End of a Month and More

This day has my last round of classes. In the morning I finished with two young women of advanced levels with 90 minutes of speaking and listening. I had read an article recently about the life ideas of Thomas Jefferson. I read this aloud to them, asking them to take note of the lives he touched, his favorite things, political beliefs, personal advice, major contradictions, and overall lasting impression. In the end all they retained included his love for peas and walks. When asked about impressions, one remarked about his slave-master Hyde to his "All men are created equal" Jekyll, while the other was struck by his command to avoid idleness and the reminder that, "it is wonderful how much may be done when we are always doing." That was the impression left on me as well.

Just a Tuesday

MIDNIGHT on a Tuesday and not a second thought. It began with a text message, received late after turning on the mobile only after 7pm. --Barbacoa at the Aussies at 5, bring whomever--. Or stay in and neglect to pack in favor of reading. Right. So head out for vino and start walking. Fruit with Rosé and Tinto de Verano gave way to kebab creations, later expertly cooked on the barbie by the Aussies while summers past and future be recounted on the terrace. Food and drink in the fading light with talk of parties and beaches and life unattached over Purple Rain and Queen's greatest. Follow up with cigarettes and more wine until the sky goes black and one observes the beginning of tomorrow. Yes we all have work, but words don't hover on labor's immediacy. Instead plans are solidified for the next barbie afternoon, and reluctant goodbyes watch us out the door and onto the street. Plazas active, terrazas full, and calles channeling the nocturnal set that sees this night no differently to a Friday. It's what happens when the sun sets after 11pm on the city of night. Your watch brings inappropriate guilt and for a moment thoughts of a life led responsibly creep up until you remember that it's June, and there are no excuses. The only word is Yes. So stop in your tracks and take a look around, and notice that everything you see affirms the daily, and nightly, seizure of life itself.

Madrid is the city, living is the job.
and it starts again in 5 hours. excellent.

Boxes, Bags, Time On My Hands

July draws near. It brings with it many changes, including the end of employment. As such, it's time to get out of this landlocked sunbake and head for shores. That means the end of housing and it's these combined ends that will shape the coming months. No income. No shelter.

Sunnyday Stilo - young ladies, old men

Gentle Roughness in Spanish June

Tuesday in the center of the month and I'm reclined across the loveseat on my terrace. The rain comes straight down from the leaden sky although the tree limbs are blown about roughly by the wind. The bellowing thunder is intermingling with the roaring traffic below in such a way as to create some kind of harmony. It soothes me while Kurt Vonnegut fills my mind with the image of a human being sneezing into soap flakes. He recently told me the meaning of life: to be the eyes and ears of the universe.

Friday Nightmoves

TWO: THIRTY ANTE MERIDIAN and the doors are closed or closing. Iron gates like rolled-up rugs suspended over doorways clank down along the street, mechanically echoing the sound of night's end. Having walked for thirty minutes in a circle around dark and empty La Latina streets behind a rose-seller leading us to a non-existent all-night bar, we consider. Sit for a moment on the stairs of the same small plaza we started out from and drink another 1e beer bought from the Chinese foreign legion. La Solea--she whines--let's go to La Solea, ya vamos. 'Twas dead not two hours prior, but it's open and still serving. One more before giving up on a Friday night. Sure.

PULSE... (Or, What's Ha'nin)

If you live here it's a truism that requires no mention. But for the audience abroad I begin by saying at this time of year Madrid gets positively hot. Since frozen winter botellons I have ceased thinking in farenheit, so trust me when I say that when afternoon temps reach 38, it's time to seek shelter. The long time Madrid tradition in this situation is to seek it at an aluminum table on a spacious sidewalk or, better yet, in one of the hundreds of "plathas" populating the cityscape. The "terrathas" have been unfurled and on a bright blue day like this, they are packed. A Sunday in La Latina will seem a sea of tables topped with goblets of golden beer, small plates of olives, chips, and patatas, and surrounded by hairdos with sunglasses light scarves and colorful patterned shirts. It fills the air like an orchestra that never stops warming up. It makes you want to sit and drink and chat forever. Or maybe that's just me.

