empire collapsed. In 1924, the institution was re-established as a private non-profit. It remained boys-only until 2004, when the Girls Choir Wiener Chormädchen was founded.

The boys attend their own campus from primary to senior high school. There are 100 choristers divided in four choirs (Bruckner, Haydn, Mozart and Schubert), each of which tours for around 10 weeks per school year. They perform High Mass in the chapel of the Imperial Palace every Sunday as part of an ensemble called Hofmusikkapelle (Court Music Orchestra), formed by the boys and members of the choir and orchestra of the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsope).

As part of those ten-week tours, it was announced that in 2025 the Schubert Choir would tour South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and Italy. In Spain, they were to perform four special concerts in Madrid, Seville, Alicante and Valencia. The Madrid show took place at 11:00 in the national auditorium Auditorio Nacional de Música. The auditorium was designed by architect José María García de Paredes and it opened in 1988. The largest music hall can host over 2400 spectators.

Auditorio Nacional, inside and out

The Schubertchor has 22 members from all over the world – though most are Austrian, others come from China, Croatia, the Czech Republic, England, Germany, Hungary, Japan, South Korea and Ukraine. The boys’ names are not released, but they were touring with Peruvian conductor Andy Icochea Icochea, who had previously worked in the Wiener Sängerknaben between 2005 and 2011. Icochea seems to have specialised in training young choristers, and has had a long career with different choirs and orchestras, even with a music charity. He has collaborated with other directors such as Riccardo Muti, who conducted the 2024 Silvesterkontzert / 2025 New Year’s concert in Vienna.

The day of the concert started raining buckets, but we had decided to try public transport instead of driving to the area where the Auditorio Nacional de Música stands. Afterwards, we wanted to have lunch and head to Expominerales, which was held that same weekend. We arrived with plenty of time, and we had to find a café to pass the time until doors opened. Once that happened, it was a bit of a chaos of umbrellas and everybody trying to push in at the same time. If you think young people get excited before a concert, they’ve got nothing on senior citizens.

At 11:00 sharp, even before the hall had completely filled up – doors had opened kind of late in my opinion, less than half hour in advance – the children and the director came out. People were still being admitted during for the first couple of songs, and the auditorium staff were harassing patrons about where they had placed their jackets, or whether they were in their correct seats, well into the show. It was weird, and a bit disrespectful, those details should have been sorted beforehand. However, the concert itself were amazing. Most of it was sung a capella, and only a piano was used for accompanying the choristers in several songs, played by Icochea himself.

Vienna Boys' Choir Madrid

Setlist:
  First part:
    1. Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437 (Emperor Waltz), composed by Johan Strauß II, with lyrics by Victor Gombocz and arranged by Gerald Wirth.
    2. Der Wassermann (The Water Genie), composed by Robert Schumann, with lyrics by Justinus Kerner.
    3. Hebe deine Augen auf zu den Bergen (Lift thine eyes), trio from Elias, Op. 70 (The Prophet Elijah), composed by Felix Mendelssohn from the lyrics of Psalm 121:1-4.
    4. Die Meere, Op. 20 No. 3 (The Seas), composed by Johannes Brahms
    5. Psalm 23, D.706, composed by Franz Schubert with Germany lyrics by Moses Mendelssohn.
    6a. Nun stehen die Rosen in Blüte (Now the roses have bloomed) from Der Jungbrunnen, Op. 44 (The Fountain of Youth) composed by Johannes Brahms with lyrics by Paul Heyse.
    6b. Die Berge sind spitz (The mountains are pointed) from Der Jungbrunnen, Op. 44 (The Fountain of Youth) composed by Johannes Brahms with lyrics by Paul Heyse.
    6c. Am Wildbach die Weiden (The willows beside the stream) from Der Jungbrunnen, Op. 44 (The Fountain of Youth) composed by Johannes Brahms with lyrics by Paul Heyse.
    6d. Und gehst du über den Kirchhof (And if you walk across the churchyard) from Der Jungbrunnen, Op. 44 (The Fountain of Youth) composed by Johannes Brahms with lyrics by Paul Heyse.
    7. Inclina Domine aurem tuam ad me, Op. 118 (Incline your ear, Lord, to me), Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (Psalm 86).
    8. Erlkonig (The Elven King) composed by Franz Schubert, with lyrics by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, arranged by Oliver Gies.
    9. Sängerslust, Polka française, Op. 328 (Singer’s Joy, French Polka), composed by Johann Strauß II with lyrics by Joseph Weil.
    10. Wiener Blut, Walzer Op. 354 (Viennese Spirit), composed by Johann Strauß II, arranged by Helmuth Froschauer.
  Second part:
    11. 아리랑 [Arirang] (impossible to translate, but it might have meant “My beloved one” in Ancient Korean), arranged by Gerald Wirth, a traditional Korean love song from the Kyonggi Do province, with over 60 variations.
    12. Vreneli abem Guggisberg (Vreneli from Guggisberg), Swiss folk song arranged by Gerald Wirth.
    13. Müsle gang ga schlofa (Go to sleep, little mouse). Cradle song from Vorarlberg, Austria with lyrics by Walter Weinzierl, arranged by Gerald Wirth.
    14. Unz Wättr isch winti (Until the weather is windy), written by Luis Stefan Stecher like an Italian folk song, with music by by Ernst Thoma.
    15. O more duboko (Oh, deep sea), Croatian folk song, arranged by Gerald Wirth.
    16. La Paloma (The Dove), Spanish habanera by Sebastián Yradier, arranged by Gerald Wirth.
    17. Chim Chim Cher-ee from Mary Poppins (1964 film), by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, arranged by Christi Cary Miller.
    18. What Was I Made For? from Barbie (2023 film), by Billie Eilish O’Connell and Finneas O’Connell, arranged by Jennifer Lucy Cook.
    19. Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid (1989 film), by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, arranged by Kirby Shaw.
    20. For ever, Polka schnell, Op. 193 (Forever, Fast Polka) by Josef Strauß, arranged by Gerald Wirth with English lyrics by Tina Breckwoldt.
    21. An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 (The Blue Danube), composed by Johann Strauß II, with lyrics by Franz von Gernerth (1821-1900) and arranged Gerald Wirth.
  Encore
    22. Radetzky-Marsch, Op. 228 (Radetzky March), by Johann Strauß I, arranged by Gerald Wirth.
    23. Un Elefante Se Balanceaba (An elephant swung), Spanish children counting song, probably arranged by Icochea.

Charming does not even come close to describing the show. I’d never understood the concept of “angelic voices” until now, and I found it really unfair that you can’t actually find out the names of the boys. I don’t know whether it is to protect their privacy as they are minors, but it would have been great to at least know the names of the soloists, because the powerful voices from those little bodies was amazing.

The children were organised by tone of voice, which was similar to size, with the highest voices (smallest boys) on the front left and the lowest voices (biggest kids) on the back right. They sang most of their numbers towards the stalls, but for one song they turned to the people behind them, to both sides of the organ. Highlights included any time a child sang a solo – particularly the first one during the Emperor Waltz, as people were still coming in. During another song, Icochea left the stage for another boy to direct.

Vienna Boys' Choir Madrid

The oldest boy was in charge of having the audience clap during the Radetzky March, just like in the New Year’s Concert – and he looked right at that age when teens are all knees and elbows and awkwardness, but he seemed to be extremely proud of himself (well deserved!).

The last song of the encore was a total surprise. Before it started, the director invited us to “sing along if we were familiar with it”. This unexpected performance was a Spanish counting song, Un Elefante Se Balanceaba (An elephant swung), which goes “one elephant swung on a spiderweb – as it saw it did not fall down, it went to call another elephant. Two elephants swung on a spiderweb – as they saw they did not fall down, they went to call another elephant. Three elephants…” you get the idea – not precisely a philosophical song, but way less traumatic than say Hush little baby. One of the boys walked to the front and made a sort of trunk with one of his arms as he “swung” to the music. One by one, the others joined him until the proverbial spiderweb snapped and down to the floor all the children went. It was absolutely hilarious, and adorable.

Vienna Boys' Choir Madrid

Vienna Boys' Choir Madrid singing the elephant song

It was still raining heavily when we left the auditorium. It was 13:15, so no real time to get to Expominerales before it closed between 14:00 and 16:00. Had the weather been nicer (decent, at the very least), I would have found something else to do before it re-opened. But it was still raining cats and dogs – and maybe some ice – so we just decided to call it a (half) day.

22nd February 2025: Architecture in Madrid, and folklore in Guadalajara (Spain)

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By now, reaching Madrid by train without anything remarkable to comment on is actually remarkable all by itself – there were actually no problems for once. I had booked a spot for a visit at noon, but since I don’t trust the rail service, I hopped on a train to be at Atocha Station around 10:00, and for once I was there right on time, maybe even a minute early!

As I walked up the street Paseo del Prado, I passed by the exhibition centre CaixaForum, where the Patagotitan still stands. Since it was still winter, the trees on both sides had little to no leaves, and I could see it from the opposite side. I of course said hi.

Patagotitan skeleton

My first stop was the church Iglesia de San Jerónimo el Real, dedicated to St. Jerome, a late Gothic – early Renaissance building erected between 1502 and 1505. It belonged to a monkhood whose original monastery stood near the river. The stagnant waters caused illnesses among the brethren, who asked the Catholic Monarchs for a new location. The church for the new community was created from brick and masonry, and towers were added in the 17th century. The interior is decorated with two gothic altars to the sides, but no main altarpiece, as the original one has been lost to time. Instead, there is a painting by Rafael Tegeo La última comunión de San Jerónimo – Saint Jerome’s last communion – created in 1829.

