Friday night, I took a late siesta from 7 to 9 pm, then showered and drank some biers in my apartment with my roommate. (My roommates a museum buff. His typical routine the past couple days has been to down a whole bottle of wine to himself then hit one of the local museums. I think he's going to the Prado tonight. I'm going to join him one of these days.) After the biers were emptied I met up with my friend, Marcus, who lives near Puerta del Toledo - about a 30 minute metro ride from my house. For some reason, the metro never seems like it takes that long, but then when I resurface and look at my clock 40 minutes have gone by. The metro is a time warp.
I drank some wine at his apartment with some girls that we met, then we went out to find a discotecha and do some dancing. As we walked the cobble stone streets promoters whistled at us to come into their club, while armenian street venders tried to sell us cans of bier for 1 euro - actually, probably the best deal in town. We had a semi-big group with us, so there was much debate as to which discotecha to go to - the problem is financial. For guys, it's very expensive to get into most clubs, and then on top of that each drink costs 11 euro. I opted to sit this debate out and just go along for the ride, so I grabbed a 2 euro coin out of my pocket and bought two biers from one of the street venders. As we paraded the streets of Madrid in search of an arena worthy of housing our urge to dance I sipped on a couple ice cold Mahou Clasicas.
The group split and I led one half over to a more local club called Cibeles - we had some 2 for 10 euro drink cards and it seemed like more of a Spanish vibe. Red lighting filled the place as puffs of smoke escaped the mouths of every single Spaniard in the joint. This is the real late night Madrid. I grabbed a mojito and went to the dance floor. Some Morrocans were hip thrusting left and right like they were filming a music video, while groups of Spanish senoritas danced with each other. I sipped on my mojito and decided to infiltrate their dancing circle.
In a discotecha, you don't just simply walk up to a group of girls, you dance up to a group of girls, or at least I thought that was the best method. So, I danced up to the closest group of girls - they were all beautiful by the way - and in my best Spanish accent asked a very cute Spanish blonde, "Quieres bailar conmigo?" Now this is the moment of truth, everything is riding on her answer - time slowed to a crawl, the music became inaudible....just kidding. She smiled, gave me a simple wave of her hand and said, "No, gracias," really accentuating her spanish lisp - it sounded like, "No, grathias." And that was it. My first discotecha denial. I wasn't heartbroken. I'm wasn't going to cry. I just kept dancing and sipping on my mojito. I figured this type of denial from these dancing discotecha damsels who hail from the center of Spain until my Spanish improved. I think the problem is that most of these girls get hit on every second of every day, and they assume the worst, so they are very cautious with the invitations that they accept. I guess they have to be, living a big city like Madrid. You have to be on your game and aware if you are going to make it out alive in this city. Scam artists, pick pockets, and creepy Europeans lurk behind every corner.
I showcased some of my dance moves and laughed off every rejection. The girls weren't dancing with anyone - they kept to their own little circles. It seemed like everyone was just dancing with themselves, so that's what I did. I danced with myself, until, sure enough, a spanish girl accepted my invitation to dance. I tried to carry on a conversation, but I could tell she was in no mood to talk, and it doesn't help that I look like a man, but have the spanish vocabulary of a third-grader. A couple more senoritas danced in and out of my life, and once I had enough of Cibeles I left to meet up with my friend, Alex.
He was at Kapital, which is a seven-story club. It's kind of a touristy place, but I was down. It was 4 am and the metro had already been closed for 2 and a half hours so I was in it for the long haul (metro opens back up at six). There's no really in-between in Spain. You either catch the last metro home at 1:30 am or, if you miss it, you bite the bullet and dance the night away till 6am. I met Alex on the 7th floor of the club, which was more of the chill area, filled with comfortable couches, pool tables, & a full bar. We talked to some Spanish girls who were playing pool. They were really nice and didn't make me feel like an idiot because of my third-grade level comprehension skills. They wanted to learn english as much as we wanted to learn spanish, so we helped each other through the conversation.
The club closed at 6 and we walked across the street to get some food. I ordered a hamburguesa and Alex ordered a Bodillo de Calamares (It's a calamari sandwich). Both were incredibly delicious. Then we parted ways and I took the metro home.
Last night, which was Saturday night, my friend, Matt, and I met these Spanish girls in Puerta Del Sol and hung out with them for about two hours. They were really nice and willing to help me with my spanish, which i've concluded is not very good. I have the hardest time understanding what they are saying, because their accents are so thick and they speak so fast - it all becomes jumbled together and all I can hear is jibberish. We exchanged Spanish numbers, and planned to meet for tapas and speak half the time in Spanish and the other half in English - they wanted to learn English, as well.
Perseverance is the lesson that you all should take away from this post. Perseverance, and buy your biers on the street for one euro - no one can enjoy an 11 euro watered down cocktail.
I found out that bullfights, or Las Corridas de Toros, take place every sunday at about 6...i missed the one today but I think i'm going to become a Bullfighting aficionado like Ernest. You know, Hemingway.
Also, I went to El Rastro today, which is like a huge flee market. They sell all sorts of things at bargain prices...from bottle openers to side satchels to books to shoes to small children....just kidding. About the small children. Everything else is real.
Hasta Luego,
C.M. Stassel
p.s. my camera is still on the fritz. I have a ton of pictures but I don't have the proper cord to upload them to my computer. Pictures coming real soon. Ten paciencia!!
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