Vino tinto is being usurped by blanco, rosado, and tinto de verano (red wine mixed with a soda similar to fresca, in a tall glass with lemon and ice), and cafés are being ordered con hielo (glasses with ice), which is reassuring. I wasn't sure about the protocol for summer cafination. Menus boast tés frio as well, and mojitos, caipirinhas, and daiquiris are rising to their proper summer prominence. Salad options are blooming.

A short siesta, the need for which felt physically in the late afternoon heat during digestion, sees a lull in calle attendance but as the sun begins to droop the outdoor spirit quickens and enflames the night. In the right barrio you can look down a street and count a hundred heads in a hundred feet. And the tarrathas are just as the were at lunchtime, to the brim with revelry and hedonism. Madrileños are particularly loath to take of their carefully selected jackets and scarves but more and more one sees the legs and shoulders and arms and necks that hid for so long. One observational result: many more tatoos than I initally gave this city credit for. Sleeves, shoulders, calves and ankles. Beautiful colors and designs and curves and patterns. Very few tribals or other hideous mistakes. And, as always, magnificent array of sunglasses intermingled with those Ray Ban NWA throwbacks that have taken over our cities and towns. But the colors are striking.
File that under "summer: always".

More specifically regarding now, the first half of this month sees Madrid's 68th annual book fair (not sure how many years the tapas fair has run) which includes a cool kilometer of book stalls selling new editions, trade books, children's books (I bought a copy of El Principito to work on mi Español), libros de bosillo (cheap paperback versions "of the pocket") and special books to commemorate the event. Author signings or centennial celebrations - this year it's French and Darwin.

It wouldn't be Madrid if the book fair didn't come with a terrace bar

Outside the city a bit there is a gardened palace which they tell me is a small scale replica of Versailles. That alone warrants visitation, but this saturday an international jazz quintette pays tribute to the founders of the style in which they specialize - early swing jazz in the guise of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli's Quintette du Hot Club du France. Two musicians touched by God and who are best characterized by the following: "when you hear them play, if you don't smile it's because you're dead." A free concert all afternoon in the palace gardens.

The weekend begins tonight, with yet another of Spain's many puentes- "bridges" which are formed when the single working day between the standard weekend and the Tuesday or Thursday holiday is taken as well, making the weekend a full four days.
Ample time to feel the pulse.

Fair Play, Once Around

Judges' table

At Goya, people gathered among skateboarding youth, art market browsers, septuagenarians in solidarity, and the terraza set to queue up for entrance. Madrid is all about the queue, or cola, as they call it. This one for the annual Feria de Tapas. A fair dedicated to the consumption and competition of Spain's most famous export. Naturally, the TEFL bloc would have to attend.

Twas a Friday eve and sky still light when we shuffled in and through and down to the recessed floor of Real Madrid Basketball's home arena. Surrounding the floor was a ring of about 40 yellow and green booths (everyone's favorite Madrid cerveza to be sole beverage provider), where fish, pork, sausage, bread, cheese, and combinations not yet imagined by your humble were being meted out to the greedy masses. It was early yet but still the place was dense with people not seeing each other bumping around as if in the dark focusing only on the small chalkboard menus posted brilliantly on the inner side walls of each booth rather than the more visible and less hazardous rear. Nothing like it to whet the appetite. First thing then, taquillas.