Monastery Monasterio de Jerónimos

Afterwards, I headed towards the National Museum of Anthropology Museo Nacional de Antropología, a small museum dedicated to the diversity of cultures in the world, particularly the Americas, Philippines, Africa and the “Far East”, focusing on traditions, culture and religion. It is covered by my national museum card.

At the moment, the museum is running a temporal exhibit on art based on myths, legends, and sacred texts from India, Caminos místicos. Tradiciones vivas del arte de la India – Mystic Paths. Living Traditions of art from India. I was curious about it, but not expecting how much I liked it in the end. The pieces of the exhibit were mostly based on Hinduism (Sanātana Dharma, सनातन धर्म), the oldest religion in the world. According to Hindu tradition, the Supreme Being Brahma exists as themself, but also as the manifestation of the deities Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Sustainer and Shiva the Destroyer, all of who at the same time have different avatars (avatāra, अवतार) or incarnations. One of the core principles of Hinduism is the concept of cosmic cause-and-effect justice, karma [कर्म]. Another is reincarnation (saṃsāra, संसार), an eternal cycle of life and death until the individual is liberated from it through self realisation or illumination. The religion is based on values like righteousness, truth, love, peace, and ethical conduct, and it is quite open to other beliefs and ethics.

Religious Indian Art pieces

The Museum of Anthropology’s permanent exhibition has a lot of items from the Philippines on the ground floor, probably due to how long(1565–1898) the islands were a Spanish colony. There are clothes, tobacco items, ritual objects, and a small sample of how the local culture was throughout the 1800s. To the back, there is a room dedicated to the religions of Asia and the Middle East – Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. The first floor is dedicated to Africa, combining a number of traditional exhibits with modern photographs of the traditional people’s way of life – baskets, pottery, leather and wooden objects, ritual masks… The second floor holds items from the Americas, especially from South America. Some of them include a Mexican Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) altar, Andean Carnival masks, Sioux-Lakota clothes, Inuit coats…

Religious icons and traditional masks

I remember visiting the museum when I was a child, and then feeling disappointed in it when I returned as an adult. This time around, I found the permanent and temporal exhibitions quite interesting, so it’s a good thing I headed there. It also helped make time until noon, when my next visit was due, to the only Ministry that can be visited – albeit not freely, by appointment and paying a fee – as it is a historical building.

The current Agriculture Ministry is housed in the historical building known as Palacio de Fomento – Palace of Development. Its plans were originally drawn by architect Mariano  Belmás y Estrada, aiming for an Arts and Craftwork School. Later, Eduardo Saavedra y Moragas took over to turn the design into a university. Finally, the project ended in the hands of architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, who erected the building between 1893 and 1897 to house the then Ministry of Development.

The Palace is an impressive construction. The original design had three floors, which have now been turned into five. From the outside, the building looks white and orange-brown, but a more focused look reveals decorative tiles by Daniel Zuloaga, who also collaborated with Velázquez Bosco in the ETSIME. The entrance is flanked by two caryatids and roof above there is a sculpture group – Glory and Pegasi La Gloria y los Pegasos, a bronze copy of an original marble by Agustín Querol.

Palacio de Fomento, outside

Once you enter, you find yourself in a huge majestic hall, where we had to check in, since the building is a working Ministry. The email said to be there at 11:45 to go through security. I got there at 11:40 and went in at 11:44. They took my name (they did not care about the ticket) and they put my stuff in the X-ray machine. I had to go through the metal detector and when I asked whether I had to remove my belt, I was just told to put my hand over the buckle… So much for security, I thought, because I did not beep. Then I realised that I must look quite non-threatening as quite a few people were thoroughly searched as they set off the machine.

Beyond the hall where we were checked in, there is an imperial staircase in marble, and a vaulted frescoed ceiling. From there, we visited some offices and meeting rooms, and the portrait gallery – from which the ministers who held office during the Franco dictatorship had been removed. Finally, we visited one of the side inner courtyards, covered in a skylight with some ironwork.

Palacio de Fomento, inside

After the visit was over, the security guards saw us out and locked the doors. I walked around the building, because I had honestly never realised it was square. As the place was next to the Retiro Park, I had been considering looking for some archaeological spot they had opened. However, there were more ideas – Guadalajara was having the Botarga parade, and it was the fair weekend in Tendilla, though, a phone call informed me that traffic was horrid and that it was not a good idea to head there so late in the afternoon.

Eventually, I decided on the Parade. I bought some sandwiches and headed for the train. Though I got rained upon, it cleared up, and at 18:00 I was in Guadalajara to have a look at the traditional Parade of Carnival characters Desfile de Botargas – “creatures” from the whole area which meet up in the capital the Saturday before carnival, despite each character having its own schedule wherever it is rooted. The parade was a bit late, so I could talk the local botarga group – El Manda (the Order-giver), Los Mandaneros (the Order-receivers), and the Botarguilla (Little Botarga) – into posing for me. I watched and took pictures from two spots, but the parade moved really fast because they only had thirty minutes to do the route – last year they took well over an hour for that. I decided I did not want to run for it that much… I have to remember to find myself a vantage point next year, instead of trying to get the beginning of the parade…

Guadalajara Botargas

Heifferette from Riba de Saelices

Botarga Parade 2025

I got “attacked” a few times, and ended up with soot all over my face, but at least I avoided the guy painting people with mustard… The botargas seemed to zoom in on children and cameras, and so did the devils Diablos (from Luzón) and the heiferettes Vaquillas and Vaquillones (Villares de Jadraque, Robledillo de Mohernando, Luzaga, Riba de Saelices). It was fun. One of these days I might have to try to follow the botargas in their own villages…

19th December 2024: Themed visits at Madrid’s Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Spain)

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There have been a lot of witches dripping into mainstream pop culture these last couple of months, what with Disney + / Marvel’s Agatha all Along and (half of) the musical Wicked released as a film. So when I read that the National Museum of Archaeology was running a special guided visit to the exhibition “Between Chaos and Cosmos: Nature in Ancient Greece” Entre Caos y Cosmos. Naturaleza en la Antigua Grecia and part of the permanent exhibition called “Nature, Magic and Witchcraft” Naturaleza, magia y brujería I thought “hey, the Heritage people are catching up with the times!” That day there actually were two guided visits, and the second one was centred around the sculpture Il Pugilatore. One was at 12:00, and the other one at 17:00, so they could be combined – hey, they were free, I just had to find something to do in-between.

Thus, I booked both visits and headed out to Madrid. I got to the archaeological museum Museo Arqueológico Nacional with ample time due to my distrust of trains. As I have the museum card, I decided to just walk in and wait for the time safe from the cold and the rain – and since it had just opened, from the crowds too. Though the ticket said to wait at the meeting point, the museum staff directed me somewhere else, and that is where I sat to wait ten minutes before the starting time. Apparently, a bunch of people did not get the information so when the time came we were few… and promptly joined by about half of the group once we had started.

The first visit was “Nature, Magic and Witchcraft” Naturaleza, magia y brujería. It started at the exhibition Entre Caos y Cosmos. Naturaleza en la Antigua Grecia – “Between Chaos and Cosmos. Nature in Ancient Greece”. As we walked in, the staff scanned a ticket and gave it to us.

The guide made a small introduction to Greek mythology with an emphasis on pre-Olympian “Chaos”. He mostly spoke about hybrids, such as satyrs or harpies, psychopomps (creatures that take souls to the afterlife after death), like Echidna, Cerberus, and the sirens. He also seemed to like the deity Achelous a lot. Achelous [Ἀχελώϊος] was the personification of one of the Greek rivers, a son to the Titans Tethys and Oceanus, and father of the sirens. He was able to shape-shift and would often be represented with small horns as he could turn in to a bull.

Regarding witchcraft, there is a small room in the exhibit about it, and the guide pointed out the concept of sisterhood, and some of the small artefacts and glass carafes. He mentioned the figure of Medea as the greatest witch in Greek mythology. That surprised me, because I had never associated her primarily with magic – I knew her from the Jason and the Argonauts myth, in which she originally helped Jason find the Golden Fleece, but she eventually killed the children they had together when Jason dumped her. Glad to know there was more from her than just being a “crazy lady”.

Afterwards, we moved onto the permanent exhibition. Unfortunately, the tickets we had been issued would not work any more because… reasons. Apparently, they could only be scanned once, and they had already been scanned at the exhibition. However, the person guarding the gates would not let us through without having a ticket beep – despite being with a member of the museum. It was solved quite quickly, but it gave off the feeling of everything being very disorganised.

In the permanent exhibition we mostly saw Talayotic and Iberian talismans and jewellery, then we moved onto the Roman area, where he mentioned the laws regulating the Augurs (people predicting the future), and some small curse tablets that the Romans slipped into each other houses when they were vexed – curses. All in all, the visit did not feel very on topic, just a number of objects vaguely connected together by a weak narrative. And witchcraft was the weakest topic, so it seems that the heritage people have not really caught up with the times. Oh, well.

