A day in Madrid

---

Euro-trip: Memoirs of an insane Adventure

"Lets back pack through europe"
"Okay"

This was essentially how our europe trip began. Daydreams of walking through cobblestone streets and eating at small, local eateries would be preceeded by hours of tedious preparation. Most of which was completed by Zuni and Nabeel 😊.
After 2 and a half weeks of intense planning, schedule changing, and plain old frustration, our plans were set, and all that was left to do was pack. Did I mention it was the night before? Oh, well it was. Our flight to Madrid was on Wednesday, May 4th, and we were packing until Wednesday, May 4th.

We left Ann Arbor at the auspicious time of 3:30, after saying good bye to our friends at the house, and making a pit stop at Meijer. Along the way, sleep deprived and hungry, Nabeel and myself took turns driving. The drive was a bit tripy to say the least, the twilight hours made me feel like I was, well in the twilight zone.
First mishap, while nabeel was driving, we missed two tolls: sorry Zuni. As we got into Lopez's house nabeel thought he almost lost/forgot his passport: not very fun.

But, we made it to the airport safe and sound, passport and all, and awaited our flight to madrid.

Madrid:
Upon arriving in Madrid, we hailed a cab and headed to our hostel. Our cab driver was more than a bit candid, describing in lucid detail which nationality of tourist was most promiscuous, and which block had the cheapest prostitutes. Apparently it's the German and English: for tourists, not prostitutes 😊
He also told us about other popular vacation spots for both tourists, and nationals. Apparently Sevilla is very popular.

Finally, we arrived at our hostel, and after saying a cheerful goodbye to our cab driver, I immediately put my hand to face and cranked a loud "FUCK ME!!!". No, I did not meet any German or English, and was no where near the cheapho's (made a punny!). I left my camera in the front seat of our cab drivers car (whose name we also never got).
On the bright side, I didn't take any pictures.

SO begins our Adventure 😊. We arrived at 10 am, and unfortunately couldn't check in until noon or after. So, we decided to drop off our bags and explore the city. We found a really sweet eatery and got some cheap, but surprisingly delicious food. The higlight was definitely the coffee: home made, great tasting coffee included in our all meal, all for 2 euros.
Our server, (I think his name was Chano, or something to that effect) was really cool as well. After our brief meal, we headeed to one of the spots our cab driver recommended (not the cheap prostitutes, give us more credit than that). The Plaza Mayor! This place is pretty fucking cool. Imagine an enourmous square, and along the sides are aweomse cafe's, trinket shops, and packs of hobo's (the cardboard box kind).
In the center is a giant statue of Felipe the II (I think), and all throughout are various street performers. We saw a few headless performers wearing hats and spectacles(see photos so you don't freak out).

The highlight of the Plaza Mayor would have to be our friend who we've affectionately dubbed, "The Quacker" (actually nabeel calls him the "The Duck Whisperer", which just sounds creepy). However Quacker is funny because he's black! get it? HAHAHAHA...anyway. He's aptly named, because quacking was his preferred method of communication. At first, we didn't quite no what this strange quacking noise was. Naturally, we thought a duck was nearby. Lo and behold, we find a black man, dressed like a mystic or someone, trying
to sell trinkets via quacking. We laughed nervously, unsure whether we were just experiencing culture shock, or if this was the town crazy. We concluded he was the latter, and thusly documented our encounter (please,see this video,really).

After a few laughs (innocent in all honesty), we ran into a group of tourists that were not so different from our quacker friend (except for the quacking). We learned the tour was free, and since we had no idea what the fuck to do, we decided to play ball. Our tourguide was an energetic little englishman named Colin. He was a good lad, and had a lot of energy (or cocaine).
Our tour covered many of the spots that make Madrid such a beautiful city. All jokes aside, Madrid has an incredibly rich history that's captured best by it's architecture. You see buildings with slanted roofs, reminiscent of the old Hapsburg dynasty, but at the same time, buildings and doors with a middle eastern flair that pay homage to the city's Arab influence.
(see photos)

After two hours into our tour, we were more than a little tired, and decided to rest up for a bit. At least me, zuni, and lopez. Nabeel thought it best to venture out and buy a cigarette lighter. Oh, and pick up three German girl's phone numbers 😊. Alas, it was to no avail, for our fellowship could not make contact with the promiscuous German tourists because our phone's didn't work.
Anyway, after we were all rested (except nabeel), we decided to check out a local museum: The Sofia Reina Museum of Art. We some interesting pieces, but the highlight was seeing Picasso's Guernica (the original I believe). I'm sure a lot of you have studied it in some class, but seeing it up close is pretty insane. There were sensors preventing yuppies like us from coming too close (accidentally made it go off, go figure).


