Prior to jet setting I checked to see if there were any meetup groups in Madrid. I ended up finding a couple worth exploring. One was a Madrid expat meet on Sunday and the other two ; a local organizing a pub crawl for the last Saturday in 2013 and Madrid wine lovers. Perfect! I was all set to go with the wine lovers but then saw there was a 20€ fee and it didn’t really say what it included…so bar crawl it was…I wanted to chit chat with some locals anyway. We were set to meet at 10pm at the Vodafone store on plaza de sol. Blinded by all the stimuli walking around I realized I had not eaten dinner yet. I quickly came back home to drop off my gear, clean up and head back out. I left early enough to stop somewhere on the way. VIPS, was in route and I had walked past several times earlier while exploring. I didn’t even sit down though as I went to the adjacent take away area and grabbed (in no particular order) a smoked salmon sandwich ; perfect before I meet some peeps, some organic yogurt, a cup of strawberries and finally at Kirin ichiban can of beer. Strangely enough I felt right at home, thinking about the many times stopping at the combini in Japan. Package sandwiches, another thing someone else does better than the states. I don’t trust those things at gas stations, turnover is terrible – they probably sit there for weeks. I was contemplating having another. I finished my beer quickly ; maybe punching a hole in the side and shot-gunning it would have been slightly faster. I headed to plaza in a hurry.
Long story short…the meet-up was a bust. I arrived early, waiting with only one other person for more than 45minutes past 10pm we decided to give up. I mean I know there is “Spanish time”. Emma, the other women that was waiting was originally from Madrid but has been living in Wales since ’97. Deciding not to make a complete wash of the evening I tagged along to check out a local salsa joint. No intention of even trying to salsa but rather watch. Its like karaoke in the states apparently where everyone are pretty much professionals. I have yet to see anyone get up on stage in the states a people immediately cover their ears. Same applies here…women wait patiently to get asked to salsa, most of them have just finished class and they are good. If your potential partner agrees…you will always be asked again. I didn’t notice anyone struggling on the main floor. I was cool just sipping my gin and tonic. Didn’t take me too long to use up my tickets and I headed back. At least on the way I had a pretty good conversation of why Madrid was better than Barcelona ; something I would have to decide later.
For some reason I’ve always had this affinity with Barcelona. When I first started collecting soccer jerseys, FC Barca was my first. I love Meissi and hate Ronaldo…ok hate is strong word but Ill just make sure when I travel to Portugal soon to keep my mouth shut on that one. I always thought Barcelona would be the first city I stayed in when taking my first trip to Spain. But my travels brought me to Madrid first. I had basically 4 full days to discover the city, eat some tapas and drink some great Spanish wine.
There are plenty of touristy things to do, museums, art galleries and others, and I needed to at least build up an appetite and keep my mind occupied from not wanting to walk-in to every freakin cafe to grab some cured ham. Plaza de Sol was my end location for today, hopefully I would make it there. Interestingly, the plaza shared a similar wheel spoke design as Detroit with several streets leading to the plaza. The area is apparently the place to be for shopping and nightlife. A perfect combo to drink away your guilty shopping spree. Still jet lagged though, I got my caffeine fix every morning at Bendita Locura just the around the corner from where I was staying. Admittedly, my spanish is embarrassing. I took 2yrs in high school and you would think I remember a little more than I actually did…but hey that was 15yrs ago ; maybe I thought that I would actually try and go to Spain sooner, but I guess better late than never. Acting like a tourist I’ve been using my dictionary to make an attempt to piece together phrases or even complete sentences/questions without sounding like a 3yr old. But being from ‘Murica it seems like everyone would know some English. At the cafe, ordering coffee was easy, but figuring out what I wanted for breakfast was a bit more difficult. Desi, the barista at Bendita was great. She was super helpful and gave me a lot of information on where to go, what to see and most importantly what to eat. Originally from Bulgaria, she has been in Madrid for the past 12yrs. So, continuing to not practice my Spanish I just visited Desi every morning to get my Cafe americano and spanish breakfast, basically just toasted baguette with tomato.