We spent the first weekend in April in Madrid. The impetus for the trip was to see Zoe, a dear friend’s daughter, who spent Spring Break with her high school choir touring and performing in Barcelona, Valencia, Toledo, and Madrid. Because we all had school trips like that, right? I remember going . . . oh, nowhere. Not even to Sacramento or Washington DC. We were happy to use the opportunity to see friends who live in Madrid and whom we hadn’t seen for a while.
We arrived on Thursday afternoon and met Nasia, a friend from Spanish school, and her husband Sariel at the Fundación Mapfre to see a Marc Chagall exhibition titled “A Cry of Freedom.” We’ve seen Chagall works in many places, yet this extensive display was uniquely curated to show the broad range of themes, styles and messages Chagall painted during his lengthy career. Most interesting were a group of paintings of crucifixion scenes that were intended as political statements regarding the plight of European Jews in the WWII era. We had never seen these paintings, being more familiar with Chagall’s more nostalgic, poetic, and supernatural works. Afterwards we enjoyed a walk through the city, dinner, and hanging out, drinking, and talking about world events in their apartment.
We met up with Zoe on Friday and showed her around the city and had a traditional Spanish lunch.
The highlight was seeing the Gunn High School Concert Choir’s performance. All their concert venues were churches, which made for a conventianal playlist. We enjoyed the gospel tunes most and were very impressed by the soloists and the acoustics.
Kudos to the teachers and chaperones for coordinating such a large group of teenagers.
We spent Saturday with Carlos, Ploy and Alex, who is now 16 months old. We also had the pleasure of meeting Ploy’s mom, who was visiting from Thailand. It was an enjoyable afternoon catching up and learning more about their lives in Madrid.
It was a perfect weekend trip – pleasant weather, easy train travel, and good company. You can’t ask for much more.
Hasta pronto,
Shana & Jeff
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