Madrid: Day 3
Heaven and Hell

Today was a blur of churches and bars, with the ratio of Church/Bar being close to 2 or so. It all works out given multiple drinks at the bars. The main cathedral beside el Palacio Real was closed, but we did manage to enter the crypts, which were interesting in their own way. I pondered how much one would have to donate to a church before they would go so far as to bury you in the building underneath the feet of the other worshippers. But hey, somethings are worth any price right? And they had a nice statue of Pope John Paul out front.

Rock da beat PJ!

We also made it to the Big Church of San Francisco, which is notable for having one of the largest domes in Europe, and the Capilla de San Isidro (I like the SoCal spelling better). The latter still bore some of the scars from an anarchist bombing prior to WWII. We also tried attending a museum containing many maps of Madrid over various time points, but it was sadly under construction (get ready for repeats of that phrase). To counter balance all the church time, we went to view the only statue to Satan in all of Europe, found in Madrid's main park. He's up at the top of this post.

The touring of the day ended at El Prado, the Spanish National Museum of Art. Now I was pretty excited as they had been advertising a special section of Francis Bacon. Only it didn't turn to be the nerdy-cool Sir Francis Bacon, but an artist by the same name. However, his art was great stuff (check out his screaming Pope) and well worth some time pondering. The rest of the Prado...I could go without most of it. There were some pictures by Bosch that are classics, as well as some great stuff by Goya, but other than that it was lots of mundane paintings that didn't do much for me. Quoth the Jackass "Europe's primere museum of art that I don't like." Yowch.

We ended the day at La Finca de Susana, a restuarant the Rough Guide said we should run to. It was rather posh for a supposedly cheap-end eatery and seemed to be frequented by locals and tourists alike. I was caught off guard by my chilly vegtables, having been described as oven-roasted I rather expected them to be, well, warm not gezpacho style. The pollo ratatouille was rather good and JA had to guard against an elderly woman's advances on his calamari. Yum.

I should mention that Madrid is currently having a Cow Parade, in which various artists get to dress up cows in creative ways of their choosings. This one in particular caught my eye, as fiery war-gods can require ice cold women to withstand our high-temp touch. Still, I wasn't quite sure about the coloration of this one in particular, but luckily the artist was nearby as I was snapping fotos and I got to ask a few questions his way.

When I asked about the color, he responded in his half-english, half-artist sort of way: "Why the blua? Well zee colors, they are deeferent things non? Love iz red, like the fiery blood, but sin, de sin of dezire iz dee blue-ah. If you go to embrace her she would melt, no? Dis color weel then come to you. She will cover you wiff sin."
Such is my life dear reader.