Artefacts from Naturaleza Magia y Brujería MAN

Before I left the archaeological museum, I dropped by the new “archaeological news” room (Sala de Novedades Arqueológicas). Currently, it holds the exhibit Rostros del Turuñuelo. Los relieves de Casas del Turuñuelo. Guareña, Badajoz – a name larger than the exhibit itself: “The Turuñuelo faces. The reliefs from Casas del Turuñuelo, Guareña, Badajoz”. The Turuñuelo, or Casas del Turuñuelo, archaeological site corresponds to the Tartessian culture – a mix of Palaeohispanic and Phoenician traits which flourished in the south and east of modern Spain (and a bit of Portugal) between the 11th and 5th centuries BCE.

The exhibit is a collection of five faces dating from the late period, found within the ruins of a two-storied building. It seems that the building and everything within were destroyed, set on fire, and buried intentionally. It is possible that the faces found belong to sculptures that can be recovered amongst all that material. The faces, discovered in April 2023, are the first and only human representations associated to the Tartessian culture.

The faces from Turuñuelo

After the visit, I went to have lunch. There is this place I have wanted to visit for a while and it has never panned out. I would have actually wanted to have breakfast there, but whatever – this was doable and convenient. Located near the French Institute, it is a crêperie called Prep’ La Crêpe – it would make sense to think they’re French, but in reality they belong to an English franchise. I ordered a basil crêpe classique (melted cheese, mozzarella, tomato, basil and Mediterranean sauce), a Kick-start smoothie (orange, carrot and ginger), and a Belgian (black) chocolate crêpe sucrée for dessert. All in all, it scratched an itch that I had had for a long time, and it was not bad. A bit on the pricey side, I’d say, but what is not expensive these days?

Prep' la Crêpe lunch

Afterwards, I still had a bit of time so I decided to go into the National Library Biblioteca Nacional de España, where they had transformed the book museum into something called “Hell and Marvels” El Infierno y las Maravillas, which runs through the history of printing and knowledge (marvels), then the history of book banning (hell). The exhibition continues with thoughts on how information is preserved, in books and other formats. Finally, the museum is hosting two special exhibits, one around the writer Gonzalo Torrente Ballester Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, la travesía de un creador, and a collection of historical documents belonging a noble family El archivo del Conde de Orgaz. Una ventana a la historia. The archive was really interesting, with a lot of privileges given to the family by successive kings of Spain. The former count was a member of the Friends of the Library, and the exhibition is a homage to him, aside from showing documents dating back from as far as 1220.

Hell and Marvels, National Library

I then went back to the archaeological museum Museo Arqueológico Nacional for the second visit, with another long title Il Pugilatore y la escultura monumental en el Mediterráneo Occidental Antiguo: Cerdeña, Baleares y la Península Ibérica “The Boxer and monumental sculptures in the ancient Western Mediterranean Sea”. The sculpture Il Pugilatore, one of of the Nuragic giants found in the Mont’e Prama archaeological site in Sardinia, Italy. This ambassador giant, who travels the world to introduce people to his culture, is called Manneddu, and he is the statue in best conditions. He would have had a glove in his hand, and a dagger pointing forward, and his chest would have been painted red.

Il Pugilatore

The guide explained that these sculptures – archers, warriors, wrestlers and boxers – were supposed to be armed, but no weapons from either the period or the culture have ever been found. The giants were found, purposely moved and destroyed, in a necropolis for young men. The sculpture also had “little brothers” with the same poses, made in bronze, which have been preserved. That is how the archaeologists know the different weapons and stances they had. The giants are considered the first monumental anthropomorphic sculptures in the coasts of the western Mediterranean Sea, and the only ones in Sardinia.

We also heard about the similarities between the Nuragic towers, which were used for water management and as meeting points, and Talayotic ones in the Balearic Islands. Then, the guide ended up talking about the bronze bull heads that represent Talayotic cultures, and insinuating that they might have been brought from somewhere else…

Talayotic bull heads

The visit ended there. I then wandered around the museum for a little longer, then checked the Christmas market – and a classical merry-go-round similar to what I rode the previous week. Since it was dark already, the lights were on, but it was raining on and off, so the weather was not nice enough to wander around for long. Thus, I headed to the train to get home.

Classic Merry-go-round in a winter night

11th December 2024: CBA, hotpot and lights (Madrid, Spain)

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Since I was meeting my sibling for the yearly event of Naturaleza Encendida in Madrid in the evening, I decided get there early and make the most out of the day. As I arrived, I headed to the Círculo de Bellas Artes (literally “Fine Arts Circle”). The CBA is a sort of NGO dedicated to culture and the arts. Its headquarters host many activities such as exhibitions, theatre plays, concerts, lectures… The building was designed by Antonio Palacios, one of my favourite architects. It has seven floors, some of them used for events, others for offices. There is even a small theatre.

The CBA was running an exhibition called “Messenger Species” Especies Mensajeras, by artist Álvaro Soler-Arpa. It is a collection of pieces created from animal bones and items found in dumps. Born in Gerona in 1974, Soler-Arpa is a multifaceted artist who does publicity illustration and creates distressing sculptures using animal bones as its medium to make the viewer to think about waste and pollution. This exhibition of modern art is described as “ecological art for reflection”. I thought that it could be either really good or a holier-than-thou approach, but my curiosity was piqued.

The exhibit collects selected pieces from four series of sculptures: “Toxic Evolution” (Evolución tóxica), “Devastated Nature” (Naturaleza devastada), “Design-methastasis” (Diseño-metástasis) and “Sculptures from the End of the World” (Esculturas del fin del mundo). It was… disturbing, but in a good way. It did not feel preachy. The idea is that nature is affected by the consumerism in current society, but not dying – adapting to it. The imagined futuristic animals are a warning sent through time – nature is resilient and it will survive. Us humans? Maybe not if we do not get any better.

Álvaro Soler-Arpa's Especies Mensajeras

There was another exhibition in the building about the consequences of war, but I decided I could not stomach that one. However, I had the access ticket, so I could take the glass lift to the famous terrace of the building – the one that kicked off a trend of opening terraces in Madrid to watch the skyline while having a drink. It was too cold and too closed to have anything, but I did get a nice view, especially of the Palacio de Telecomunicaciones and the Spanish language Institute Instituto Cervantes, both designed by Antonio Palacios too. The terrace is mostly flat, with a bar and an impressive sculpture of Minerva made in bronze by Juan Luis Vassallo. Minerva – Roman goddess of wisdom and art – is the symbol of the CBA. There is also a smaller and higher structure that looks like it could hold an even better view, but that was closed off.

Skyline from Azotea Círculo Bellas Artes

The CBA building has many cool spaces, such as the ball room (Salón de Baile) or the colonnade room (Sala de Columnas). However, my favourite part of the building are.. the stairs. They are designed as a double staircase with mirrors at the landings, and coloured windows alongside the steps. One of the sides is less bright now, because a building was erected and blocks the sun. I still find the staircase superb, so I hung around there for a while until the security guard gave me a weird look.

Stairs Círculo Bellas Artes

I left the CBA and walked down the street Calle Alcalá and stopped at Galerías Canalejas just to see what kind of decorations they had. It turned out to nutcrackers and elves inside and a huge Christmas tree outside. I still cannot afford anything they sell there.

Chrismas at Galerías Canalejas

I continued down towards the square Plaza de Oriente, where there was a classic merry-go-round – empty and ready to be ridden. Thus, since I have no shame, I went on it. The salesperson was incredibly kind, since I was the only rider – and an adult at that – and yet they directed me to a horse which moved up and down and showed me how to climb on it.

Then, I backtracked to the shop Turrones Casa 1880 in the street Calle Arenal, which hosts a small Museo del Turrón. Turrón is a typical Spanish confectionery eaten mostly at Christmas. It is mainly made out of processed almonds, and 1880 is probably the most famous brand – and it prides itself on the most expensive one. I am not a fan of turrón, to be honest, but it was almost Christmas, and if I was ever going to do it, that was the right time frame. The museum is mostly an audiovisual in a decorated cellar, with a photo-op, but the staff was really nice.

At 14:30 sharp, I met up with my sibling for a restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try for a while 壹锅火锅 Hotpot de Sichuan. Hotpot [火锅, huǒguō] is a Chinese type of stew based on a stock or soup that is kept simmering in the table itself, and you just grab the raw ingredients and dip them in the broth to cook them – imagine a fondue with broth instead of cheese. We ordered a menu for two, a pot with two broths, one mushroom-based and one meat-based. The dips were spring onion, coriander (which was not used, because I hid it), shrimp mince, thin beef slices, tofu stripes, Chinese black mushrooms, cabbage, and rice noodles, along with two sauces – one slightly spicy, and my beloved sesame and peanut sauce. The food was great, but at 15:40, the waiters popped up to tell us that they wanted to close the restaurant, and then stood up next to us until we finished and left. It was more than a bit awkward, so we hurried up to do so. While the food was great, the situation spoilt our experience a little, I think. We were still eating, not slouching around. I am not sure I would want to go back…

Afterwards, my sibling had to do some shopping, so we spent a while going up and down some shops and a department store, before we headed out to Naturaleza Encendida in the park Parque Enrique Tierno Galván. This is a yearly light show organised in Madrid parks – it used to take place in the Botanical Gardens, before it was moved to a larger area. The 2024 edition is titled Naturaleza Encendida: Life.