We saw some more Picasso, and then went to a Salvador Dali Exhibit. I don't know much about Art, but I know a good deal about drugs. The dankest weed could not come close to producing the vision this man saw (see photos). Although bull shit aside, check out acid art s:it's eerily similar.
(See Phots)

The square in front of the museum reminded me a lot of the diag in Michigan: families/people lounging about. There were lots of small cafe's/ restaurants along the sides, very similar to the Plaza Mayor. We took a breather there for a while, and found a great Falafel place near by. Very satisfying meal for about 5 and a half euros.

To conclude our day in Madrid, we decided to check out a really nice (but more importantly, authentic) flamenco dancing joint. It was right off the Plaza Mayor, and wasn't horribly difficult to find. We got a really nice discount from our cracked out, but fucking awesome tour guide Colin. We were a bit sleepy, and ordered some delicious coffee (included with our ticket, which was 20 euros), and had a really relaxing evening.

I've never seen flamenco before, and the music totally blew my mind. One word: passion. The music, the singing, the dancing, everything had so much passion and power. It was sensual, but so incredibly fierce. There were 3 female dancers, one male dancer, a guitar player, and two singers. THe dancers took turns, while the men sang/played continuously. The one male dancer seemed a tad flamboyant at first, but after seeing his performance, I think he's had his fair share of German (and English) Turistas.
(see photo's/video)

At first we thought this would conclude our evening, it was already 11 o'clock, we were short on sleep, and needed to get up early the next morning. Nope.
It was Lopez's birthday, and he was fiending for some chocolate churros.

Collin told us earlier about Madrid's most notorious Chocolate Churro joint: The Chocolateria San Gines. This place is notorious for serving the likes of Richard Gere, and Martin Scorcese.
It was Obvious we had to go there, but our route was quite the contrary. Madrid becomes even more lively at night, so we decided to stroll around a bit before making our to deliciousness.

We walked past a few clubs and various street performers, when a curious pakistani man approached us quite curiously. He recognized that we're indo/pakistani, and began telling us about this awesome he was promoting. We gave him our ears, and he told us that there's a promotion going on where you can get into the club for free, with this pass he was giving out. We figured, what the fuck, our only night in Madrid, lets have a little fun. We follow our curious little pakistani friend, and after a few mintues of walking, he shows us to the door.
As we cross the threshold, dangling blue and purple christmas tree lights greet us, along with several scantily clad and highly promiscuous looking women.

The four of us turn to our pakistani friend, and say quite audibly: "what the fuck man"
Oh, and a slightly obese but ancient looking man was chilling on the sofas with 4-5 ho's while the rest attempted to solicit sex and/or greencards.

Our pakistani friend, slightly off put by our reluctance to fornicate, offered his best defense for our confusion:
" I said "cloob", not club."
Seriously. Cloob. Yeah, like anyone would believe that. Oh right, haha, we did. We seriously thought cloob was code for brothel, and thusly entered this word into our vocabulary. Little did we know, that our new found vocabulary would earn a few laughs in Barcelona 😊.

Anyhoo. After that bit of fun, we decided to head to the Chocolateria San Gines, and indulged in a really decadent, kick ass chocolate sauce.
Lopez enjoyed it a bit too much (see photo, choice of mustache style not cool, especially since we're in Europe).

Our stomachs may have finally been satisfied, but our appetite for mischief was not. Mischief is a strong euphemism for our next adventure. While roaming around the streets of madrid, we came across Spain's national symbol, which was thoroughly explained on our tour. It was a giant statue of a bear, and it's pretty much the equivalent of our own United States Flag. However, it was a statue of a bear, climbing a tree, and being the mature college graduates we are, it was time for some serious debauchery. That's right, you guessed it. One of us four decided to
climb up the statue, and rear end the giant bear that was climbing a tree. I'll give you hint, the person is not who you think it was (see photo). Unfortunately for our friend, he was caught in the act by a disgruntled local, who proceeded to inquire about our antics. Unsatisfied with our response, he asked (not so discreetly) for polic assistance, wherein we decided it best to leave. And by leave I mean run. really fucking fast.

While the cinco-cerro weren't exactly in hot pursuit, we took no chances and fled down the nearest alley we could find. We milled about some more (see photo), and finally decided to call it a night.

Madrid, the city, is truly majestic. It's so regal, and that feeling can't really be put into words. The locals, in one word, were interesting. While slightly deceptive, and a bit insane, everyone was extremely polite, and when asked, never hesitated to offer help.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed hearing about our visit to madird. Next on our list, Barcelona!Ciao.

---