1e:1 taquilla: almost everything. Pretty simple (though a bit much when tapas are free with the beer as often as not). Scoundrels. No choice but to secure some beer and begin the hunt. The mood for gambas (prawns/shrimp) settles in simultaneously with seeing them on a menu with piña and a pink dressing called salsa rosa. The cold shrimp mingles well with the sweet fruit and creamy dressing, and appetite gathers steam. But already 2 coins down, and only 4 left. The next must be wise choices. Very quickly you realize the crowd is a living catalogue and each group of passersby another page. I follow the trail of pretty plates back toward the entrance. Two adjacent booths. One serving a slice of bread topped with cordero de parrilla con queso de cabra (grilled lamb with goat cheese) and the other displaying puff pastries filled with apple filling and morcilla, my favorite sausage on this earth. Push and wait, signal and order. Plates secured, back to the high-top we've taken as our own. Lamb alright but nothing special. A bit bland, and not at all hot. Morcilla barely noticeable. I give the pastry away. What have I come to? Around me, colors fade to a wash and everything seems desolate. The noise of mass consumption rises to a roar. I can not leave without some croquetas or proper morcilla. I leave the table alone in search. One, and then another person pass by with what look to be croquetas, and I follow to the origin. Upon the chalkboard my eyes water as they read: Croquetas de Morcilla. My body hurls itself to the counter without volition and I hear myself order one croqueta. When she turns my eyes fall on a tosta with brie, cured pato (duck), and mango coulis. One of those as well. Back at the table they stare at me in astonishment and laughter as my face trembles with the ecstasy of my croqueta. Salty, smooth, creamy, slightly sweet, hot, heaven. Never before, and I doubt ever after. True oral bliss. Freshened up with some cheese and mango, and out of that chaotic and ever-crowding scene for one of the better espresso shots I've come across in the city of careless coffee. Seated supremely satisfied on the steps of the arena, and out the way we came for some wine, beer, and games until past the turn of the calendar.
I think as long as I could keep my tongue, I wouldn't mind going blind.

BlacknWhite; My city by night

Gourmand Traveler surfaces again...A meal for all time, or at the very least a Nobel

I SWEAR I woke this morning with the tastes still in my mouth. Somewhere coating the inside, near the pivot of my jaw sat the salty, nutty flavorfulsensation that conjures sounds like 'zing'. Down in the back of my throat laid the tannic coffee, pipe tobacco, darkfruit and chocolate vanilla textures that helped me doze so well. Both zones as I left them when I laid me down to sleep a most satisfying slumber. It was just last night that I ate the meal I'll be holding on to for some time. Perhaps a short prologue is in order.
...

It's June - No More Excuses

Tuesday night. Out the door at 10:15 to answer a distress call with wine and conversation. Look up and guffaw at the still (albeit dark) blue sky. Disbelief, but onwards. Pass couples young and old, beach clothes work clothes color clothes street clothes. The streets get narrow on the western side of San Bernardo where you cup the smoothed cobbles with your feet, leaving the sidewalk for people less determined. Cream and Khaki walls direct you around corners and up hills, channel voices spilling out through open bars and windows. Three old men dancing arm on shoulder spilling pink wine cups as they smile. A party up above your head pumps out the windows with the bass. Everyone seems curious as to why you're walking by. Maybe they know you? Maybe they want to. No time, eyes ahead and feet to the street.

At the agreed glorieta you see her smiling, walking toward you under street lights and together you set out for the bar she had in mind. Taberna del San Bernardo is what they call a Manolete. We used to call them old man bars. They all look the same - usually grey marble tiles, bright, sterile flourescent lights, bars topped with 8" high brass-rimmed glass cases displaying shallow tubs of patatas, chorizo, calamares, tortilla, queso and all other standard Spanish bar food (otherwise lovingly referred yet thoroughly misunderstood abroad as tapas), and, of course, old men. Here they call them manoletes because 3 out of 5 men of that generation are called Manolo. Call it out when you're inside and see for yourself how many heads turn. This particular taberna is not so typical and replaces the lights and tiles for a wall loaded with wine bottles, so you think it's perfect for a little quaffing. Unfortunately, when it comes to glass-pours, you get the standard Manolete response: Rioja or Ribera. Truly remarkable wine regions, but you wouldn't guess that from the typical house versions and one tires of the same two opciónes. Nevertheless, it's time to begin and you opt for the generally preferred Ribera for its slightly lighter, more delicate, and fruitier characteristics. Ribera wouldmake an excellent toast to an affluent celebration of an approved status quo, perhaps at an engagement party. Rioja, with its intense and brooding spirit, would be more fitting to finalize the plans for a long-awaited, violent upheaval. Glasses drained over a shared plate of house-fried quasi potato crisp swimming in garlic olive-oil and on to greener pastures.

