Weekend in the mountains...Asturias, Spain

Not sure when or why exactly, but over the course of the day I decided that the best way to ensure my preparedness for the following morning would be to sleep at the house of those who'd arranged the whole trip. A good enough presumption, except that it was Friday, and nothing really occludes the festivities. So I threw some clothes in a bag and had a few drinks. Time miraculously flew and I was just able to throw the last of my weekend accessories in before heading out to the center with some of the boys to celebrate the weekend. It was between 2 and 3am that I made it to Natalia's flat to yell her name from the street because my phone was dead. But I made it to her couch and considered my plan successful as I lay my head on the pillow to sleep.

Friday Madrid... Midnight Repast

When I walked in the door the men at the entrance to the dining room turned with prepared expressions that dissolved as they recognized my face. I stepped down from the entrance and they put their arms on my shoulders smiling and told me my friends were sitting in the back. Three tables had been put together--a decent banquet board for the small restaurant on Cava Alta which seems to remain invisible to all but a few discerning denizens--and two open bottles were just being set down among wide crystal bowls on slender stems.

FIESTA: Al Fin

WAKE UP. TOM WAKE UP. Erik shakes me out of REM and before the blood even begins to flow he's telling me we have to leave. His lips are blue. He's shaking. "I'm freezing, man. I can't stay here anymore." Without a word I rise and pack my things, feeling the cold myself now penetrate my jacket to the bone. We're luckier than we know to be dry, but it doesn't occur to us breathing fog on the riverbank at dawn in late September northern Spain.

FIESTA: Nightfall

I WOKE to the sound of shrieks. I opened my eyes abruptly and in the purple gold city lights I watched a young child and his father diverted by a bouncing rubber ball. Erik was still on the bench. He saw me as I tried to feign uninterrupted sleep and walked over to expose my charade. With the blanket now folded in the pack we made for the center again, to load up on small cups of hot black coffee before the scheduled rendezvous. We sat for a while in Café Ibiza neither of us saying very much, shedding the grog and quaffing our thrift with narrow slits of eyes watching grumbling old people watching boisterous young people watching televised football. I put the small spoon from Erik's saucer in my pocket and we paid and went out into the night.

FIESTA: Wine-induced Sensory Forfeiture Blues

Outside the cathedral, amid thousands of bodies moving in all directions or none at all, we found Paula and her two friends standing in the sun. Erik introduced and I passed the tinto. We stood for a while conversing in the usual chat and looking around at the people sea in which we were situated. A call was made and we began to move, heading toward a narrow outlet at the northwest corner of the plaza. The road had been neglected at points and it was clear along patched cobbles between pale stone buildings both vacant and occupied that the city had fallen to hard times before. This, however, was anything but. Music oscillated as we shuffled like a hundred penguins down the street past bars where light disappeared behind swaying walls of bodies holding clear plastic liter-sized cups.

FIESTA 3

According to our festival program, a large portion of the events were set to go down at the Ayuntamiento plaza. We walked eastward along the main thruway of the center, a narrow street paved with pale stone bricks that's walled in by archways and colonnades and is overshadowed by the outward jutting balconies of the old apartments above the street, enclosed with glass and painted wood here in the northern half of Spain. We passed the cathedral whose towers never stopped arresting me and then a cross street we'd walked down several times already in the dark, without ever seeing the vista it pointed to.

The brown and black mountains rising like waves in the impossible distance nearly drew us out of the town, like sirens calling to forget indulgence of the flesh and blood. Nearly.

FIESTA 2: Pre-storm Calm

OUTSIDE in the main plaza full of green trees, small soft grass lawns, and anchored in the center by one of Spain's ubiquitous horseman effigy-topped plinths surrounded by a gentle pool, the number of people had begun to rise. We headed to the western edge, where we came in much earlier in the morning, to check the opening time of the tourism office. Behind the bandshell where bundled bodies slept and were slowly waking in the morning light, the closed glass doors bore the hour 10:00 in small off-white stencil. So, down the stone ramp and back into the city to see what might have been missed in the dark.

FIESTA: Food, Wine, and Barbarism in Logroño, La Rioja

ONE

It was on the floor of a large salon in Tribunal when, amid small glasses of silver tequila and jovial summer accounts, I remembered that I had a few minutes to gather my things at the place I where was crashing in the quiet, musty barrio of Lista and walk to catch the coach set to pull out of Avenida de America at 01:00 with or without me sitting in the seat I'd paid for.

Dry Well No More

A week is through and the bounce is back.

No easy start to the first week of work in almost three months. As can be imagined, one slips with comfort and ease into a routine consisting of leisurely activity, contemplation, and reflection. Eating well and visiting every city, town, and country fitting the dual-pronged bill of accessibility and affordability does much to relieve the mind of the burdensom memory of work. Complete monopoly over intellectual property. And so the first few days of classes and their preparations went along like a rusted locomotive.

One from the Archives: Camino Journal (Day3)

LEARNING FROM THE MISTAKES OF OTHERS BEFORE ME.

Yesterday it rained. A lot. The storm came in so hard and fast toward the shore that the very sea itself vanished in the torrent. As we walked under the heavy skies toward the city streets from one of Donostia’s promontories, shrieks behind us and the flashes of people running past made us turn to watch the white wall of storm come hurling in from the sea to erase everything it passed.

Volver

THE SUN ALIGHTS on green leaves and grass across the street in front of the plaza set in and shaded where I sit in the back in a café that shall not be named. The morning is about to end and people outside are walking in every direction. But I have finally stopped moving.

