THE BEST: A LIVING AND BREATHING PERSONAL AUDIO GUIDE
Madrid, Spain
24 May

In the cold morning of May the 24th, I finally spoke to a girl who slept in the same room as I was. Petra is Italian, lived in Montreal for 3 years and currently studying Spanish in Sevilla. All chit chatting aside, we promised to meet up in the Museu de Reina Sofia at 2pm. Danny had enough of culture so we went out separate ways that day.

An hour before 2pm, I arrived in the Reina Sofia stunned. The queue was 200 metres long and people just kept on coming. This entrance doesn`t even cover groups! Man! Madrid is a city full of museums but being a Monday, everything else was closed. As we were talking and queing, out of the blue this older guy passed us and said, "Here´s two tickets.." We were like? Huh? WHat´s going on? When we realised that they were indeed genuine free tickets, the guy was long gone and we had free tickets to explore the Reina Sofia.

Being the good educated Italian that she was, Petra became my guide in looking at the paintings. The first exhibition that we saw was something called THINKING ABOUT THAT ROOM by an artist whose name escapes me at the moment. It´s an installation comprises of enlarged photographs made into a semi 3D space. You´re entering this person´s apartment and the piece made you feel like you´re inside the room. It´s a funny piece, because it´s simple and yet made you think about the seemingly mundane things you do in life. Like going to the bathroom, practising cello in the evening, peering out your balcony...

And Picasso´s Guernica. And Dali. And Miro.

Much can be said about the great works of art that we saw that day in The Reina Sofia museum. But they are great art and nothing I can say is going to be enough. The greatest thing that day was to make a new friendship with Petra. I learned so much about the part of Italy she came from, how she was brought up and the live she lives in Sevilla. In return, I told her about Asia, a little about my work and the people I´m close with. Not only we spent hours looking at great art, we created a new work called friendship over talks of literature and music.

I think it´s a great example of why I come to Europe. It´s a journey to learn about people and how lives are spent. When boundaries are open and life has more offers beyond belief.

smiling thinking of Petra in Sevilla