My friend and I showered up and limped down to the mess hall in the hotel for provisions.
Surprisingly, the Hotel Puerto Del Sol puts on a lovely little breakfast. Not surprising, I grabbed a glass to pour myself some jugo de naranja and got immediately reprimanded in Spanish by the lady in charge. Apparently, you were supposed to flag senora down and ask for whatever you wanted so she could bring it to you. Now that I think of it, it was very clearly written…on a small piece of paper…tucked behind a microwave…in a tiny appliance armoire…where no one could possibly see it (and she pointed to with that look in her eye that I was one of the dumbest people she had ever come into contact with). So, it took me all of 11 seconds to completely piss off the only person working the hotel breakfast room.
Sounds about right.
Par for my life.
Rather than inconvenience another, I served myself. As a result, I got scolded in front of several other hotel guests. But, wouldn’t it have made me more of an A-hole if I simply sat down and assumed the one busy lady in the room was supposed to wait on me? It’s lose-lose situations like this that make me want to stay home alone in my apartment all day and night where I have control.
FML.
Two orange juices, two crepes, one apple, one charro, 20 grapes, and one tongue-lashing later, we hit the streets for a day of sights.
First stop, Parque De Retiro. This was a gorgeous public park in the middle of the city. Lush lawns and flowers everywhere. We chose it because I saw a picture in a guidebook that showed a small pond where you could rent little row boats to cruise around and be lazy in. Once we found the pond, I was frozen by how idyllic the scene was. It was so calming that we didn’t even rent a boat, just watching it was enough. I mean, of course I lobbied for 15 minutes to row around in a boat. I even played the “I will do ALL of the rowing” card, but to no avail. It was eventually decided for me that we, as a group, wanted to keep walking.
After the park, we needed more fuel, so we set out for food. Somehow, there was absolutely nothing to eat at the West end of the park. So, we mobbed through a small neighborhood looking for a restaurant. In the distance I saw an adorable little café on the street three blocks from where we were standing (maybe my proudest moment in the first three days of the trip. Big up to my Optometrist.).
So, we get to this cute little cafe, get a lovely table on the sidewalk, and in true “Todd” fashion there was nothing on the god damn menu that I eat. I made my friend translate the menu for me twice and nothing I heard sounded even close to acceptable. I explained that I was perfectly fine with leaving, but we decided to stay.
She eventually chose an omelet-type thing that caught her eye.
I ended up eating a coke.
My friend’s food came out, she ate it, hated it, and began feeling sick (of course, because I suggested the place). Seriously, people wonder why I never make any suggestions with regard to where to go, what to do, where to eat, or whatever. This is just another in a string of 77,843 wrong restaurant suggestions I have made in my lifetime. I am not sure why I somehow always end up looking like a jack-dick, but it inevitably happens. This is why, I would rather someone else make the suggestion, let me agree to it, hate it, be silently miserable for the duration, and keep some sort of dignity intact. But, no.
Still starving, we walked back to a section of the city we were more familiar with to seek out yet another chance at food. We realized we were close to a tapas place that my friend had seen in a travel mag, so we busted up in the bitch. After all, it couldn’t be worse than the first place.
Except it was.
After getting the menu translated for me, I authorized three tapas dishes. One came out looking (and smelling) like scrambled eggs were liquefied in a blender and then microwaved until they were smoldering hot. The second was so puzzling I wrote it off entirely. And the third was fried asparagus (which I don’t eat-and only approved because I knew my friend loved them). If you had not figured it out already, I DID NOT EAT at this restaurant either. That’s two in a row. Unprecedented. I looked like the petulant 6-year old at a fancy restaurant that only wants macaroni and cheese off the kids’ menu. Not a good look. So, I watched my friend choke down those nasty tapas like a scene from “Fear Factor” and we rolled out---looking for yet ANOTHER restaurant where I might find something I could actually consume.
We ended up popping into a YIPS (which, in America, would be like a Walgreens with a Denny’s inside it). I settled on a fried chicken salad and I felt good about it. I have no idea why, because it was, of course, a disaster. It came out with loads of Caesar dressing on it.
I don’t eat Caesar dressing.
But, I choked it down because I was nearing a blackout.
After some walking, three attempts at food, and making much fun of the stupid tourists on the double-decker tour buses, we decided to…jump on a double-decker tour bus. We did this because we realized paying a few euros to be driven around in a bus would:
1 – Take a lot less effort thank walking the city
2 – Allow us to see more stuff in less time
3 - #1
4 - #1
So, we found a bus stop, bought two tickets and set out for the West side of the city where the Royal Palace resides. Along the way, we saw some buildings, some streets and some people.
