In 7th grade English class, Chad sang revised lyrics for me, unsolicited, and I was grateful:
"She was working in a bridal shop in Flushing Queens,
Then she fell in the toilet and messed up her jeans,
she's the Nanny!!"
On the flight, Chad asked why we never finished out the rest of those lyrics, but that's probably as good of a place as any to stop. Meanwhile, I was just bewildered that Air Europa thought this 90's American sitcom was most suitable for the diverse 10 to 70yr-old German demographic. Maybe they've done studies, maybe it's true. Go "Die Nanny."
After 2 more airports, struggling to use a pay phone, and finding our hostel on Gran Via, we set out for toothpaste (for me) and disposable razors (for Chad). Hygeine must be considered luxury for people in Munich, as we had almost given up searching. We found a pharmacy in Madrid, and I found a tube of Sensodyne with Spanish writing saying, "Elimina las molestias de dientes y encias sensibles." I'm out of practice, but I knew it said something like, "eliminate that which bothers your teeth", or "eliminate the teeth that bother you". I gambled on the first. Chad looked on and scolded me, saying,
"Philip what are you doing, that's what they wipe on babies' butts to remove diaper rash!"
Could 'encias sensibles' mean 'sensitive baby bottoms?' After some hesitation and reprocessing, Chad realized he was thinking of Desitin. Still, the idea of me brushing my teeth with diaper rash cream lived on for several more days.
After lunch, we walked to the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas... to watch a bull fight! Actually, 6 bull fights, with bigger bulls each round.
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
The fights lasted about 20 minutes each. First, 3-4 matadors would work together to rile up the bull. Following this, two men riding armored, blind-folded horses would enter the arena. The bull would charge the horse (and twice knocked a horse over)! Look at my album and videos to get an idea of the different rounds at your discretion (No pictures of bulls dying, just one bull leaving the arena). At some points it was pretty graphic, and while Chad and I were really excited to watch it, 6 bulls in one day were probably too many for us. Video Links:
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
Newspaper clipping below: The day AFTER we went to the bull fight, a matador was impaled by the horn of the sixth and final bull. The bull punctured his lung, but he killed the bull in the process.
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
We thought we had left behind any resemblances of the Nazi Party back in Germany, but my theory now is that the Nazi soldiers fled to Madrid to run Hostels. At ours, there were rules everywhere- no eating or drinking in rooms. No guests in the rooms (including Cathy's sister). No visitors after 10PM. No room keys given, and no nighttime entry / exit without asking for the manager to unlock the door. No Wi-Fi after 10PM. Computer usage with permission only. Chad told Caren that the hostel manager would sneak in the room while we were out, try on Caren's clothes and underwear, and lay in her bed. Despite this chilling possibility, we enjoyed sharing the room between the 5 of us (Cathy's brother Jimmy was our 5th).
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Mary led us around the city and pointed out historical sites, restaurants and cafes, and architecture. We visited Plaza Mayor, toured Palacio Real, and stopped for authentic churros. Churros are pastry sticks eaten with chocolate sauce, and Chad and Cathy eat them when they shop at Costco in Atlanta. I've never been to a Costco, but I understand Costco may have a leg up on the Churros market.
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
Palacio Real- the historical residence of the King of Spain, complete with an armory and a medieval pharmacy but no apparent royal bathrooms.
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
El Retiro Park- a park in Madrid where we took naps in the grass and fed obese ducks.
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
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We often enjoyed the tapas bars, where whenever you ordered sangria or beer, the kitchen would accompany your drink order with fried potatoes or paella or some other surprise. One night, we stopped at a crowded, sketchy tapas bar where our waiter thought it would be funny to serve us Callos with our drinks. I refused to eat it but we would find out afterwards that Callos was cow (or lamb) stomach. The reticulum honeycomb texture grossed me out. Chad and I had to order something else, and we landed on Chopitos (fried, whole baby squid complete with black eyeballs). We did the best we could with this one.
Callos
Jimmy and I wanted to join a pub crawl one afternoon since we were having bad luck at finding non sketchy beer stops on our own. Jimmy found an organized group which stopped at 4 different bars for 30 minutes each. Leading our pub crawl was a perky blonde Austrialian named Sarah who could not speak Spanish well, and who we would learn had only lived in Madrid for 3 weeks. Through the art of the 'guilt trip', she was intent that we mingle with the college freshmen and high school graduates who were thrilled to be drinking (legally, for a change). We resisted as long as we could, but when coming out of the bathroom of our final stop, I found Chad, Cathy, and Jimmy had succumbed to an interspersed seating arrangement. Mary and I took a table by ourselves to discuss expat living, leaving the others to be extroverted. When Sarah confronted us, Mary quietly responded to her in Spanish, setting Sarah off track. Fumbling at the language of a country in which she now resided, she assumed Mary's unintelligible response to be a convincing enough reason to let us be. I was so impressed that Mary found her weak spot.
Our final stop:
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
Madrid was a clean city, but while walking the streets, a piece of trash paper attacked Chad's feet. He recounted the story of a sandaled Cathy, who once stepped on and surfed a dirty diaper outside a Florida TJ Maxx after a rain storm. Apparently, unlike TJ Maxx shoppers, the Spanish have less tolerance for littering and contracting diseases through contact with human feces. (I love making these generalizations)
I really enjoyed Madrid- from the quaint side street tapas bars to the great weather and scenery. From using my Spanish to the seafood paella and tortilla de patatas. From the historical sites and architecture to the way the African prostitues aggressively howled at me and Jimmy in the street but pretended to be on their cell phones when girls passed by. We did wander into some less family-friendly parts of town, and our gummy bears cravings were harder to satisfy than in Germany, but otherwise I really enjoyed the city.
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| From Madrid, 2009 |
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