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Published: July 17th 2006
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On the flight home now after a chaotic morning…went out last night for our last evening in Madrid and really had a blast. Started with trying something other than tapas and so we found a place called
Doner Kapob, I think they may be international because I think I’ve seen them in other countries and the food was delicious, just what we needed to remind us there is something other than jamon and queso bocadillas (sandwiches with ham and cheese). The best part about the meal were the really cool polo shirts the workers were all wearing with the Donor Kapob logo on the back. I offered our server 20euro for one of those shirts but he said his supervisor would kill him and he couldn’t do it. Would have a great addition to the great clothes I did manage to find while walking the shopping district near our hostel. After our meal, I had the mixed plate of lamb and chicken and Marcus went crazy and order several things from the menu too, we went back to our favorite haunt, the Dubliner. The doorman knows us by name now and so do the bartenders which is pretty cool considering you can
barely walk in the place it’s so crowded every night we were there.
We had some mojitos to get us warmed up and chatted with Cazz (yes, another Cazz!) from Brisbane, Australia. The evening got going and very crazy when a group of 15 English girls arrived for their bachelorette party! It was a study in social dynamics anyone interested in men and woman and the game of attraction would have loved to watch. Every guy in the club, slowly made their way back to the back of the bar where the girls had taken their seats in a big circle…Spanish men are very aggressive with Spanish women but we’ve been told not necessarily that way with American, Australian, new Zealand, woman for example. Mark and I just sat back on our barstools, sipped our drinks and said ‘let the carnage begin’. One by one the guys would try to enter the circle of girls, the circle of death we started calling it, but these girls were having none of it. Over and over, crash and burn. Of course, yours truly and Marcus had the DJ play a little Snoop Doggy Dogg and suddenly we were watching the club
explode right in front us! By the end of the evening, we befriended the leader of the group and got the whole party going with the girls standing in their chairs dancing and the whole place just turned into a blast!! It was so crazy at one point a girl was in her chair dancing and waving her cigarette (you can smoke almost anywhere here and everyone seems to enjoy smoking) that the girl plunged her cigarette right into my eye! Never had that happen before and yes, it was excruciating but she was very sorry. I have a nice little burn mark under my lower eyelid and my eyelashes are singed a bit on top and bottom but that was the extent of the damage…hahaha!
We got tired of the craziness and left the guys to clean up what we started and headed over next door when the lights came on. The other bar stayed open till 6am which was nice and then we ran into a group of locals who for some reason were friendly, probably the alcohol but they took me and Marcus to an Argentinean Salsa club. I don’t think there was another American in
the place other than us but nobody seemed to care and they set us up with a bottle of Johnnie walker red and my salsa lessons came in handy! The club was smoky, the music was good though and we stayed until almost 6 and then I decided to hit the streets one last time before flying out this morning. I walked for a while and watched the city come to life as people were heading home from late nights crossing paths with people just getting up to go to work. I also enjoy seeing that dichotomy. Finally got to our flat on Santa Cruz and there was a woman opening up the door at the same time I showed up which was lucky because mark had the keys. She let me in but I still had two doors to get passed and ended up sitting outside the hostal door for a few minutes until the night worker saw me in his video camera and let me in. nice of him. The only obstacle between me and the bed was our door and I sat outside for a few minutes more and Mark showed up. Whew!
In what seemed
like seconds, mark was yelling “Get up!” “Get up!” and it was 9.35 and our flight was leaving at 11.30. I never got dressed and packed so fast in my life. In less than 10 minutes the whole room was empty and we were running out of the hostal faster than the bulls run down Estafetta! We skipped the metro and hailed and cab and caught the only Mario Andretti wanna-be in Spain that also spoke good English! and this guy literally flew us to the airport with enough time to wait, in line, a long, long line. We checked with no problem and turned to the line. Someone opened up another line and we jumped in it, ignoring the jeers and taunts and anger from the folks behind us (yes, we were the rude Americans for once, and i didn’t like it but had to do it!) and we made the plane with just enough to laugh and take a quick picture and honestly I think we were both a little tipsy still - good thing we weren’t flying the plane.
So we are about to land in Newark and then we will make our way to Tampa
this evening and I think we get in around 5. It has been a monumental trip for me and I will collect my thoughts and write down some of them in my next blog. Until then, all is well and we are both able to keep the dry, tasteless sandwich down at least until we hit some more turbulence..hahaa..next stop, the land of Soprano’s!
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