When we got to the Royal Palace, we found a Spanish man sitting outside cranking some Simon & Garfunkel on a little guitar, so I did my two-step for the entire first verse + hook and kept it moving.
Once inside the Royal Palace, we walked around from room to room discussing:
1 – How in the shit a family decides which room to hang out in when there are 3,418 to choose from
2 – How in the shit a family member finds another family member who is NOT hanging out in the designated
“hang out” room if the telephone has not yet been invented
3– Why in the shit there are 3,418 rooms to choose from in the first place
4– Which interior design company the royal family chose to outfit the crib-and why.
About nine minutes into the tour of the palace’s interior, the smell of dust, mold and hot feet started to get to me, so we bailed. Exiting the palace’s internal tour lands you out in the biggest freaking plaza/courtyard in the history of the world. I am not certain of the square footage (and am obviously too lazy to wiki the information), but it felt like a patio made of four football fields of limestone, surrounded by 70-foot walls. It’s definitely something to behold.
Whilst cruising the plaza, I demanded pictures.
Underwhelmed by how I was being dwarfed by the palace in the shots we were getting, I insisted my friend shoot me up from the ground to give me size in the frame. Not exactly a “professional” photographer, my friend did her best.
Her “best” ended up cutting off my head and ramming the Royal steeple straight up my rectum (thanks again “C”).
Near the end of the “red bus” tour that took us to the West side of the city, we realized there was also a “blue bus” tour that scopes the East side. It was all included in one lump price, so we decided to suck it up and ride out.
The home stretch of the “blue bus” tour line finds you at the Santiago Bernabeau Futbol Stadium. As my luck would have it, Christiano Ronaldo (my travel partner’s “Man-tasy”) plays for the team that calls this stadium home. Thus, I had to listen to her explain (in excruciating detail) what she would like to do to each of his body parts. I explained soon after that many of the things on her list are illegal in most of our United States.
This in no way derailed her game plan.
She quickly assured me all activities are fair game in Espana, which is apparently where the tryst would be taking place. The lady had a point. How could I argue this?
So, after the tour ended we busted back to the hotel.
Siestas…
Showers…
Big, big night out on night #3.
Maybe the top item on my friend’s “Madrid wish list” was seeing traditional Spanish Flamenco dancing. We scooped some tickets online for the most celebrated of Madrid’s Flamenco spots and cabbed over to the West side for drinks and Flamenco.
The Flamenco spot was hot. It was really quaint and comfy. Dimly lit with a small, elevated stage in the corner of the establishment; it was everything I hoped it would be. Oddly, the show didn’t start until after 11:00 PM. We saw a few different Flamenco acts and all were very, very impressive. Most notably, my obsession with castanets began with act #2. I still vow that I can figure out a way to incorporate those things in a DJ routine. Time will tell.
The lobby of the Flamenco place was adorned with pictures of celebrities that had come to see the show over the years. On the way out, I waited 20 minutes for someone to recognize me and snap a photo to add to the wall.
No luck.
So, we stumble out of the Flamenco spot around 1:15 AM and decided to walk the streets and see what was popping off.
What happened next was like a scene out of a movie.
We turned the corner and saw an enormous festival blasting off in a big open lawn area.
We rolled through.
When we got down to the main section of the lawn, there were food stands, drink stands, cotton candy, thousands of people and a big-ass stage with a DJ banging House music. We grabbed drinks and assimilated. My friend and I spent the next half hour watching Spanish men flirt with Spanish women and dissecting the differences between their courting customs and our own. To be hoest, their tactics appeared to mirror those of America’s. The biggest difference appeared to be deodorant.
After we figure this out, the DJ dropped “Sexy Bitch” by Guetta, and I couldn’t believe the crowd was feeling it. How does this song still go hard in Madrid 18 months after the fact?
After Guetta, the DJ ran “Viva la Vida” and people started chanting like it was a Coldplay concert. I was surprised to see this song also go over big. I don’t know what I expected from the DJ and/or the crowd that night but overall I found it surprising. Eventually, I got over my music snobbery and started banging back drinks like I was a freshman in college and Madrid was Panama City during Spring Breazy.
Finally, at 4:00 AM the cops shut the fete down. I was pissed. But, I guess it was 4:00 AM after all. We cabbed back home and slipped off to sleep (because our flights to the gorgeous island of Ibiza leave in the morning).
Stay tuned for the next episode (Ibiza was epic).
You’re welcome,
-The Todd
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