Naturaleza Encendida Life

To be fair, I was a little bit disappointed, as “Life” turned out to have mostly figures reused from the last few events. Though the organisers tried to build a narrative of water, land and air topics, the novelty had worn off. It was not bad, but the show keeps getting more and more expensive every year, with fewer and fewer perks for the VIP tiers. Furthermore, the new larger location does not imply more light sculptures – they’re just spread farther apart so they can fit more people without it feeling crowded, so it simply takes longer to walk it through. This has its advantages and disadvantages – it was good last year when we had to go on a weekend but this time around it just felt… colder. They also tried to give the whole thing an ecologist spin, and this time it did come out preachy… I mean, it is a show of lights, which technically could count as light pollution, without any actual… purpose… but charging you to watch pretty lights.

Naturaleza Encendida Life

Naturaleza Encendida Life

That was the end of the day, and we just headed home afterwards, but aside having to wait for the train for over half an hour, nothing to report on that end.

28th November 2024: Parallel Universes (Madrid, Spain)

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Whenever a Marvel film comes out, my parent always comments on how they used to read the comics when they were young – probably they belonged to the first generation of comic readers in this country (and I have to confess over the years I salvaged quite a few “relics” from the attic at the old house). Thus, when the exhibition Marvel: Universe of Superheroes opened, I thought I would bring them along. I booked us tickets on the 28th of November at 10:00 for the event, which was happening in the convention centre IFEMA in Madrid.

By pure chance, my parents received an invitation to Feriarte, a collectionism fair – that is what we thought at that moment. They were not particularly into it, so I asked if I could have the invitation. When I checked it out, I realised that we could visit Feriarte on the same day as Marvel: Universe of Superheroes, since the dates overlapped, and it was also at IFEMA, just a couple of pavilions down. My parent agreed after some coaxing. Finally, I offered to take them to a “fun place” for lunch, and we had a plan.

Marvel has traditionally been one of the most important comic publishing houses in the US. Its key writer / creator was Stan Lee, who came up with some of the most iconic characters in the medium – Spiderman, Thor, Iron Man… It is true that the first superheroes to succeed on the big screen belonged to Marvel’s competition, DC – Christopher Reeve’s Superman in the 1970s and Michael Keaton’s Batman the following decade. However, Marvel kicked off a golden age of cinema superheroes. While DC festered in the darkest, more depressed Batman, Marvel released Iron Man, which took superhero films in a new direction – they turned from fun-for-fans to funny-for-all (of course, purists would never be satisfied, but what are you going to do?). Robert Downing Jr. had a lot to do with this boom, dominating the scene whether the film carried the name of his character – Iron Man – or not. For about a decade, Marvel dominated the blockbuster season, with explosions, one-liners and good-triumphs-over-evil plots. Eventually the bubble burst, as they always do, and things went downhill. However, companies are still willing to milk out any cash cow, and as long as Marvel makes money, it will be producing stuff.

Less known than the film boom is the fact that with the launching of Marvel Studios, the parent company also became a transmedia master. The idea of transmedia is not new, and refers to tying stories in different publishing methods (Hasbro was doing this with GI Joe back in the 80s already). However, Marvel has it down to an art. Samuel L. Jackson was cast as Nick Fury because a comic artist based the revamped character on him, so now Nick Fury statuettes look like Samuel L. Jackson. Since Disney acquired Marvel Studios, the so-called MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is so interwoven with the Disney+ shows that neither can be followed on its own. Funnily enough, this has not washed over to the comics that much, save for the special Alligator Loki that I kept looking for in London earlier in 2024.

Well, one of the many facets of Marvel’s outreach octopus is organising exhibitions. I suspect that they are all the same under different names though. The one which took place in the IFEMA convention centre in Madrid was Marvel: Universe of Superheroes. The exhibition runs through the history of Marvel from its beginning, hailing the works of Stan Lee and running through the influence of the Comics Code Authority (CCA), which censored the content of the media – and made the evolution of American and European comics diverge forever. The pages from that time are mostly lost, so elements like the first issue of a Marvel comic ever, or original Spiderman and Fantastic Four dating back from the 60s are kind of amazing – and belong to private collectors who have lent (or rented out, one guesses) them to the organisers. Most of the exhibition, however, focuses on the MCU, with quite a few costumes and items from the films and Disney+ series. There were life-sized statues, too – or at least to scale for characters like The Thing or Hulk. There was an interactive game where an on-screen you would wear Iron Man’s suit and practice-shoot with it.

We hilariously ran into a preschool day trip, with the teacher completely made things up as she went and kept trying to keep a bunch of rowdy kids in line – without much success.

The first area ran through the history of American comics and Marvel itself, purely as a comic publisher. Then, it moved into the film area, starting with Black Panther, revindicating his status as the first black superhero. Then there was a room on Spiderman, one of the most beloved characters, even if he was almost not made because editors thought a spider-related superhero would not sell. This was probably the last room focusing heavily on comics. Hulk got a small room to share with She-Hulk. Afterwards, the MCU took over, with film memorabilia of Iron Man, Thor and Captain America. The following area was a bit of a mix, with Wandavision, X-Men, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Moon Knight, Ghost Rider… which ended in a very psychedelic room for Doctor Strange. The final room was “Marvel in Space”, with The Marvels (Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau and Ms. Marvel) and Guardians of the Galaxy. Considering the huge hit that Agatha All Along was, I was surprised not to find any references to it, but then I realised that the exhibition predates the series.

Marvel Universe of Superheroes

Marvel Universe of Superheroes: Black Panther, Spiderman, Iron Man

Marvel Universe of Superheroes: Doctor Strange, Mighty Thor, Groot

I would have wanted a memento, but none of the items in the shop appealed to me. Besides, everything was too expensive, I thought. I had no idea. We left the exhibit and marched into the inner pavilion where Feriarte took place. Feriarte is way more than the collectionism event I had originally thought – it is an antiques and art fair, with items that range from archaeological artefacts to the most modern pieces. Our minds were blown. There were 64 art galleries and archaeology specialists from all over the world carrying prehistoric items, Egyptian mortuary artefacts (including a whole sarcophagus), Grecian sculptures and vases, Japanese samurai armours and weapons, paintings, contemporary art (Miró, Dalí, Chillida, Sorolla…), furniture, jewellery and watches, reproductions of Medieval manuscripts… And I thought that the Marvel shop was expensive! I could have afforded… a tiny Egyptian scarab smaller than the nail on my little finger. I was shocked when I saw the first three paintings by Miró (a surrealist painter from the beginning of the 20th century), but it turns out they sell like doughnuts among the collectors…

There was a “collectionism for beginners” area, with tips to “start collecting with pieces under 5,000 €”. When thinking about private collections, I’ve often gone with Indiana Jones’ line “it belongs in a museum”, but lately, with the attacks on art by climate activists, and the fact that most of Marvel’s memorabilia was recovered from private collectors… I’m not so sure. I might have started changing my mind. Then again, not really, because when the original fossil of Tyrannosaurus rex Stan was auctioned and I was sad it would end up in private hands and I would never seen it – good news, it was sold to a museum, though I’m not sure I’ll ever make it to the soon-to-open Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi. Needless to say, we left Feriarte empty-handed, and very amused that you go through security and X-ray when you go out, not when you go in. A couple of days after, I read that an organised gang had stolen jewels and watches worth 390,000 €…

Feriarte 2024

Feriarte 2024

We retrieved the car, and got lost trying to get to the shopping centre La Vaguada to have lunch at Runni In Market, the first of the Running Sushi franchise I visited (and got lost trying to get there too, so… maybe it’s just difficult). My parent loved the concept. However, I was peeved that the table before us kept getting all the lychee and mochi when the time came for dessert. Mean!

Runni Sushi In Market

We left afterwards to head home, having caught a glimpse of the secret life of superheroes and what kind of décor rich people have in their houses. Parallel universes indeed…

22nd November 2024: “Wicked” (film) on opening day (Madrid, Spain)

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There was a time when you could mute words on social media to avoid spoilers. Since the algorithms have taken over and you can’t curate what you see any more, I decided that the best way to avoid Wicked spoilers was trying to see it as early as possible, preferably on opening day. Ideally, on the first screening on opening day, an English version.

For a change, “ideally” worked. At least, I found a screening at 15:45 on the day the film came out. It was a cinema with Spanish subtitles but I can live with that. I have seen the musical twice in the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London and I’ve loved it both times. Not only I’m a firm believer in the message of Defying Gravity, I also give regular thought to Dancing Through Life. Sometimes I also listen to No One Mourns the Wicked and get all philosophical…

Anyway, I headed off to Madrid with next-to-no information and no expectations, hoping to enjoy the film. I had been slightly surprised that so many tickets were already booked when I bought my own, but I gave it no more than a couple of seconds’ worth of attention, I just thought I was running late since I made the decision the previous weekend before heading out to see Ha·Ya·To . Since the film was rather early in the afternoon, I had to get to Madrid with time for a bite. One of my options was Yatai Market but in the end I decided to grab brunch at Toby’s Brunch Club, where they run an all-day brunch (here I went, cheating the system again, just like I did at the James Joyce – twice in one week, too). I tried to book online but the system only took reservations for two or more. Since the Internet said that it was usually quite busy, just thought I still had Yatai as a backup plan…

I arrived at Atocha Station and walked towards the brunch place. As I did, I had to walk past Caixa Forum, which is still running the exhibit on Patagonian dinosaurs, and the Patagotitan smiled at me. I, of course, smiled back.

