Although I am yet to take a class that warrants the attention of note-taking, I am now partially settled into life in Madrid. I know where to get a beer, I know where to eat Jamón Ibérico, and I know where to drink cafe con leche. They are all the same place,
Taberna San Bruno, an establishment that I have frequented enough in my first week and a half in Madrid that I have now established myself as a regular. I get the modified Madrileño hand-shake from the youngest bartender [which looks like
this, although I attempted to do
this the first time, making for an awkward exchange] and have a caña, which is a small glass of beer. I drink slowly [as they do here] and look at the old men sitting across from me who have been doing this same routine since they were probably my age, and they look very
wrinkly, I don't intend on keeping this up for too long. This is where I am now, but how did I get to here...
...After waking up somewhere over the Atlantic ocean, partially hung over from the Grolschs that came free on my flight to London, I realized that I had only been asleep for four hours and I wasn't in fact over the Atlantic Ocean, but probably over Detroit, making my arduous journey from San Francisco to London. Two movies and a truncated version of the "Thrilla in Manila" later, I was grounded once more in the obese London Heathrow Airport, an area larger than the Principality of Monaco. Heathrow was packed to the gills with some of the fattest and one of the ugliest people [she was exceptionally ugly...memory burn] that grace our lovely planet, so I praised the shortness of my hour-long layover.
Three hours later, I was having my passport stamped in Madrid-Barajas Airport while I trying to explain to the agent that I was in Spain to study "el urbanismo", which I don't think is a word [spanglish word counter: uno]. I took a taxi into the city, however I couldn't see the approach into my new home, the windows had steamed up from my perspiration, I was sweating from talking: not a good sign. My first night in Madrid was spent alone, waiting for the other members of my program to arrive. I spent the evening watching the Sunday NFL Divisional Playoffs in an Irish Pub called "The James Joyce", bienvenidos a Madrid.
The other members of my program arrived the next day, and I roomed with Paul in 522. Paul was a nice kid, but for some reason the hotel thought a double room was two single beds and pushed them together and then bookend them with night stands, making it impossible to move apart [see photograph]. No big deal, I passed out at 9:30 and didn't rise until 7:30; the sun still hadn't come out. I rose excited, that day I was to meet my señora, as well as my roommate, Timothy Henry, both of whom I would be living with for the next five months.
Aida Angélica greeted me and Tim with the traditional "dos besos" and the three of us, along with our luggage, piled into a taxi meant to take half of that cargo and headed off to Calle de Toledo. Who needs seat belts, anyway? I could not have been happier with the location of our apartment, the taxi stopped in front of a building in the center of it all, right in the heart of the old town. I could have been a little happier about having to carry all of my luggage up to
el quinto piso while Aida waited and watched the rest of my bags idly by the door. She is a very sweet woman, but when it comes to manual labor the lady has the capabilities of a stubborn four-year-old boy.
I didn't really leave the room selection to much debate, for as soon as I entered the apartment and saw the size of the two rooms, I immediately staked my claim in the larger of the two. I would be happy to leave my room "selection" to the logic that I am bigger than Tim and thus need the bigger room, but I definitely pulled some "80-year-old Chinese woman on the MUNI" moves to get the better accomodations. Contents: 1 bed [see photograph], 1 comfortable chair, 1 desk, 1 desk chair, 1 set of shelves, 1 closet, and 1 fireplace [that doesn't look like its been used
since spit-roasting went out of style in the mid-1780's]. My room is covered with various mirrors along with art prints from museums from all over Europe. My favorite is picture of what looks like one of the three musketeers after a weekend spent eating
KFC Double Downs for every meal: he's fat. I like my room a lot, and it is very comfortable. My only gripe is that my bed is about a foot too short.
Thus sums up a brief, yet long-winded, description of my immediate surroundings. Soon to come: my neighborhood walks, day trip [in][to] Segovia, cochinillo, my friend Edu, nightlife, Stockholm, and obviously much more about food and drink. I hope you continue to read of my adventures, and I will post new material as soon as it is processed.
