2015-->2016

New years eve in Madrid! We began the day by visiting the 'Museo Thyssen,' one of the three main art museums in Madrid.  The museum is unique in that it is all a private collection once owned by one family. There was an exhibit at the museum entitled 'The Illusion of the American Frontier," which detailed how explorers and Native Americans interacted during the 1800s. It shows the disparity between how Americans and Native Americans viewed the West and 'manifest destiny' (the dream of spreading from sea to sea.) Unfortunately, the museum was closing early, so we couldn't see all the works of art.

One of the works from "The Illusion of the American Frontier" at the Thyssen Museum.

Afterwards, we visited a massive 9-story mall. They sold everything from Barcelona FC grass (for $22!) to Dim Sum and burgers. At the mall, we purchased grapes. Grapes and new years are associated with each other in Spain because of an age-old tradition. During the 1800s, there was a grape surplus in Spain, so the grape market decided to create a tradition of eating 12 grapes for the 12 rings of the clock at midnight. As a result, everybody in Spain buys grapes for new years.

The leftover grapes at our hotel after New Years. Notice how they tell the number of "rations" of 12 grapes in a box!

Fast forward to 12 seconds before midnight: We were all preparing to devour 12 grapes in 12 seconds, which already seemed somewhat difficult. As the bell started to ring (we were watching on TV instead of Puerta de Sol, where the celebration takes place) we all started to eat the first grape, and to our surprise, the grapes had seeds! This made it nearly impossible to finish all the grapes. Only my dad, out of the 9 of us, was able to finish the grapes. The rest of us will all have bad luck for the year!