Patagotitan mayorum

The very-busy brunch place was empty – weekday “crowds” I guess. I was the only customer there for the duration. Usually, not being able to book for myself on my own discourages me from a place, but I’ve been wanting a “typical” brunch for a while now. The brunch consisted of a cold drink, coffee or tea and two courses (22€). For my cold drink, I ordered orange juice, and for the hot one a coffee latte. The first course was a basket of breads with butter, jams and tomato paste, and a yoghurt with fresh fruit. As my second course, I ordered eggs Benedict with smoked salmon. Because I really wanted eggs Benedict and I can’t cook them to save my life. Everything was delicious, especially the yoghurt. The eggs were perfect. I think this would kill me before noon though, so glad I used it as lunch.

Toby's breakfast club brunch

After my brunch / lunch I still had some time so I dropped by the art gallery Museo del Prado. I used my museum card Tarjeta de Museos Estatales and the lady at the ticket booth told me she had never seen a card like that before. She took it to the back shop, and when she came back, it turned out that the card had stuck to another card, which explained why she was confused. I finally managed to get in, and spent about an hour there. There was a small exhibit called El Taller de Rubens (Rubens’ workshop) which analysed the master’s works and that of his apprentices which was very interesting.

Afterwards, I walked towards Yelmo Cines Ideal (passing by and waving at the Patagotitan again) to watch Wicked. When I got there, the cinema was still closed, but as soon as I turned away to snoop into a shop across the street, the doors opened. I found my seat and I found myself seated between two groups of high school and university students, who were complaining that their life was very hard, and that they had barely had the time to eat lunch before getting to the cinema. And a few of them were threatening to cry. And they were telling each other not to sing along. I had not realised there was such a big following of Wicked from the younger crowd…

After a few minutes of hearing them babble excitedly, I realised that all of them had listened to the songs on the Internet, or something, but they had never had the chance to seen the musical themselves – it’s debuting in Spain in autumn 2025. It made me realise how lucky I am to be able to jump onto a red-eye flight at a random weekend and go to London, and be there for the 14:30 performance at the Apollo Victoria Theatre.

Wicked film poster

In general, I enjoyed the film. More than I believed I would, because I went with zero expectations and I had managed to avoid any kind of spoiler and previous knowledge, except that Jeff Goldblum was the Wizard. The main cast includes Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande as Glinda, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, Marissa Bode as Nessa (kudos for an actual disabled actor playing a disabled character!), Ethan Slater as Boq, Jeff Goldblum as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; and Peter Dinklage as Dr. Dillamond (voice).

I do not believe what I am going to say – but I thought Goldblum was the weakest character. I mean, he keeps playing himself, and Jeff Goldblum is not the Wizard (I had the same feeling when I watched Jurassic World: Dominion; he played himself, not Ian Malcolm). On the contrary, Michelle Yeoh was fantastic, her sole presence in a take stole the whole screen. I enjoyed seeing the animal characters a lot, as it is the bit of the musical that always feels a bit off. The logistics of landscaping Oz was a bit awkward at points, but I guess that’s theatrics and not… geography.

I found the music decent. As for me the most important thing was for the story to be faithful to the musical – which is more up my alley than the novel – I was rather satisfied. The best song, in my opinion was What is this feeling?, the camerawork was stunning. It was also great to see the cameo of the actors who portrayed Glinda and Elphaba on Broadway for the first time, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel – known worldwide today for Frozen’s anthem Let it go. The library scene and choreography for Dancing through life was also impressive.

What I saw of the subtitles was not a good sign though, because the message of No One Mourns the Wicked loses most of its meaning if you translate it as “she’s finally dead”. However, I am rather good at ignoring subtitles anyway. I am not sold on Glinda being all pink either. Too many Legally Blonde vibes there, I prefer ice-blue.

The film ended at the end of the first act of the musical, with the “main event” of sorts – Defying Gravity. Very showy, okay music-wise. It was more visually impacting than musically, and my mind was dubbing it with Kristin Chenoweth’s version anyway. At this point, half the theatre was sobbing, which I found slightly amusing.

All in all, I enjoyed the day and the film. I am looking forward to the second part, and having affordable Wicked merchandise I don’t have to save for special occasions. After leaving the cinema, I walked back, and since it was cold, I got there in record time – and then I had to wait 40 minutes for the train because of course I did.

7th November 2024: The Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute (Madrid, Spain)

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I know you do not believe me when I say I don’t like guided visits, but they are the only way to do some stuff – such as stepping into the Stonehenge circle, or basically anything managed by the Madrid city hall. The Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España IPCE is a governmental organisation whose functions are preservation and conservation of cultural items, research, communication, and safekeeping of the documents in its archive. It can only be visited on certain dates, by appointment, and with a guided visit. I managed to secure a free Thursday visit at noon, so I headed out to Madrid. Surprisingly, neither trains nor underground had issues, so I was over an hour early on site. The IPCE is located in its own building in the area known as “University City” (Ciudad Universitaria), close to the Fine Arts faculty – by design – and the President’s official residence – by chance.

The headquarters building was commissioned in 1965 to architects Fernando Higueras and Antonio Miró. The architects’ original project had to be severely modified, but it became a very different structure. Construction was stalled for years, and the building was not usable until 1985 – when new remodelling was tackled. The building is circular, nicknamed the “Crown of Thorns” (La Corona de Espinas) because at the top there are “spikes” of sorts. Top-view, the structure is divided in 30 sectors, with 56 semi-sectors and four empty ones for the main access staircase and gate. It has four floors and at least one basement. It was built in concrete and glass, with some cork floors, but lacking plaster or any kind of concealment for the structural items. The centre of the building is an open space with a glass dome, and serves as reception. Unlike the original project, this space is covered with a glass vault. The interior has a lot of plants, even three small “gardens” mainly with hanging plants. The building is considered an important cultural asset BIC (Bien de Interés Cultural), and these plants are protected along with the structure.

Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute building

The visit consisted of an introduction to the building and the work which is carried out there. We saw the model of the original project – the only similarity is that it was also vaguely circular. We climbed the stairs to the upper floors to snoop at the rooftop and the “thorns”, and then rode the lifts down to the basements to see some X-rays of paintings and sculptures. Back on the main floor, we were shown into painting restoration workshop – they were working on Maerten de Vos’ Abundance, having repaired the work and erased some extra (puritan) clothing to make the goddess Ceres look less… naked. Finally, we were invited into the library, which is round and has three levels. It has natural light due to its own skylight, a decorative glass dome in the middle of the main open area.

Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute inside

The visit started at noon, and it lasted two hours. Heading out to the centre of Madrid would take around half an hour of walking and underground. Thus, it gave me the opportunity to book a late 15:00 lunch. Since I was lucky with my connections, I was in the Cuzco neighbourhood almost half an hour in advance.

It was the perfect opportunity to go get some groceries at the Chinese supermarket Ibero China Madrid in the street Calle General Margallo. While I needed some items, I was distracted as I walked the “geek” fizzy drink aisle. There is a company called Ocean Bomb which makes sodas – sparking water, yoghurt drinks and bubble milk tea with “creative packaging”. I was aware of them because a friend collects the Sailor Moon ones and we checked for them in London in 2023. Well, now I went and found myself some Saint Seiya sodas – Gemini Saga (grape yoghurt flavour) Aries Mu (apple yoghurt flavour) and Virgo Shaka (peach yoghurt flavour). They were out in 2023, but I had not heard about them, it is the first time I saw them. And of course, I bought them (I have no idea if they are official or not, but the publicity I found afterwards has the Toei stamp on it, so I’m hoping they are).

For lunch, I had a reservation at Comic Planet. Last time I was there, a member of the party was late, so in order to keep the table, we ordered appetizers. They were great, but afterwards there was no stomach-space for dessert. And dammit, I wanted some dessert – particularly, I wanted pancakes. I had been looking at coming back to Comic Planet for a while just to have them, but it never worked out. This was finally my moment. I had a lemonade, some nachos – which were delicious – and I finally got to eat my pancakes – which are green and called Hulkcakes, and come with whipped cream, brownie and shortcake crumbles , and around ¾ of a strawberry. I ended up extremely full, but happy.

Comic Planet lunch

Oh, and I was confused because it was early November but… already Christmas in Comic Planet!

Comic Planet Christmas decoration

I left the restaurant and headed towards the archaeological museum Museo Arqueológico Nacional, which is running a temporal exhibit regarding Nature in Ancient Greece “Between Chaos and Cosmos: Nature in Ancient Greece” Entre Caos y Cosmos. Naturaleza en la Antigua Grecia. It hosts over one hundred pieces of classical Grecian art. Most belong to the museum’s own collection, acquired from the 19th century collector Marquis of Salamanca, and some are national and international loans. Since a large percentage of items were original and not replicas, it was really cool. Then again, I have to admit I have a thing for Grecian vases, especially with mythological motifs.

Entre Caos y Cosmos. Naturaleza en la Antigua Grecia

The exhibition was not big, so later I used my National Museums card Tarjeta de Museos Estatales to go and take a walk around the permanent exhibition. There is a loaned exhibit from the Mont’e Prama archaeological site in Sardinia, Italy. Mont’e Prama was discovered in 1974, unearthing remains from the Nuragic culture (1800 – 700 BC). This Bronze Age civilisation created large sculptures called the Giants if Mont’e Parma (Giganti di Mont’e Prama), depicting wrestlers, archers, warriors and boxers. One of these colossi Il Pugilatore (The Boxer) has been brought to the MAN for display for a few months. Boxers were characterised for having a glove with metal reinforcements on their right hands. Il Pugilatore is the largest sculpture, two metres tall and 300 kilograms heavy – which has been travelling across the world to promote the archaeological site. There was… something imposing about the whole thing, and not even its size. Some kind of… presence there. It made me want to visit Sardinia, to be honest (and it is much, much affordable than Easter Island…), so I guess the promotion… worked?

