Madrid... Americanos?
Well, it has been tough keeping on top of things while I have been travelling, so there is alot to report in this report, so bear with me if you are the least bit interested.
We have been in Madrid for a few days. On our last day in Lisbon, we decided to take a day trip and go to Estoril, a beach town just west of Lisbon. After gorging on bad taste in Lisbon, Estoril was a lovely, beachy treat that left us leaving Portugal loving Portugal. We sat on the beach for hours, enjoyed hordes of beautiful people, played guitar, drank cervejas, munched on toastas and sandhuches de queijo and just enjoyed the day. Estoril has one of the largest casinos in Europe as well, so Adam wanted to go in. It was nice, nothing to write home about, but there were no poker tables, so we promptly exited. We also walked along the boardwalk, which was gorgeous to a neighbouring town called Cascais. Overall, it was a lazy, relaxing and thoroughly enjoying day. I got sunburned to shit though, and three days later am still reeling from it. I swear I put on sunscreen but I guess I did a patchy job. Kowski got tanned; ass.
During our stay on the beach, we noticed a gorgeous Portuguese woman sunbathing topless. Later that day, we went to a patio bar for drinks, and Kowski proceeded to talk bluntly about the girl, not noticing that coincidentally, she was sitting right behind him on the patio. It was one of those ýou had to be there´moments, but it was extremely funny. After Estoril, we grabbed some groceries at the most heavily guraded grocery store we have ever been in - we had to check our bags and enter in a single file - and hopped the overnight train to Madrid.
That is where the craziness began...
Just outside of the train station in Lisbon we ran into two Americans from Indiana, Kalman and Lance. Both work at a hotel in Aspen, Colorado and are on off season, so they took a transatlantic cruise from Texas to Lisbon and am bumming around for a few weeks. We grabbed a few cervejas and boarded the train, where we met some Canadians and Chileans and proceeded to get toasted on the train, drinking and chatting for most of the ten hour ride. It got intense at moments, and I passed out at about 5AM, and slept 15 minutes on\off for the rest of the trip. We have stayed with much of our train buddies, and we have grown considerably as a group now that we are in Madrid. Kalman and Lance are part of the group now, and will be till they depart from Amsterdam on the 22nd, and we have been going absolutely crazy since arriving in Madrid.
Madrid is amazing. It is everything that Lisbon is not. It is busy, but tame, energetic but clean and passive at times, relaxed but insane. We have chilled in parks, partied at clubs and partied so much our memories failed at times, all in the past few days. We arrived at Cat´s Hostel
http://www.catshostel.com in the morning, and that is where the insanity began. Cat´s has a large courtyard and a huge bar, and everyone here is here to party. Going out is mandatory, and we have abided by such laws with ardor and compliance. To begin the trip, we went to a Morrocan restaurant for breakfast that had no menu, spoke no English or Spanish and drugged us. All the guys who ate the mystery meat (we still do not know what it was) got sick, leaving all of us in a horrible state that included sickness, indigestion and hallucinations. We napped it off, however uncomfortably, and made it out into Madrid by the afternoon. We went out into town, which is lovely. There are stately squares, like most European cities, a few palaces and gorgeous architecture. We walked around aimlessly for a few hours. We sat in a park and chilled, I joined in on a busking session which was visually documented and we bought some wine before returning to the bar\hostel to find the place busy. We met some girls and the rest of the night is pretty self explanatory. Many of us got drunk, we ended up a nightclub whose named rhymed with a certain STD, had some ridiculous conversations revolving around everything from philosophy to the linguistic abilities of sexual organs and by 4AM, we were pooped, dizzy, drunk, full of cheer and ready for more. The guys, Lance, Fisch and another friend Mark, took some girls back to our room and promptly screwed up any chances they had, leaving us laughing at them whilst creating an awkward moment for everyone the next morning. Let us just say that Fisch is a `walking mistake´ in the eyes of our bright-eyed Canadian girl. I wish I could fully extrapolate the brilliance and beauty of last night, but my exhaustion and desire to not type too much on vacation is setting in, so I will move on.
