Espana

It took 1 bus, 3 trains, and 2 planes through 3 countries for me to see fireworks. I suffered through10 hours of travel, I blame Nacho....




We landed in sunny Madrid around 1pm, with the sun teasing us through the glass walls, we had to take a moment outside before continuing our journey underground. It's amazing how quickly you forget what a warm autumn feels like after living under the constant threat of rain and clouds. Finally, a reason to own sunglasses!!!

With our craving for sun slightly statisfied we rushed to get into the center of Madrid, afterall jugs of Sangria awaited us! Being tube veterans, we easily navagated our way on the Metro. As we sat waiting for our next connection, a girl approached us, asking directions in Spanish. Our dazed and confused faces were the give away, it took about .5 seconds before she asked if we too were American. We boarded the same car and continued with the small talk, quickly we realised we were staying the same hostel. It's a pretty small world when you are a traveling American. 45mins and 1 Euro later we all arrived in Tirso del Molino, searching for Way Hostel.

Hostels are trickey, they are like Forrest's momma said....like a box of chocolates, ya never know what you're gonna get. Ya might get the coconut of the box: a dirty place with no linens or hot water. Hostels are not for the faint hearted or untrusting, they are the cheapest form of accomodation, mainly because most time you are in a room of as many as 12 boys and girls. But thats what you get when you want to pay £10-£20 a night in a big city. Luckily, this was hip, lively, and most importantly clean! While we were in a room of 8 girls, we were given a 2 bunk bed room off to the side...that kind of privacy is rare!

We threw our valuables (passports/keys) in a locker and headed out to some grub. 30 minutes later, we realised that this Siesta business is no joke, every street was filled with closed shop windows and gated doors. Where can some tourists get some food and drink during the country-wide nap? Well when in doubt head towards a tourist attraction or a Madrid museum. We came across a square, with tables at each point. We joined the Siesta and ordered some vino and lots of food!

The desire to feel like a cool kid is constant when I'm in a different country. Europeans are effortlessly cool, which makes them even more badass....its a combination of the clothes, the look, the excessively long meals, and endless shops/restaurants you can't afford. I felt slightly cooler as my phone began to ring. Our nationality mut and street cred for the night, Jose,was in town for business. After giving our location, my phone rang again, this time our fellow American traveler was calling to meet up. 30 minutes and various tapas gone, we had a table full of friends and drinks. Our new members to the party speak fluent Spanish making ordering a million times easier. Prior to their arrival, Ash and I had to resort to charades to order wine....

With a bottle of wine down and full bellies we moved on to Plaza Mayor for Sangria. Under the setting sun, we sat in the plaza, listening to street performers, eating olives, drinking Sangria and sharing travel tales. As the weather turned colder and my hair started feeling a little greesy from a day of travel...we decided to freshen up before our self-designed bar crawl. with our best attempts at the European style, we were off to pick up Jose. Jose doesn't do hostel, he doesn't even do cheap hotels...he does trendy, hip, overpriced excuses for accomodation, but hey, its not my credit card. His room, is all white, modern, and sterile. The only break from white, is the blue neon lights that light his headboard. Trashy or Chic? I'll let you decided....

I would tell you how many bars we went to but I lost track pretty quick. The Spanish love their pubs and nightlife, it is still very much a different world...one I love! People go out late...like 11/12 late and stay out until 6 or 7 in the morning, it is no wonder why they need afternoon naps. It started with wine, then shots, then beer...by the 5th pub, we were very much in the middle of good Spanish nightlife. We were given fresh olives, cured meats, and bread with some of our orders. Not typical drinking food but wonderful all the same! It didn't take long before we tested our Spanish...I am proud to say, most bartenders were able to understand us...the pointing and hand gestures had a lot to do with that. We stumbled (literally) right into a gay bar, one that much to my joy, had a drag show. Everyone knows that I love the queens but I might love Spanish queens even more! There was something so entertaining about them singing in Spanish, making fun of us Americans in Spanish, and not even making an attempt to lipsing! After a couple sets, Jose, forced us out...afterall he did have that Trash pad all to himself, a drag show isn't really going to fix that...at least not how he envisioned it. We managed a drink at another pub before throwing in the towel.