Il Pugilatore

I took a stroll through the permanent collection afterwards, especially the Iberian and Talayotic areas, because I am fascinated with them these days – and I shall make the most out of my pass for as long as I can. It was getting dark though, and the commute to the IPCE had taken long, so I headed back.

Museo Arqueológico Nacional

16th October 2024: San Francisco Ballet’s Swan Lake at Teatro Real (Madrid, Spain)

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While heavy metal and hard rock concerts are my form of meditation, there is something magical about ballet in general and Swan Lake in particular. Also, in my defence, I’ve loved Swan Lake since before I first saw Yoshiki play part of it on piano. Swan Lake is a three-act ballet written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1876. The story is widely known – Evil sorcerer Von Rothbart curses princess Odette to live as a swan during the day and only return to her human self at night. Nearby, prince Siegfried is trying to avoid all his obligations, and goes hunting. The two meet and fall in love, and Siegfried invites Odette to a ball where he will propose and both will live happily ever after since obviously love is stronger than black magic. Except, at the ball Von Rothbart shows up with another lady, Odile, the black swan, who seduces Siegfried, and he proposes to her, thinking she is Odette. Drama ensues. Siegfried realises that he has the wrong girl, and runs to the lake where he first met Odette.

Now, depending on the version, after Siegfried and Rothbart fight, the ending can go several ways, and I’ve seen a few. There is a standard happy ending – true love conquers all, Von Rothbart is defeated, and Siegfried and Odette get their happily ever after. In another version, Odette commits suicide as Siegfried’s mistake has made the curse unbreakable. Another option is that she dies of heartbreak. Her death yields to a very epic ending image of Siegfried lifting Odette’s body into the air, and Von Rothbart is defeated by Siegfried’s grief and true love. Finally, there is the option of both Odette and Siegfried dying, and the power of their loving sacrifice defeats Von Rothbart. Note how the evil sorcerer “loses” every time. However, in the original script – which I’ve actually never seen on stage – both Siegfried and Odette drown in the lake and Von Rothbart sort of wins. I’ve always found that interesting. 

Anyway, I really enjoy watching Swan Lake and trying to anticipate which ending the choreographer has chosen. I have to admit that I’m personally partial to the ending where Odette dies of heartbreak, because while I love the ballet – and the black swan – Siegfried is an idiot and with this ending he gets to live with the knowledge that he proposed to the wrong girl.

Back in March I read that the San Francisco Ballet was taking their version of Swan Lake to Madrid. I asked my parents if they wanted to tag along and since I had not received an answer by August, I checked for tickets. Whilst Teatro Real tends to be a bit on the expensive side, it is rather easy to find an unoccupied single seat in a good location just searching a bit. I could not really afford floor seats but there was a very nice single seat on the first row of the third floor that I soon got my clutches on.

I had planned to take the train to Madrid to be there around 16:00. I wanted to go see an exhibition in the manor Palacio de Longoria, since that is the only way to enter it and last time I could not climb any of the stairs to get a good look at the skylight. Unfortunately, there were issues with the previous train, which got stuck in Atocha. My own train could not enter the station, and we were just a few metres away. It is illegal to walk on the tracks, so the train driver, of course, would not open the doors. We were stopped there for over an hour. I was sitting in the first carriage, and some people lost their nerves – they started banging on the driver’s door, and one of them even grabbed the emergency hammer and tried to break the glass on the doors. Thus, I decided to just get off the train when we finally reached Atocha and walk towards the theatre.

Swan Lake promo

I had arranged to meet with a friend for a quick coffee around 18:00 near the theatre. There is a Starbucks within the same building, and it is easy to find a sitting space. At 19:15, we said goodbyes and I entered the theatre Teatro Real and found my seat. What I was not able to find was a brochure.

San Francisco Ballet artists:
  Orchestra director: Martin West
  Odette / Odile: Wona Park
  Prince Siegfried: Wei Wang
  Von Rothbart: Jakub Groot
  Choreography: Helgi Tomasson
  Artistic Director: Tamara Rojo

The show was fantastic. Wei Wang as Siegfried had a lot of weight in the first act – sometimes a lot of his work is given to another character. In this ballet, the ballerina dances two different roles, which sometimes feel like three – First-act Odette, who is nice and falling in love with Siegfried, Odile in the second act, the Black Swan seductress, and the Last-act Odette, who is dying… Wona Park did a fantastic job with her body language in order to show both Odette and Odile.

The corps de ballet was so numerous that I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen so many swans on stage. The set-up was beautiful and the coordination was incredible. At some point there were 32 swan-dancers there. It was fantastic, and I enjoyed every second of it. The ballet lasted 2 hours 40 minutes with a twenty-five minute intermission.

During the break, I went off to find a brochure – not because I did not know the plot, but because I wanted the names of the artists. I thought that one day I needed to try the intermission dinner at Teatro Real, but since they have the “to share” dishes, I don’t think they’ll take bookings for one.

Main dancers accepting the ovation

Swan dancers accepting the ovation

Dancers accepting the ovation and musical director accepting the ovation

The show was over before 22:00, and the waters had calmed down on the train front. They were still running late, but there were no aggressively frustrated passengers on the platform nor the train. I made it home just before midnight.

27th August 2024: Arganzuela Greenhouse, British Cemetery and a ‘palaeontological site’, Madrid (Spain)

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I have been feeling dizzy on and off these last few months, so I’m avoiding long drives – that has left me dependent on public transport, which is not too reliable. Thus, instead of all the hikes I wanted to take, I’ve been doing day trips to Madrid.

My first stop was in the district of Arganzuela. Although I’ve been to Matadero a few times before, I had never wandered to the side, where a boring-looking metal roof peeked over some trees. I recently discovered that I should have ventured beyond the brick walls that close the Matadero area. This building is called Arganzuela Crystal Palace Palacio de Cristal de la Arganzuela, and is an example of the wrought iron functional architecture of the early 20th century.

Invernadero de Arganzuela - structure

The building was designed by Luis Bellido y González and erected between 1908 and 1928 as a vegetable warehouse. In 1992, the building was remodelled – the wrought iron structure was consolidated and the original fibre cement panels were substituted by glass ones. The warehouse, 7,100 square metres, was divided into different sections, each one transformed into a different greenhouse: two for tropical plants, one for subtropical species, and the last one for desert plats and cacti. The centre has four long fountains with tiny sprouts and waterfalls. I expected a few plants to be in second bloom, but apparently that does not work for tropical or desert species?

Invernadero de Arganzuela - inside

I then hopped onto the underground towards the district of Carabanchel, where I could visit an unusual place – the British Cemetery Cementerio Británico de Madrid. Around 1854, the British government bought the terrain with the intention to turn it into a cemetery, since during that time Catholic cemeteries did not accept interments from other denominations.

The burial ground hosts about 600 graves and about 1,000 tombs, most of them British citizens – but there are also Americans, Germans, Swiss and French, even some Spanish. Though it is now closed to new burials, in the 20th century it was open to non-Christians. Inscriptions on the markers are in Latin, English, French, German, Hebrew, Cyrillic and Spanish. Some of the people buried here include part of the Georgian royal family, historian Alice Bache Gould y Quincy, members of the fashion family Loewe, photographer Charles Clifford… There is also a memorial to the American soldiers who died in a plane accident. There is only one pantheon, belonging to the Bauer family – owners of an important commercial emporium in the 19th century.

British Cemetery Madrid

I have to say that the charm of a Victorian cemetery fades more than a little in the middle of the Spanish plateau’s scorching summer. Though there are several artistic markers – ever-present angels, a couple of tree trunks, and a very gothic grave – most of them are simple headstones with a cross or just a name. One of the graves asked a good question: If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are? All in all, it was a quaint little cemetery that felt slightly out of place in the middle of Madrid.

Afterwards, I went back into the underground. The cemetery is a couple of stops away from Carpetana. On the connection, I got checked for a ticket, sort of – they were controlling that passengers had a valid ticket, and just as the train was arriving they waved me through, maybe not complaining about it and just looking for the card made me trustworthy or something? (For the record, I did have a ticket). Anyway, I reached my destination in about 10 minutes or so. When they were working on the Carpetana underground station, they found a few fossilised bones and jaws, and they have turned it into another of the spots of Museos de Metro de Madrid – palaeontological site Yacimiento Paleontológico de Carpetana. I saw reproductions a few mammal jaws and took a picture. Good thing I was close, this would not have warranted a trip from further away.

Reproduction of the prehistorical habitat of Carpetana

I had a reservation for late lunch, but I decided to cancel it. I wanted to check a shop for something I needed, and that would take me in the complete opposite direction from the restaurant. Instead, after the shop, I grabbed a Matcha Frappuchino and headed back to the train station to return home.

Starbucks Matcha Frapuccino with a lot of whipped cream

8th August 2024: The Museums in Moncloa (Madrid, Spain)

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It’s quite hot out there, but I decided to hit a couple of museums in Madrid. A few months back, I got a card for the national museums, thinking I was getting a better deal than I did. Though it is true that you can get enter (most of) the national museums for free, you have to ID yourself, so you still have to queue, which is what I was expecting to avoid. However, it has at least pushed me to try and see a couple of museums I would not really visit (or even be aware of!) otherwise.