Two bars buzzing side-by-side, one long and narrow, clad in earthy desert sunset hues and the other wider, more open, flaunting the range from white to black and sporting visuals on a rack of outdoor TV sets. Your inner American goes for the TVs, pulls up two black leather stools at the bar, and grabs a menu. The right decision. A full page of glass pours and at the top sits Bierzo, a tiny region sitting amid verdant hills just north of Portugal. Even now not quite fully known throughout Iberia, a few years ago one could scarcely find a single bottle abroad. What makes Bierzo so special is the grape. DO Bierzo must contain at least 53 or 54% Mencía, a very local grape that produces an entirely different wine. Leaving behind the textured, pipe-tobacco and woodfire smoke voices of the raspy Rioja and Ribera regions, Bierzo creates something altogether more lively. Far more fruity and floral, its got berries and flowers and spices that make everyone who tries it incline their head, intensify their gaze, and make a sound silimar to OOoo. You may even pick up a bit of fennel. And the glass is 2euros. So you take a moment to discuss and appreciate the contents of your copas and remember that the wine is as much there for you as you are for it and you toast to the cleansing of your frustrations and celebrate the sources of joy. Another glass, this time from Navarra, here a blend of typical international superstars like Cabernet and Garnacha that makes you at once appreciate their allure as well as the individuality of an ancient region like Bierzo that only just recently has realized there is a world beyond its borders, and vice versa.

The bar thins out as you pick from plates of frutos secos (nuts) and olives, pickles and pearl onions, and after learning from the bartender that you preferred el primero because its vino rather than la primera copa since the cup remains constant while its the contents that shift, you leave jocund, arm in arm as you head down the street to sleep a most satisfying sleep.
...

**For more on Bierzo and a list of recommended bottles: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/dining/18wine.html?scp=3&sq=bierzo&st=cse

Reflections, Reeling Along

HALFWAY between my quarters and the toilet adjacent. I stand legs astride in effort to move while remaining still enough to keep my unzipped pants from falling to my ankles as I simultaneously reach forward and behind to blindly transfer the light from bedroom to bathroom. This is what I have become. It's the 60 minutes I have to myself in my home before heading out to plan and deliver my third round of classes stretching across the city from 8am to 8pm each Monday and Wednesday. A bipolarizing profession, it's left me strangely content today after an unforseeable month of forward propulsion and numerous goodbyes.

The sky was brilliant on the first day of June and it left me squinting in business parks, bus stops, and sun-baked sidewalks. The day went on and on, never dragging, but feeling a week while I indulgently recoiled into recent memory again and again. A week ago I dropped my bag in the street at the sound of my name called out by a voice I'd left behind. Last weekend we ran past guards in El Prado trying to throw us out after the closing bell because I was desperate that I might never get to show my friends the Ladies In Waiting again. Later that night we peeled thin slivers of shiny jamón marbled with pure acorn fat from a plate prepared and delivered by my favorite beaming watiress down on one of the finest food streets in all the world. Today I felt inspired to write like I hadn't in some time right around the hour of returning to work. And so I stood for a second and watched myself hit the two waist-sqare light switches in front and behind me and wondered for only a second how I might have gotten there. Only a split-second before I realized

...

The sounds of the city are so many. Now I hear only the muffled echoes of clanks and shuffles waft in through my window from the flats above and below me as Madrid settles into the June night.