Madrid (ballet and geology)

The weekend before I went to Costa del Sol, I took a short trip to Madrid to help my flatmate move home. She wasn't taking any classes at the university, so she was done, and I wanted to go to the ballet and the geology museums in Madrid, so we decided to go the night before she left, go the the ballet, and then after she left, I would spend the day in Madrid and go home for dinner. When we got to Madrid, we decided to take a taxi to our hostel, because my flatmate had all of her earthly belongings with her, and we didn't want to risk her bags to the Madrid metro. There was a big outdoor concert on the street that our hostel was on, so we had to walk a bit, but we figured it out without too much trouble. Our hostel was really close to the Teatro Real (royal theater), so walking was easy. We saw Romeo and Juliet by Ballet Stuttgart (they are from Germany). The dancing was good, but I didn't really like the color scheme. I was also really surprised by how small the theater was. The floor area was quite small, and the balconies were really steep, but it was lavishly decorated, and there was royal box for the King and family (they weren't there). After the ballet, we got Turkish fast food, since the tapas in Madrid were horrendously expensive.
The next day, I went to the airport with my flatmate, and then went to visit the geology museums in Madrid. There are two: The Royal Geologic Museum, which is housed in the same complex as a whole slew of other natural science museums, and the Geologic and Mine Institute of Spain's museum, which is smaller, so I went there first. Since the museum is in the same building as the offices for the Geologic and Mine Institute of Spain, I needed to show ID to get into the museum, but that was fine. The museum was a little old, but really well-organized, and it showed how Spain changed over geologic time and highlighted the mineral wealth of the different provinces in Spain. I spent more than 2 hours there, and it definitely exceeded my expectations. The Royal Geologic museum was a little more of a disappointment. The geology museum was closed because they were renovating the biology museum that was in the same building, and the main exhibit was about Darwin's time in Spain, but they were dismantling it when I was there. They did however have a really cool exhibit on the Mediterranean, and a really good outdoor geology museum, plus they didn't charge admission because so much was closed, but it was still disappointing that the main geology museum was closed. Those silly biologists.
The trip back to Salamanca was uneventful, and, because I didn't spend much time at the geology museum, I got home with plenty of time to study for my exams the following week.

The ceiling at the Geologic and Mine Institute of Spain.