There are two museums in the district of Moncloa-Aravaca, an area I’m not usually around. One, I was curious about. The other is one I would not have even considered without the card: the Costume or Fashion Museum and Ethnographic Heritage Research Centre Museo del traje. Centro de Investigación del Patrimonio Etnológico (CIPE). It is a collection of pieces of clothing, textiles and accessories from the 17th century onwards, and I’m sure it is amazing if you know anything about fashion… which I don’t. The museum is organised chronologically, with a few pieces from the Middle Ages, then fabrics, costumes and complements since they became a thing.

There is also a collection of traditional outfits from different regions throughout Spain. The visit finishes with some of the big names in fashion, including Coco Chanel, Balenciaga, or Christian Dior. There was also an area for visually-impaired visitors, which allowed them to touch mannequins and fabrics from different style periods in history.

Costume and Fashion Museum Madrid

They were running a temporary exhibition called Vistiendo un jardín (Wearing a garden). It deals with the nature and flowers in fabric and costumes from the Baroque period onwards. They were in the middle of a guided visit so there was a big group, and I could only have a quick walk.

Wearing a garden Temporary exhibition

I walked over to the museum of the Americas Museo de América. The institution exhibits archaeological and ethnographical artefacts from the Americas, alongside art from the Palaeolithic period to the present, with a strong presence of Colonial art.

The origin of the collection was the Royal Cabinet of Natural history that Charles III had established in 1771. The collection increased with objects brought from discovery expeditions and Spanish colonies in America, especially those unearthed during archaeological excavations. In 1815, the science artefacts from the cabinet were integrated into what became the National Museum of Natural Sciences, and in 1868 the antiquities, ethnography, and art were transferred to the Museum of Archaeology. In 1941, the American artefacts were transferred to the newly formed museum. A more recent source has been that of donation and legacies.

Nowadays, the collection comprises around 25,000 artefacts and about 2,500 of them are exhibited – though the most important ones are copies due to “conservation issues”. The archaeological artefacts include Mayan, Inca, Aztec, Nazca, Amazonian, and even from North American native cultures who lived in what we now call the Great Plains or Alaska. The Colonial art pieces mostly include religious art and what is called pintura de castas, which tries to represent the appearance and daily life of the peoples of mixed race, descendants of European, African and Indigenous inhabitants of the colonies. There is also a ward dedicated to modern art and social criticism against colonisation. I found the organisation of the museum a bit strange, by theme areas instead of time-and-place.

Artefacts from the Museum of the Americas

Arguably, the most important group of pieces that the museum exhibits is the so-called Tesoro de los Quimbayas (Quimbaya Treasure). The Quimbayas were a small indigenous group from precolonial America, who lived south of what is now Medellín, Colombia. They were known for their works in gold and an alloy of copper and gold called tumbaga. The treasure comprises 122 pieces, which represent about one fifth of the original findings. It is believed that the belonged to two sets of grave goods, and dates from the 5th or 6th centuries CE. The treasure was dug up during the Colombian gold fever, when archaeological items were sold for their weight in gold. The artefacts include figures, crowns, jewellery (nose- and ear-ornament, necklace beads, pins, pendants), containers, ceremonial vessels and poporos (used to keep coca leaves for religious ceremonies), and musical items such as bells.

Quimbaya treasure

I actually had been thinking about staying in Madrid and do something else, like the observatory known as Faro de Moncloa, which is literally next to the Museum of the Americas. Or a nice themed restaurant or something. But it was ridiculously hot and I just did not feel like it. It was early for lunch too, but by the time I got anywhere cool, it would be right in the middle of the rush. So I just went back into the transport system. Of course, the train was delayed. I need to stop planning around the official train schedules, especially around food times…

27th July 2024: Staying inside in Madrid’s heat (Spain)

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I was so excited when I found tickets for the historical hall at Pacífico station that I did not stop to think I had booked for late July, at 16:00, in Madrid. The heat wave was an extra, but even without it, the Spanish central plateau is not precisely known for its mild summers. However, the hall only opens once a month, and not every month, and I had never been able to find a ticket on a weekend I could go, so honestly – when I saw these tickets, I did not think about the weather, just… that I could come.

The day came, and Madrid had a heat alert. It was around 37 ºC, and I thought I would stay inside, and just head out for the visit. Unfortunately, since trains are being horrible, I needed to take one with at least an hour’s berth to make sure I reached the underground station Estación de Pacífico. When I arrived, I looked around to finally realise that the hall was at the actual platform, warded off by a very modern nondescript door. I had brought a book to pass the time, because I knew I would either have a lot of time, or I would be stressed because the train was late. I found a bench and settled down to wait somewhere I could keep an eye on the door. Visitors are not directly admitted into the hall, but they are cleared at ticket control on the other side of the platform, then go back all the way to the entrance. In our case, we waited for a bit, and the guide decided to head through the platform right as a train arrived, so everything was full. Spanish logic.

The former hall Vestíbulo de Pacífico is part of the network of Underground museums Museos de Metro de Madrid. Until it was walled off in 1966, it was the entrance to the station Estación de Pacífico, built in 1923 when the underground Line 1 was extended towards the south-west. The passengers climbed down a now-disappeared staircase and crossed the hall, which still had natural light. On the other side, there was some sort of metallic bridge with another set of stairs to access the platforms.

The station used to be part of a huge complex owned by Metro, which also comprised offices, control rooms, and the warehouse that housed the engines that created energy for the trains to run on. At the time, it was an unpopulated area, so land was cheaper. Today, most everything has been replaced by apartment buildings and only the station and the nearby Nave de Motores remain.

The whole complex was designed by architect Antonio Palacios, and the hall was built in white tiles with blue decoration – a homage to the Pacific Ocean, which gives the station its name. The hall is tiny by today’s standards, barely 119 square metres. It has three vaults that used to have skylights for the sun to light up the hall – now those are closed off as the street above them is busy. The station was renovated in the 60s so it could accommodate the longer trains, new accesses were built, and the hall closed down. That renovation was the same that made the station Estación de Chamberí close, and apparently another hall that has been uncovered in Ventas.

The hall was bricked away for almost half a century, until restoration work started in 2007. It took ten years, as budget was low and the process was labour intense – 60% of the hall had to be rebuilt. However, the final product is really good, you can see the newer tiles if you look for them, but the whole thing feels extremely well preserved. Even the staircase, which was built to access the hall after the iron bridge was destroyed, feels time-appropriate. A replica of the original doors was put up.

Pacífico Booking Hall

And right when I have seen all the five Underground museums that require appointment… I find out there is a passport of them – Pasaporte de Pasaporte de los Museos de Metro. Just my luck! Then again, maybe Metro will take these articles as proof of visit and backstamp me for them?

The visit took about one hour, then I rode the underground back towards Atocha, and bypassed it to the next station. I had decided to try my luck with the queue at modern art museum Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, part of the national network of museums covered by my card. To be honest, I do not enjoy modern art that much, so I have been putting off this one visit. However, the museum holds a piece by Pablo Picasso that has become quite socially loaded – Picasso’s Guernica, which I have always thought I ought to see at least once.

Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973) is considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. He was co-inventor of collage, co-founder of Cubism, and inventor of the assemblage (basically, collage in 3D). He painted, sculpted, and made prints, ceramics and theatre sets. I have never connected much, if at all, with the kind of art he was making. I do not really understand the limits he broke, nor whatever he wanted to express. That is why I wanted to see this artwork in particular – to try to understand.

Arguably Picasso’s most famous painting is Guernica (1937). During the Spanish Civil War, German planes bombed the Basque town of Guernica, in the north of Spain, to aid the Nationalist army. The town was destroyed, and up to 300 people lost their lives – the raid opened the northern front for Franco to reach Bilbao. British reporter George Steer wrote a scoop on the event after he witnessed the destruction, and his reports made waves internationally. Picasso, who lived in France at the time, had been commissioned a piece of artwork for the Paris World’s Fair by the Republicans (at the time the rightful government of Spain). Upon reading the news, he scrapped his original idea and painted the Guernica instead.

The painting is one of the most important artworks that the museum has. It is a huge piece, in black and white, showing the carnage. As most men were out in the battleground, the majority of victims were women and children – along with a dead soldier, a horse and a bull, most of the figures in the pairing represent women and horror. I honestly find the description of the painting more chilly that the artwork itself.

One kind of feels that the museum itself as built as a huge sarcophagus for the Guernica, and other pieces are there just to fill up the space. A sculpture by Eduardo Chillida is exhibited in the gardens. There is also a space about architecture, with blueprints and photographs, including artwork by Le Corbusier. Other artists whose work is shown include Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder… Actually, I enjoyed the museum more than I thought, as I expected only abstract art that I would not understand. I enjoyed the blueprints and photographs of buildings, and the actual building too.

Exhibits at Museum Reina Sofía

I then headed up Paseo del Prado to find one of the local cultural centres. I was ridiculously amused when I reached the corner where CaixaForum stands. I was on my phone, and when I looked up, I saw the Patagotitan “looking” at me. It gave me a laugh.

