Part V – Madrid

Thursday, March 15th

We woke up to the sound of construction. Unlike our hotel “in” Seville, our hotel in Madrid was right in the middle of the city. We stumbled down to breakfast and waited ages before getting a table and settling in to our little breakfast.

After breakfast we headed into the heart of the city and checked out the opera house, the palace, cathedral and some other stuff in the area before heading off to Retiro, the city’s major park. As we were walking out of the subway, I was offered drugs for the first time in Spain. This guy was nice though, unlike the dudes in Lisbon which were all kinds of shady. Now don’t get me wrong, having anyone offer you drugs is pretty high on the shady scale but when I told this dude, “no thanks,” he backed off and was cool about it. On top of that, we started walking in the wrong direction and kindly put us on the right track. I thought that was nice of him. After leaving the park we decided to go to the Reina Sofia art museum. I have to say, seeing the Dali and Gris paintings up close was amazing. The highlight of the museum was Picasso’s “Guernica” though. And I’ll tell you what: it’s completely different seeing these pieces up close. A lot of though went into the paintings, evidenced by the multiple, multiple planning sketches that Picasso made. And another thing: you might think Picasso painted some whack shit and was a hack but the dude could have painted ANYTHING he wanted. If you see some of his earlier stuff, you see that he paints realism with the best of them. A phenomenal talent, really. That was the good stuff though. There was also some crapola. They had some video work by some avant garde women artists that, while the message was kind of cool, the execution was lacking. It was made more agreeable by the appearance of tits though. Tits always save the day.

We stomped around the city some more before I made the executive decision to see the Santiago Bernabeu – the home of Real Madrid. After a couple of brief photographs, we went to Plaza del Sol and passed up a chance to eat at Restaurante Gallego to eat at the KFC. We made a note to come back to the Gallego restaurant the next day but didn’t end up having time to actually carry out the plan so I blew my chance.

After grubbing, we went back to the palace to get pictures of it and the cathedral at night. We went back to the hotel to drop off some stuff and then headed out in Chueca for beers and tapas. We were dragged into a bar by a woman promising a “buy one, get one free” deal but the place was D-E-A-D so we had our beer (the free one never materialized) and then left for a more lively location. On the way back to the hotel, we noticed a bar with tons of people spilling out into the square so I suggested to Kathi’s sister that we go see what that was all about. We headed back there and noticed that it was a sausage party. But much more than that. There were only men that prefer the company of other men, if you catch my drift, so I quickly shot down my own idea and headed off to a fake Irish pub to have my beers. Kathi’s sister wasn’t ass sharp on the idea so we didn’t stay very long. Mm hmm.

Friday, March 16th

We woke up and were served our breakfast ricky-tick compared to the previous day’s wait. After that we checked our some more sights, including the city’s bullfighting ring before heading to a small Egyptian palace. It only seemed mildly intriguing, but we stayed there for some time. Apparently the Egyptians broke and old temple down brick by brick and sent it to Spain as a gift for… something. So, right in the middle of Madrid, there’s a fully legit Egyptian temple which is surprising and surprisingly cool.

Afterwards, we walked for ages to get to the Campo del Moro, essentially the palace’s garden, and ended up getting lost and wasting a ton of time because it was laid out by a fucking retard. I was upset because I wanted to have some time to visit the Museo del Prado and I got stuck in the fucking park. I did eventually make it to the museum though and, being thoroughly unimpressed with the previous museum, Kathi’s sister decided to skip it. I went in and bought the tour guides and whole nine yards. Without the gf, I was able to see the things that interested me and take my time where I wanted to. Again, it was great. We met back up at a pre-determined time and only had time for a quick bite to eat at Burger King (we ate well in Madrid) before we jumped in the car to head off. We had to settle our parking bill though and it was a nice 51 Euros. Jumpin’ Jiminy!

We left the city and drove for ages to find the damn freeway and when we finally DID find the freeway, there was an accident and a traffic jam for miles. We did eventually make it to Barcelona but finding our hotel was an adventure. It (surprise!) was poorly marked and we literally drove by it at least two times before someone pointed it out to us and we pulled in. We checked in and the dude at the desk was rude but the actual room was kick ass. The only thing that blew was the lack of privacy in the bathroom. The door was frosted glass and the shower had no door or separation at all. It was ultimately ok because I was just there with my girlfriend but if I was there with my buddies, it would have been more than a little uncomfortable. This, however, was made up by the fact that there were FREE PORN CHANNELS! At least that’s what I though. Kathi’s sister made me turn them off though in case there weren’t actually free. I was reminded a lot of our hotel in Mannheim during the World Cup…