Today has also been an absolutely enchanting day. We woke up at 11AM had breakfast. It was crap. Kalman had a spanish omelette that was horrible; ironic that the worst spanish omelette he's ever had was in Spain. My meal was equally poor. I ordered a veggie sandwich and I got iceburg lettuce and white asparagus on a peace of buttwered brick toast that was then deep fried for no real reason at all. I love eating no protein for breakfast and then trying to make it through the day on ruffage. This part of Europe makes me feel like a squirrel sometimes... All I eat are toastas de queijo and weird amalgamations of poorly marinated veggies on white bread. Three cheers for treating vegetarians like cattle... once again...
After our sordid breakfast experience, we boarded the clean but awkward smelling Metro (it smells like good cheese or bad meat all the time) to Museum Sofia, a fantastic collection that had over twenty Picassos and Salvador Dalis. The first story though occured trying to find a place for our travel guitar, which they refused to check at the museum. We found a hostel across the street and tried to ask them to take it, but the women who ran the place did not speak english and when we tried to leave the building, the door jammed and myself, Kolman and Fisch were locked inside the building. It was traumatic. We spent almost ten minutes trying to find a way out, but the door was locked. Suddenly, after one exhuasting push and some luck, the door opened and the lady who could not speak english emerged from the balcony to berate me in the vernacular. Good fun... Let me tell you. To add to the icing on the cake, I fell up the stairs. I hate doing that. The funny thing is, Zach and Lance had no idea we were locked inside, because they were chatting with girls at a nearby restaurant.
The museum was amazing. It was intellectually exhausting, and trying to not embarass ourselves by saying the wrong thing is equally tough in a place like this. We saw the original GUERNICA, and it was amazing. It was huge, intricate and inspiring. We also saw many other originals Picasso´s and a whole room full of Salvador Dali originals, which was absolutely fantastic. That man was a nut, a genuis and a visionary and seeing his work in the flesh was wonderful. There was also a side room featuring this artist who died recently, who did crazy, hallucinogenic things with wood. I wish I could due it justice, but we were not allowed to take pictures... the museum was strict about alot of things, and that was one. Zach got yelled at for sitting four times.
After that, we ate lunch at none other than McDonalds (I know) and went to a huge park in the middle of Madrid. This equalled Central Park in NYC. It was HUGE. There were myriad areas in this place, including an amazing manmade pond where we rented a rowboat and sunbathed for an hour, architectural gems, a fantastic rose garden and the memorial for the train bombing that happened in 2003 in Madrid. At the memorial, we met two old men who directed us to the big pond, and this place, in which pictures will be uploaded was amazing. On the boat, we met a bunch of American girls who directly intonated every stereotype that clings to American travellers. They were directly rude to us, even when we tried to be as nice as possible. I was speaking with one about Barcelona, and mid conversation, her friend took control of the boat and paddled away as we were speaking. How nice of them. To cleanse the bad taste, we went for a beer and sat about more, including meeting a lovely American girl (to compensate I guess) who had been pick-pocketed that day. I hope our jovial demeanor made her smile... she deserves it.
On the way back, I tripped over a wire that seperated the lawn from the pavement, and cut my toe up. I am okay, but I fell while I was simultaneously telling Lance that his behaviour, which is more adventurous than mine, would hurt him. I keeled over humourously, and limped home. Now we are waiting for an apparant pub crawl at 1AM and doing laundry.
Other than that, not much else to report. The five of us are off to Barcelona tomorrow, and waited for an hour in the train station to reserve today. Other tidbits; I broke the curtains in our hostel room, leaving us open to the world 24-7. Fisch lost it and fell down laughing. It is impossible to decipher the locking system here. We all have these watches that are linked electronically to the doorknob, but they never work. I was locked out for quite some time. My sunburn is subsiding slightly, but now I have to deal with a bad toe... I guess you win some, you lose some. All the guys are well, except Fisch has a bad sunburn and all four continue to strike out, miserably I might add, with the ladies. All I do is smile and think about Josie. Except for Kowski, who has been faithful to his wonderful girlfriend Kendra, the guys are swinging and missing left, right and centre. Remember, no matter where we go, Fisch is still that 'awkward mistake.´ We tried to hook up the camera to the computers, but the USB port driver doesn´t work, so we will try again in Barcelona. My UK phone is 011447910173986. Please e-mail, call, whatever...
That´s it... Love-
Shain
Posts
