Sound track of the day:
The performance deserving a standing ovation
And who would have thought it’d be the two of us
Current Temperature: The rain found me
Culture clash: Vendors sell beer on the street at night. And police arrest you with open containers. And still there’s vomit everywhere.
I had a hard time sleeping last night and decided to sleep in until 11am. The girl in the room next to me came home stumbling and banging on everything around her path at, what I’m guessing was, around 3am. She’s traveling with her mother and must have ditched her for a night of partying. My room is by the kitchen and I can literally hear everyone coming in for the night, and going out for the morning. I heard this girl slam cabinets and drawers in search for something which I later deduced was tea, based on the water running, microwave heating, the fact that Europeans seem to drink tea at all and any given time of the day. The other give away was that she stomped quickly into her room after this task was complete and proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes vomiting. Then she spent the next few minutes arguing with her mother. If I were her mother, I wouldn’t have bothered my precious sleep with trivial arguments. I would have waited until the next day when I was fully rested and alert and gave her a piece of my mind, and then toured Madrid on my own. This morning they continued their argument, after I had already been woken by several loud guests as they prepared their breakfasts and checked out. And there are kids here, so there was a lot of shouting and laughing on their part.
Needless to say, I’m exhausted.
Museo del Prado was open today. As a consequence of being closed yesterday, the line to get tickets was impressively long. An intricate system of lines and sub-lines, and new lines were managed by several museum employees on walkie talkie. It took me almost an hour to get to the ticket booth. I considered leaving and waiting for another day as did many families in front of me, but I wasn’t willing to do this again. To my slight disappointment the Prado was nothing spectacular. I have had my life’s fill of classical painting, and only found myself awed by some Ruebens, Singer-Sargent, and Velasquez work. With any luck there would be a substantial sculpture collection of classical work. On the first floor, what they call floor 0 here, accompanying the paintings as if they were an afterthought and placed to fill in empty space were several pieces of classic marble work. After my fill, I decided to leave. I think the Met is better.
I started to rain.
Without a hair dryer or any product, my hair started out pretty bad in the morning, so I wasn’t too worried about thwarting any styling efforts by prancing around in the rain, so I walked toward my street and visited my neighborhood internet café to check in on the address of a tango class I was going to take. The class was taught in Spanish, naturally, and in the accent of an Argentine tango master and after 10 minutes of attempting to follow the steps, and another 30 of plain watching I gave up. I normally pick up dancing quickly but I just wasn’t feeling this.
The tango classes are held at a makeshift bar/community center called Patio Maravillas and is run by several people, but I suspect there are some kind of political or altruistic forces behind its existence. Amateur photo exhibitions line the walls, one begging to end apartheid, another appearing to document a world party. I chatted with Sharif and Ali the bartenders as I waited for my Couchsurfing connection who majorly flaked on me: literally didn’t show up, call or pick up her phone. So after about two hours of what I felt was bordering on loitering I bailed.
I had every intention at that point of grabbing a quick bite to eat and heading home for some rest, but just like my first trip to Florence, as I passed through a major square, fully aware of my direction, I got sucked into a vortex of light and lost my bearing. I just kept walking down a street simply because I was already headed in that direction, not paying mind to whether or not it was the street I needed to be on. Within minutes I was lost and had to stop and consult my map. I could not find my location on the map and kept walking to find a street that showed up on the map somehow. After nearly giving up and wanting to turn back I heard two soft English speaking voices, one male and one female, behind me and crossed my fingers before asking them if they knew where Calle de las Huertas was. Luckily the woman knew the city well, and since they were heading in that direction, invited me to join them. As we walked I learned that her name was Ines and she is from Bogota and he is Ben and just graduated from UC Santa Barbara and is originally from Marin County. It was the first full conversation I had had in days with fully English speaking people and it felt like silk, smooth and easy.
Instead of keeping to my original plans I actually joined them to the Modena, a beautiful cathedral near the edge of Madrid. It was lit on the outside so the limestone and/or marble glowed giving it an appropriately ethereal presence. Inside, the faithful arrived early to get the good seats for the Passover ceremony. Ines would be attending service and we would meet her back there later.
While Ines was worshipping, we went to the Mercado de San Miguel, a food market that serves the most amazing choices in food at spectacular prices. I got a piece of salmon on toast, sardines on toast, and pisto (bacalao) on toast, all for 1 euro. We grabbed a glass of wine and walked to a corner where it wasn’t crowded and chatted a bit. I learned that Ben graduated a quarter early and would be spending his quarter touring Europe, and his next step was Lisbon. Next, over an oyster, he tried to talk me into joining him in Lisbon on Monday. It makes a lot of sense. Melanie would be there at that time and I could add a third to our motley crew and perhaps get Ben in touch with other travelers so he could have companionship for the rest of his time, and I thought, how much can I do in Madrid anyway?
This is yet to be determined.
After some of the best jamon I’ve ever had in my life, we headed back to church and joined the service. What should have been done in 10 minutes (around 12:30 after midnight) lasted until 1:45am, at which point Ben, a Jew, was completely dulled. I could see his eyes glazing over as I, myself, whispered soothing words to my poor feet that had decided to burn for punishment of abusing them. The cathedral was magnificent in its light and glory and anyone would be proud to be able to renew their faith in this sanctuary, as did at least a dozen people which is what dragged the service out as it did. I knew that Ines would want to take communion, because who goes to service this late on a Saturday night if they’re not going to do that? So as soon as the “peace be with yous” were said I knew ines would have to move her ass to the alter and take some bread. I assured Ben that then we would be dismissed.
Time to bust out the ear plugs.
This is the most exhausted I´ve made myself in my time here. Every bone, muscle and tendon in my body is aching, burning, sobbing and refusing to serve me in any more task unless I let them rest.
In my time in Madrid I’ve consistently been in my room by midnight. Tonight because of church I was in bed at 3am. My dad would be proud.
On tonight’s menu:
Slice of salon
Slice of sardines
Bacalao
One Oyster
Crianza
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