Madrid

Another week flew by and Friday afternoon I was flying easyjet into Madrid to visit a friend from Uni. Before I get into the awesomeness of Madrid though, I think it might be entertaining to point out some of the highlights of last week inbetween trips. On one of the days I went to this art show thingy in Soho where I met Rhitik and others. He told me that several people had asked where I was the previous weekend (Lakes District weekend) and why I wasn't at their party or function. Apparently I had several invites to birthdays and get togethers that were rather high profile (guest list only). I think it is safe to say I've made a mark on London when I am getting myself on guest lists and have people asking about me. Awesome! Now I feel like I can move on to the next part of my life, but am still not yet ready. The art show and after party also required me to get on a guest list, no problem thanks to Rhitik. JP and his mates showed up later and about 1130 we all headed out to a few other bars in London. We started off at 2toomuch, which I have to admit is the first gay bar I've ever really been to. Zoiks! I spent most of my time there nursing overpriced lager and taking the piss out of transexual dancers with JPs friends. I think the highlight of that bar came when I was being chatted up by some bloke whose first question was: "Are you Australian or American?" With the best Aussie accent I could muster up I replied: "Oh yeah I'm Australian, from Sydney." I think he bought it. We talked a bit more and I invented this new persona for myself. I'm pretty sure he was convinced; go me =) We moved to a more quiet and non-gay bar down the street afterwards and talked amongst ourselves into the night. Shit, I had to work the next day! Lucky for me I can wander, walk and stumble home from anywhere in Central London in about 25 minutes!

Friday evening I landed in Madrid and followed Laura's instructions on how to get from the airport to her flat, which was quite easy and probably could have figured out on my own, nice to have nonetheless. We started are evening a bit early, around 22h00 or so if I recall and went to a little place that was shoulder to shoulder packed with people and had tapas, cervesas and sidras (disclaimer: anything I write in Spanish I am probably spelling incorrectly). After that we went back to get ready to go out. We went to a favourite club of theirs dancing and drinking and got home about 6 or 7 AM. A wonderful introduction to the Spanish nightlife indeed! On Saturday afternoon Laura took me around Madrid to show me all the sights and have more Tapas. I spent the rest of the day lounging in the sun, soaking in as much as I could. The weather was absolutely perfect at about 28ºC and not a cloud in the sky all weekend! Somehow I managed to sit in this odd berry/tree dropping substance and my legs had big pruple stains on them. So did my shorts.

That night we went bar happing in the Malsaña district of town, which is the sort of student area, so all sorts of people were out. I had Sangria for the first time as well as Kolimocho, 2 different drinks made with red wine. Both were delicious. A night (or would it be morning bus?) ride home at 6 again brought another night of Madrid to a close. I have no idea how many bars we ended up going to; I think I lost count after 3 or 4. Sunday I spent relazing in the park and cooking dinner at the flat and trying to get to bed early, because for whatever reason I booked my flight early that day. (WHY?!)

Like returning home from Milan, it was once again a miracle that I made it to the gate on time. I caught the Metro, not realising it was closed between a few stations I needed to go through on my way to the airport. So after riding back and forth a few times I found out I had to take a bus. Way to go me on not even leaving Laura's flat until after the flight desk opened! After getting to the airport I ran as fast as I could through 3 terminals and reached the easyjet desk with 4 minutes to spare before my flight closed! After passing through securit I found that my flight gate as A1, at the ass end of the airport so I ran again. I made the last bus out to the plane and heaved a sigh of relief, and realised that I had just seen the entire Madrid airport. I spent the flight thinking about how great Spain and the Lakes District had been, and then looked ahead to the next bit of travelling.

Three hours later I was walking down Farringdon Road with St Paul's Cathedral at my back and in a completely different universe. While walking to BUNAC I contemplated how flight travel has made touring Europe more of a time warp than anything else. Within hours you change language, geography, landscape, culture, architecture, weather, climate, population diversity, issues du jour, friends, fashion, mobile networks and many more. All of this gives Europe a sence of place, which is why I enjoy it here so much, compared to the seemingly thousands of what JH Kunstler describes as "a noplace" that are oh so prevalent in the US.

This weekend takes me to York! London of the North to some. An old Roman and Viking town that, for history nerds like me, should be most interesting.

England v Paraguay on Saturday!