Madrid

Madrid, not unexpectedly, had a very different feel than Barcelona. Because Barca has the beach, Madrid has a much more metropolitan and less touristy feel. Also, the weather was much more pleasant. In Barcelona, I was generally sweating my balls off walking from place to place. Madrid, while even warmer (it was in the 90s most days), is a much drier climate, so while still definitely hot in the sun, it was pretty pleasant to walk around, so long as you were in the shade and not baking in the Iberian sun.

One thing that was pretty nice about Madrid was the fact that the historical center is pretty compact. Almost everywhere we went was within reasonable walking distance. The metro there is also first-class, so it was very easy to get around. The only problem we had with transportation there was me almost losing my fancy sunglasses. One evening, a train was just shutting its doors, so I sprinted for about ten yards and jumped to catch the doors before they close. Unfortunately, I had my sunglasses hooked into my pocket by just one arm, and when I ran to the train they came flying out of my pocket, slid across the floor, and dropped into the crevice between the train and the platform onto the tracks below. This was no bueno, as they were my favorite sunglasses, were a rather expensive set of frames, and are a critical part of my travel wardrobe. Because I pack extremely light (everything I need for 22 days in one 9x14x22 bag, including my large and bulky work laptop, with room to spare), a lot of the clothing I have is pretty basic and gets dressed up by accessorizing with a nice pair of sunglasses, a nice watch, and a good pair of shoes. Thus losing my good sunglasses means I just lost a critical piece of my wardrobe for the next 2 ½ weeks. (Come to think of it, having the right accessories--glasses, belt, watch, etc.-- is what separates the schlubs from the men with style back at home while not traveling, as well, but I digress). Luckily when the train passed I was able to see my sunglasses sitting in a small crack tucked up between the train tracks and the wall, so I was able to jump down onto the tracks, fish them out, and get back up before the next train arrived without electrocuting myself in the process. The only problem was I ended up with a coating of repulsive subway floor grime on my hands from when I boosted myself back up on the platform. In retrospect, this might not have been the swiftest move. Aside from the concern of zapping myself on the tracks, I suppose I would have had a very big problem had I misjudged the height of the platform and was not able to jump back up after fishing my glasses out. The trains here are much more modern and efficient than the ones in Chicago and New York, and they come by very frequently, every 2-3 minutes or so, and when they do they do it with a vengeance, zipping right into the station at high speed, stopping on a dime, and zipping right out. Because I was in the very middle of the platform, had I not been able to jump out before the next train came I may have had a little bigger problem than losing my sunglasses.

Aside from possibly getting squished by the metro, there wasn’t too much drama in Madrid. We did do a lot of partying, though. We went out salsa dancing the second night in town, and went to this Cuban place that was a lot of fun. I couldn’t fully whip out my skills, as they danced Cuban/swing-step-style which really isn’t my thing, but people were very friendly and very interested in us as they could immediately peg us as foreigners. We also met some very interesting people there, including a couple German girls and a VERY friendly Russian-Peruvian girl that I was dancing with. We didn’t get back to the hotel that morning until about 5:30 AM, so it was definitely a good time.

The next night we met up with Selene and Helena, the two German girls we went out with the night before, and went out for Tapas, a drink at a very flash rooftop lounge downtown, and then out to a different place for more salsa dancing. Once again, we ended up rolling into our hotel at aroud 5:00 in the morning.

The most interesting things about Madrid, aside from all the salsa dancing with friendly Russian-Peruvian girls, were the Prado, the royal palace, and a bull bar we went to. The Prado had the best collection of paintings I’ve ever seen. The royal palace was also pretty neat, although being fairly well traveled and having already been to Versailles, Schonbrunn, a half dozen palaces for the local kings in Germany, etc., it seemed somewhat like the same royal getup. The bull bar was a kitschy little place with tons of paraphernalia from the local pastime. You can think of it has a hard-core sports bar exclusively for bull-fighting. It had about a half dozen bull’s heads from fights, and was covered with photos and other bric-a-brac from fights, mostly focusing around where bullfighters got gored during the contest. If you hunt in the photos you can find photos of a fighter that had a bull’s horn shoved into his neck under his chin, with the tip of the horn protruding out his mouth. They have the photos of this proudly displayed with the suit the bullfighter was wearing on this fateful day. Seeing Picasso’s Guernica in the modern art museum was also a bit of a charge. I’m not a huge art guy, so usually what I’m saying to myself when touring a world-class museum is “OK, this is all fine and good, but where the fuck are we eating dinner tonight?”. But Guernica is definitely one of Europe’s must-see sights and seeing the massive painting in person was a real treat.

Speaking of which, I got some interesting food in Madrid. I tried callos, which is a stew made out of tripe and blood sausage. It was good, but didn’t completely turn my crank. I also tried another local specialty, Cocido Madrileño, which was a stew made out of garbanzo beans, pork, and beef, which was cooked in an earthenware pot. You first eat the broth like a soup with noodles, and then monge on the stewed meat. However, by far and away the big culinary standout in Madrid was the Galician restaurant we went to after hitting the Prado one day. The octopus with potatoes and pimienton I got was out of this world. I spent about 15 minutes talking to the restaurant owner at the end of the meal asking how he prepares it so I can replicate it at home. I have made octopus a few times, and can do it competently, but the result I get is nothing like this. I think I’ve got the trade secrets now, though.

After the meal with the octopus, Juls and I got into a lengthy discussion about how everywhere we go in Spain, the restaurant owners are always giving us free shit. It seems like at over 1/3 of the places we go, they are bringing us out free dessert, and giving us free glasses of wine, extra aperitifs, whatever. Our best guess is that it’s the combined factors of her speaking perfect Spanish, my speaking crappy Spanish, me showing obvious interest in all the particulars of the food they make and also particularly always ordering regional specialties wherever we go. It seems like many of the people here are very proud of their regional and local dishes, and if you show a particular interest, you’ll be their best friend in not time. The guy from the Galician place with the crazy-good octopus was probably the best example. After we finished lunch he hung around and talked to us about Galicia for about 20 minutes and brought us a couple monster pours (we were completely trashed) of the local coffee liquor they make in-house.