For our first day in Madrid, we visited two of the most important squares in the city, Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol. Puerta del Sol is actually the point from which every distance in Spain is measured.

We then walked down to Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia to see the museum's addition, designed by French architect, Jean Nouvel in 2005. The rest of the museum is housed in an 18th century hospital. The art on display is from the 20th century, including two Spanish masters, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso. Of Picasso's work, the most prominent is his famous/infamous 'Guernica', about the Spanish Civil War.

After the Sofia, we went as a group to the train station to make our reservations to Sevilla. Since the ticket line wait was so long, many of us also visited the memorial for the recent Madrid train bombings. Conical, the exterior is made out of glass bricks, the interior of a plastic sheet with messages of sympathy from around the world printed on it in every language.

From the station, we went to see the outside of the famous Prado museum before the group split up for the day. I and most of the others decided to go in the museum, as it is Spain's equivalent to Paris' Louvre. The Prado has paintings by many Spanish masters, including El Greco, Diego Velazquez, and Francisco Goya.

Today, we visited an office of the worldwide engineering firm, Arap, and had several presentations on projects that their firm is working on. After that, we had a tour of the Caixa Forum construction site, a soon-to-be-finished museum designed by Herzog and de Meuron. The museum is housed in the shell of an old power station, one of four, and the only one still standing. It was very interesting to see their work in progress, and if possible, I would like to visit it before we head back home, as it is supposedly due to be finished in two weeks.