(500) Days of Summer

So, Cindy dragged us to a romantic comedy last night, which she promised me had received an excellent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Given the track record of previous romantic comedies I had been compelled to see, such as Failure to Launch, I had low expectations. Those expectations were pleasantly excelled in every way.

Rather than review the movie and reveal major plotlines, let me just say that if you can find some time in your busy schedule, go see it. You'll enjoy it.

Here's a link to rottentomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/500_days_of_summer/

Nuestra querida Madrid

Cindy and I had an amazing 4 days in Madrid. Our night of arrival, a good friend of Joe's from High School, Carlos Candil, took us around town. Carlos - you did an amazing job! Thank you! We went to a great tapas bar, then headed to Twixtu restaurant (a great restaurant where Real Madrid players hang out before games), and finally finished the night off on a rooftop club/bar. It was a great night, and I hope to be able to show my guests around LA just as well as Carlos did us. Also, it was a real treat getting to catch up with Carlos, as we hadn't seen each other in 12 years or so. Congrats on getting engaged btw, Carlos!

The following day we headed to the Reina Sofia to see the exhibitions there. Their main collection with Dali, Picasso, and many other Spanish painters in the modern era is very good. I wasn't so much into the temporary work on exhibition, however. After a brief siesta, Cindy and I headed to the Palacio Real, or Royal Palace. It's too bad we don't have any pictures, but sufficeth to say that the Spaniards refused to be outdone by the French, and they built a ridiculously sumptuous royal palace. While the gardens do not compare to Versailles, many of the interior rooms are as good or better than Versailles. In fact, it gets hard to compare the two, because they are both so incredible.

Tuesday I managed to coax Cindy out of bed and we took the high speed rail to Toledo. It gets you there in only 30 minutes. I wanted Cindy to see an older, medieval city, different from the much more modern Madrid and Barcelona. We had a great time and managed to bring back a lot of unique ceramica (Spanish pottery). Now that I'm a bit older, I appreciate the ceramica, but I remember when we lived there and I was a teenager, I used to hate it when my Mom and Dad would pop into yet another ceramica. On a somewhat different vein, believe it or not, Toledo's cathedral was actually more spectacular than Notre Dame, both in size and in spectacle. It's too bad that they didn't let us take pictures inside, but that was a common problem in Spain that we didn't have in France - no pictures, even if you removed the flash. The last thing about Toledo that I should mention is that I bought a really cool sword there by Marciano Zamorano. Sr. Zamorano is the real deal; he smiths his own swords and forges them the old fashioned way. He makes swords for fighting, and he has two missing fingers to prove it :P. You can check out his website here http://www.marianozamorano.com/english/Empresa.htm. I'll post a picture of the sword as soon as I get it from Delta; it hasn't yet made it back from Spain :P

Wednesday we spent at the Prado Museum, which was closed on Monday. Although the primary collection is very good, after a while you can only see so many paintings of religious martyrdom, battles, and royalty. Which is why Cindy and I fell in love with their temporary exhibition of Joaquin Sorolla. I've never seen such a master of painting before. The paintings captured the bright colors of the moments of everyday life. Unlike a photo, his paintings captured motion, sensuality, and expressed the emotion of a place. In addition, Joe also liked Goya's Black Paintings, which were from the latter part of his life we he contemplated death from a much more raw place.

Which leads me to the end of our journey, wanting to sum it up in a few sentences. What I can say is this - we had a unique life experience, we grew closer together, and we learned more about our place in the world. Oh, and we lost weight. Despite eating like pigs on our trip, we lost two pounds each! Cindy and I are convinced this is because of the copious amount of walking we did. Just goes to show you that you can eat fatty food, as long as you walk your buns off.