Madrid, Spain

Got into Madrid late Friday evening. Hotel I’d booked was a bad scene for about 53 good reasons. The least of which was not the plumbing that ran right next to the bed so that during the entire night when someone walked down the creaky wooden floor to go to the bathroom, if the marching didn’t wake me up, the flushing sound ripping through the pipes running 3 inches from my head made me feel as though I was in a barrel, suspended from the top of Niagara Falls.

Showered and went out to get some food in Madrid. Made my way down to La Latina district. Got a little lost and wound up in the ghetto, but made it out alive. Went to The Retrobar for tapas (average, but good) and a drink, tinto de verano, red wine and soda water. So good. Just sort of hung out there like the weird guy who speaks terrible Spanish and is a little intimidated by the whole experience…this is a frequent phase for me. Some guy kept coming out and telling something into a mehaphone right next to me. Yeah, then everyone would jeer. I bet if I’d understood Spanish slang, at 500 dB, it would have had the same effect on me. Great place.
Wondered the streets for a while. Nightlife seemed nuts. Went back to the wonderful hotel for my nights torture.

First thing Sat, moved to new hotel. Of course. Finally got laundry done…and folded for me. Sweet! It was sure to happen once on this trip.
Went to The Prado museum. Took the English audio tour. Never done that before; type the # of the painting and a voice comes on and tells you about the piece. That was ok. There was a phenomenal piece there that was awe inspiring to see in person: Las meninas by Diego Velázquez, painted in 1656. It stands at least 15 feet tall. Later will post a pic.
Went back at least 5 times to look again and again. The most amazing painting I’ve ever seen.

Went to Chueca region for dinner/drinks. Cool region, if completely gay at night.
Eventually wandered into a Mexican (well, it was an attempt at authenticity) bar. Met about 5 people and we stayed there and talked and drank until they closed the place sometime after 2 am…with all of is in it. We must have stayed until 3, then all walked across town to Sol for some dancing. Some of the pictures on this walk are hilarious….coming soon.
In the crew were some girls from Switzerland and two guys from NYC, Peter and a guy with a first name so difficult that even he can’t spell it!
We stayed out and danced until past 7. Hilarious pictures coming…
I left to walk home and hit breakfast at 8 am. For some reason, a fish (from canned tuna) and onion (I hate onions) omelet sounded like a good call. Those first few bites were tough to endure. Sleep by 9…and the streets were still crawling with people. Unbelievable. Do these people work, or is the siesta just that effective?

Sun. Went to The Thyssen museum. Instead of the audio tour, I fired up the new Gomez album on the MP3 player. Prefect! Saw another piece that absolutely blew my mind. It was: Despedida by Max Beckmann. Just an incredible. From arm’s length it’s hard to even make out a human face, never mind an expression, but at 15 feet the expressions on the central character’s face in unmistakable. How in the world do some artists do that so well? This painting gave me chills. Perhaps a new favorite. I absolutely loved it.

***Update***

—
Thanks to Scott for this link…
http://coleccionctb.museothyssen.org/coleccionctb/upload/obra324/museo_thyssen_p_CTB.1996.42.jpg

I hope it works for everyone…and I hope you all like it.
—

Met up with Peter and E-O. In the park. We had a beer at a small outdoor cafe and I played guitar while some girls danced and we all had a great time. Priceless.

From the cafe we could hear drums…the kind coming from a drum circle…we walked over to this huge monument and there were at least 35 drummers gapperung away. E-O danced. The experience was amazing, and the last thing we’d expected that Sun night.

From there, out to Tapas in Chueca again. Had some drink in a green bottle. It was really popular: kept seeing them go by. I’m convinced was cleaning fluid. Maybe Simple Green mixed with windex. Luckily, the aftertaste, be it entirely debilitating, was quite temporary.

From there, back to Sol, but it was dead.

Made plans to meet and go to Barcelona together…
On a speedy train…5 hrs…
More from Barcelona!

Hopefully pictures coming soon; they’re getting really funny.

(note on typos: this is all done via blackberry and it’s so easy to miss things… combine that with a propensity to misspell nearly everything I write…)
-Z

This entry was posted on September 4, 2006 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Spain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

| Print