Patagotiatan at Caixaforum

The cultural centre Serrería Belga is running a Japan-themed exhibit, divided in parts:

  • Kinpaku. Naturaleza, poder e imaginación en el arte japonés (Kinpaku: Nature, power and imagination in Japanese art): Kinpaku [金箔] refers to gold leaf artwork, often used in decoration in classical Japanese culture. A private collector has lent their items to exhibit – windscreens and fans, all painted in gold, so they can be enjoyed by everyone.
  • Kimono, identidad cambiante: un siglo a pie de calle (Kimono, changing identities: a century on the streets): Kimono [着物] is the traditional Japanese clothing – one that unlike many others is still common wear. There were twenty of these, including accessories.
  • Expokon: A series of panels discussing different hits in sports manga and derivatives.
  • Japan International Manga Award: Panels drawn by the Spanish artists who have won the awards in different years.
  • Kamishibai: Kamishibai [紙芝居] is (was) a form of Japanese street theatre using a small paper theatre with pictures to tell the stories. There were several sets of stories, some classical, some more modern.
  • Manga Kids Academy: A few panels showing Japanese school life through manga and anime.
  • Itadakimanga!: A series of panels showing different foods popular in manga and anime.
  • Gêmu: cultura visual y videojuego japonés (Gēmu: visual culture and Japanese video games): Some items regarding video games, and even a few arcade machines for playing.

Japanese exhibits at Serrería Belga

The exhibits were part of Madrid’s summer cultural program, which has named Japan “Guest Country”. They were a few cute little exhibits, and they were free too, so a good way to complete half a day trip. I headed back to the station afterwards, to wait for whichever train came, and I was lucky enough that one was there in a couple of minutes – I even found a good seat on my way back.

And I have finally seen the hall at Pacífico, which has been a goal since April 2023. Now I just have to figure out a way to obtain the passport and have it stamped…

21st July 2024: From the Sea to the Butterfly (Madrid, Spain)

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When planning for the day, the one thing I did not count on was the heat wave. I did take into account problems with trains, but apparently a half-hour delay is a non-issue by now and not worth mentioning. I reached Madrid around 12:30, and I had a reservation at 13:00 for a themed restaurant which had caught my eye when I saw it online. It was honestly a big disappointment, though I refused to let it ruin my day.

The restaurant is called Bestial, and it is ocean-themed. The pictures were awesome, it looked super cool, and I was pretty excited to go there. However, the experience was mediocre at best – I guess solo travellers are not their target audience, and it showed. As I was mainly ignored, I could watch how the restaurant worked. The waiters got the tables mixed up a few times, and they allowed others to take pictures with cocktails that were not theirs – that was weird, and I am pretty sure that against health code. I ordered a lemonade – the best thing – a tuna tartar and a crab bao without coriander, after checking that the coriander could be taken out. The tuna was tasteless, and the bao did have taste… coriander. All in all, I was not impressed by the food, even less by the service. Between the two dishes there were about 35 minutes waiting, and after an hour I just gave up and asked for the check, which was brought in a little book… and dropped halfway, then picked up from the floor… I just paid – the meal was not cheap – and left without dessert. A pity, really, but I really did not care any more.

Restaurante Bestial by Rosi La Loca

It was ridiculously early for my 16:00 visit, but I wanted to try my luck. I had chosen that day because CaixaForum Madrid was running two exhibitions that I wanted to see – Patagonian dinosaurs (which had just opened) and The Science of Pixar (which would end soon). The exhibition centre was booked out, so I could not sneak in before my time slot, but I managed to get my most burning question answered – how on earth were they going to fit a Patagotitan inside CaixaForum? Answer: they did not. They placed it outside, which was a fun surprise!

Patagotitan skeleton in front of CaixaForum Madrid

Since I had about an hour and a half, I decided to trot over to the painting museum Museo del Prado, part of the national network of museums, which I can access with my one-year card. I thought I might be luckier and the queue to enter without a reservation would work better. Indeed, I did not have to wait indeed, and I could have a look at a few of the masterpieces the collection holds (though not take photographs) – Francisco de Goya, Joaquín Sorolla, Diego Velázquez, Esteban Murillo, Fra Angelico, Hieronymus Bosch… Of course, not all the masters, because El Prado is enormous. It is also air-conditioned, and surprisingly, not as full as I half-expected. There was a queue when I came out, so I guess it worked out well!

I walked back to CaixaForum Madrid to see the two exhibitions I had booked. It was a bit before 16:00, but this time I did not ask, and just walked into the first exhibition – “Patagonian Dinosaurs”: Dinosaurios de la Patagonia, which had very little new information, and even fewer actual fossils, but a lot of dinosaur reconstructions. Those were cool. Aside from the Patagotitan mayorum placed outside, there were full skeleton replicas of Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, Eoabelisaurus mefi, Leonerasaurus taquetrensis, Eoraptor lunensis, Condorraptor currumili, Brachytrachelopan mesai, Amargasaurus cazaui, Tyrannotitan chubutensis, Neuquensaurus australis, Carnotaurus sastrei, Gasparinisaura cincosaltensis and Manidens condorensis. There was also a Giganotosaurus carolinii skull. As for the real thing, a femur, a shoulder plate and a forelimb of Patagotitan, some teeth and vertebrae and a few invertebrates and leaves. It was really cool, and not extremely crowded for a dinosaur exhibit in summer. It was only the third day of the exhibit, so maybe it was not that well publicised yet? Out of the new species I discovered, Amargasaurus was my favourite – with the neck spikes it looked exactly like I would have imagined a dragon.

Patagonian Dinosaurs

Patagotitan front and back legs, along with a huge shoulderblade

The other exhibition that ran at the time was “The Science of Pixar”: La Ciencia de Pixar. It felt like a nerdy companion to Mundo Pixar, focusing on the maths and the process to create a Pixar film. Unfortunately, it was bustling with kids who – understandably – just wanted to smash buttons and make things light up. The exhibition had a lot of cool machines which simulate the different steps of creating a computer-animated film – rigging, modelling, lighting, rendering… The most interesting was an analysis called “What colour is this pixel?” taking into account movement, lights, shadows… It must be amazing to be able to visit the exhibit alone and be able to play with all the computers. I did find one where you get to simulate crowds using shoals of fish (from Finding Nemo) and I played with that for a while. There were also a few life-sized models from several films, miniatures and 3D mini-sculptures.

La Ciencia de Pixar

I left the venue after browsing the shop, and I walked down towards the theatre. It was still early, and I wanted to hit a couple of shops. Actually, I wanted to go to what is commonly known as the Primark flagship shop. The building Edificio Gran Vía 32 was originally erected in the 1920s to host the first department store in Madrid, Almacenes Madrid-París. It was designed by architect Teodoro de Anasagasti and used the most modern technology and materials at the time – reinforced concrete in the avant-garde style. The whole interior is built around an octagonal lightwell with a central staircase, and today the lowest four floors have been turned into the Primark shop, which has fitted screens and lightings while keeping the previous structures and railings. The modernisation project was undertaken by architectural studio RCCyP and it took three years until the shop opened in 2015.

Interior of Edificio Gran Vía 32

I continued off towards the theatre Teatro Real. I had a bit of time and some unspent calorie budget, so I decided to splurge at Starbucks with a whipped-cream Frappe for my pre-show snack. For the same price I had awesome third floor for Carmina Burana, I had a fifth-floor-in-the-back paradise ticket now. However, it was a lone seat with a great view, so I am not going to complain. I was going to watch the opera Madama Butterfly by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini – and sometimes I think that the better the singers are, the worse time I have with this show.

Madama Butterfly Promo

The main character is Cio-cio, a name that when pronounced in Italian sounds similar to 蝶々, [Choucho], butterfly in Japanese. When she is 15 years old, in 1904, Cio-cio marries an American navy man, Pinkerton, who intends to leave her and find a ‘decent’ American wife. Cio-cio is repudiated by her whole family when she converts to Christianity for her marriage. Three years later, she is alone, almost bankrupt, the mother of Pinkerton’s child, and a marriage broker is trying to sell her off to another prospective husband. Pinkerton returns to Japan with his American wife, who agrees to raise the child, but he cannot face Cio-cio because he is a coward. She (spoiler alert) prepares their son to go with him, then commits seppuku.

And even a bigger spoiler alert, I hate Pinkerton. Viscerally. My parents tried to start me into opera way too young to understand plots, I feel, and I did not want to do anything to do with it for a long time. However, at one point I wanted to see Madama Butterfly due to it taking place in Japan – being older helps, and I slowly learnt to appreciate the musical genre. Basically, by hating on Pinkerton.

Apparently, Teatro Real is known for its alternative settings and takes on classical operas. In this case, they let go of the old Japanese cottage in order to use… a modern-ish undisclosed Asian country. There was an overpass with Chinese signage, a billboard with McDonald’s and Bailey’s spoofs in Japanese (that did not make any sense), and the traditional cottage was exchanged for a greenhouse of sorts. There is a scene in the traditional opera in which the characters fill the house with flowers. In this case, they coloured the glass panes with hand paint. It was a great show.

Cast:

  • Cio-Cio-san: Ailyn Pérez
  • Suzuki: Nino Surguladze
  • F.B. Pinkerton: Charles Castronovo
  • Sharpless: Lucas Meachem
  • Goro: Moisés Marín

Artistic team:

  • Musical conductor: Nicola Luisotti
  • Stage direction: Damiano Michieletto
  • Set design: Paolo Fantin

Madama Butterfly Teatro Real

The show finished around 22:20. I walked up Arenal Street towards Sol. While I missed my first train because some people love to take up space while walking slowly, I made it for a good connection at Atocha, and I was actually home before midnight.