We did our best to get up at a decent hour but sometime nothing before 12 seems decent...so we settled for a late start. First stop: Food! A corner cafe with table in the sun, seemed appropriate...we pointed at a Spanish food we knew, tortilla potato (or something like that), a Spanish friend of ours helped us fall in love with the dish back in London. We were a bit surprised when random meat on a roll was delivered with our coffee. Clearly the mystery meat had nothing to do with what we thought we ordered. Ashley attempted to tell our waiter in Spanglish that we had ordered in correctly. After 45 minutes staring at the food, it was obviously that the waiter had no intention of bringing us thecorrect dish, enter paraniod feelings of douchbagery! Attempt Numero Dos brought results and our potato tortilla concoction was well worth the hour wait. Full and ready to go, we picked up our tour guide, Jose. We walked the grounds of the palace, the busy Grand Via, Templo de Debod, an old Egyptian temple, and finally to Retiro Park, home of the Crystal Palace. The park is stunning...stone and markble colomns and monumental lions sit on the far side of a lake filled with boaters. I have been wanted to live in the cheesy moment of rowing a wooden boat on a park lake since I moved...must work on that ASAP!!!

It goes without saying that Madrid is beautiful, clean, and peacefully old. Gardens surround the old buildings and plazas. No one seemed to be doing anything except enjoying the sunny November weekend. Despite covering a lot of ground quickly, the European spirit stayed with us, as we frequently stopped for ice cream and coffees along our route.

With Jose in the air back to London, Ashley and I took advantage of a city event: MTV European Music Awards concert. On a large main street, a stage was set up for a free concert. We tried to work our way through the streets towards the stage, as luck would have it, the directionally challenged were able to by-pass barriers and crowds, only to come right up in the front close to the stage. For once we were in the right place at the right time, we sat through 3 sets of SPanish performers waiting anxiously for Katy Perry, Linkin Park, and 30 Seconds to Mars (only for a glimpse at Jordan Catalano of course). An American near us, overhearing our excitement, kindly burst our bubble. We were a day away from the right place at the right time, we were 24 hours early for the show we were waiting to see. We stayed for a little longer before decided we had enough of the all Spanish concert. Off to get food....

The thing about Spain is, they are always later than the rest of the world...later nights out...later lunches...and much later dinners!!! We stopped at 5 places, each no ready to serve food until 9. How do these people not pass out..9pm...seriously! We gave up at place #6, settled for Sangria until the 9pm dinner time. The exhaustion was catching up to us but we were determined to not spend our last night in bed, despite the urge too. A Spanish friend of ours back in London, kindly made some calls, getting us onto a guest list at a nightclub, one of the many perks of international buddies!

By 11 we were out and slightly ready to consume some drinks, at 11:30 we were told the club wasn't open for another 45 minutes. So we headed to a pub around the corner for a quick pint. But since you all know my emails, you know it wasn't quick or just a pint. But again, I do not take responsibility for this. It was a corner pub, a local pub, the kind where they smoke behind the bar, know everyones name, and free pour. (Spain is still a smoking country until NYE and they take advantage of it...everywhere!) The free pour is long gone from London, liquors are measured by the ml, you pay extra for each ml over a shot...but it alive and well in Spain. Nacho, yes Nacho, )he is used to the American giggles over his name after living in Boston for a summer...) is a big fan of the free pour, Nacho will just keep on pouring until you say stop. As the lone foreigners, Nacho took it upon himself to share with us a free selection of Spanish favorites, one in perticular was Calimocho (50% red wine 50% coke). Apparently there is not a glass big enough for these drink so this pub uses plant pots and buckets to serve the mix. Towers of beers sit on every table (oh how I miss towers at Chickie and Petes). So there we were with Nacho and a pack of Spanards drinking free poured minis (anything but mini) until the bar closed. But we stayed on, as Nacho closed and cleaned we drank with our new buddies until we remember that we were supposed to be at a club. We bid adios to our new friends and ran off. 3:30 in the morning is apparently too late, even for the Spanish to let in people from the guest list without paying. And £25 was a little too much for our budgets, so we settled for late night pizza and got home a little after 4am. Drunk and tired, we decided to take a cat nap until 5am, the time we needed to leave for the airport.

At 8:30 am we woke up, the exact time our place was taking off...so much for a cheap weekend away..... I blame Nacho and his free pour art!