48 hours ago roughly a bus carried me eastward across dry, thirsty plains of sun-baked earth and sparse pale green vegetation. Earlier that bright Saturday morning I had left Lisbon - that sunny city by the sea where red roofs collide

My Mother's Teashop

My Mother owns a teashop. She runs it with her smart and lovely English friend. It is perfectly situated in the only place outside of England appropriate for such a quaint little building, here in the wood and pasture town my father lovingly calls, The Shire. From their house I drive uphill by The Academy - the two-hundred-and-eight-year-old town high school that's made up of five or six free standing buildings arranged around a quad on the hilltop overlooking miles of forested rolling hills. The hills light on fire with the bright oranges yellows and reds of autumn every year.

The Return...

THERE AND BACK. The hero's journey. Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Jesus. So I gave it a shot. Set out with questions and realized pretty early on that the answers weren't out there waiting for me. Instead I found new questions and different answers than I was looking for. Walking across the land with a backpack and a staff gave me a new perspective to have a look through. Many people and many places. Most all of them beautiful. One thing I learned: You can't do it just once.

ID:4 and a bit of Orgullo

SATURDAY wake-up to the light taps of clanking in the kitchen, metal fork on thick glassware filled with something thick being mixed. That's fine cause it's about time to rise anyway. Walk through narrow sunfilled hall and enter la cocina to find Natalia facing away. Only one thing could be happening. It's the day of the last Aussie barbie, and Natalia's prepping her Blue Ribbon Guapamole.

Fuencarral Styleyes

First Weekend in July...

Last weekend in Madrid. Been out of my place since the end of June, living like a king on a couch in Tribunal with glorious hosts, gregarious gatherings, and gradual preparations. Right now I'm on the couch with my computer in my lap and my bags semi-packed around the room as the sideways evening glow fills the room and a languid breeze carries me back to the weekend that began the summer...

FRIDAY: Darkness fell, I don't know when or why. Somehow it was night and time to go meet my oldest Madridleña friend for to commence festivities.

SlowSummerMadrid

I'M TRYING HARD not to take it for granted.

Yet as I wake to look out the window at what feels like the 100th immaculately blue, sun-filled sky, I find myself having to make a conscious effort to appreciate every second of this. My efforts are, of course, stifled by both virtue of my residence here and the heat that accompanies the unfiltered sun. Sleeping sin A/C is not really sleeping, and waking up is more like rising to your feet after climbing a mountain. And anything becomes commonplace when it's a daily occurrence.

Nonetheless, this is what summers are dreamt of being like. The deep, clear cerulean blue affirms life above the streets and trees and has everyone smiling. Or sleeping in the shade.

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.

Madrid SurvivalSeries...Culture Shock, an empty stage

LIKE HUMMUS, fresh-squeezed orange juice, or skydiving. You can easily live your life without a daily dose of live music, but as soon as you get some you wonder how you ever went so long without it. The last city you lived in/visited seemed to be teeming with it. Moreover, the longer you stayed the more it seemed to beckon your attendance. Friends invited, hosted, even played shows. It was exhilarating. Then you landed in Spain and expected to find little else apart from flamenco. You heard they play techno on Ibiza...

Then one night wander over to Alonso Martinez because you're tired of Tribunal and everything southward, and you're looking for something to keep you from your bed. Not much to be seen, especially amid the cluttered disarray of construction paraphernalia, but across the plaza a name awakens latent, primal desires. El Junco emits a low-frequency wavelength across the urban morass and you descend into the sidewalk and pull the heavy iron door.
Funk in your face and you don't know what to do. Reach for your wallet? No need brothers, the door opens freely. A veteran brooklynite blows on the trombone, backed by african, carribbean, and european musicians and periodically breaks to unleash his bawdy roar into the p.a. Musicians come and go from the audience and the funkbluesjazz music flows like maple syrup on the pancakes of your youth. But watch yourself and that thirst of yours, because you pay for the music with each drink. Maybe your friend is clever enough to suggest going to the bar around the corner each time you want another sip. Or maybe you had a few before you came in and you're ready to dance in front of the band, who's playing on the floor over in the corner by the entrance. Maybe you even had more than a few and you cut the rug so well they offer you the mic. But hopefully you had enough to realize the deadly situation you now face, and you politely decline and go get some air.

El Junco (metroAlonso Martinez) on the weekends, doors open at 11. Sunday is the best, when most have decided to be sleeping by midnight when it gets going. Otherwise get there early...

B&W...Madrid by Night

WeekendConclusion: Domingo, 3 May

Time is running and I've fallen behind. My subject is the third day of the month after three such Sundays have passed. Recollections pile up like books without a librarian. Below me the same person who bangs on piano keys for hours each night is watching television with a megaphone attached to the speaker. Outside cars rush past like an irregular mechanical surf that occasionally whistles and growls. The bus lane makes the terrace door vibrate in its frame. The full foliage of the five-story maples lining the street provide shade without blocking the light. Like the view I took this afternoon gazing down Castellana toward Colón. A wide boulevard with raised grass paths on either side, partially arched over by maple trees the entire length of the stretch from my vantage point to the plaza. This grand corridor beneath such clear blue skies. My last student today, a lovely woman with an excellent command of English and a vibrant passion for Spanish culture, told me to pay more attention to the Spanish sky, especially over Madrid. She told me to look up the next time I find myself in Barcelona, where she said I would realize there are few skies as pure and blue as Madrid's.

...

I woke up around mid-day on the couch that has become my second mattress in this city, in a room awash in sunlight reflected off the white plaster wall only a dozen feet across the patio of my freinds' Tribunal apartment. Juan and Christine were down in Murcia for a music festival, but Natalia was about to wake up in the other room and offer to cook some breakfast. Slow eggs and chorizo went down well with toast after the long day before, and we slowly came back to life over dirty plates and cups of café - hers the full con leche, mine the less milky cortado - from the Café Cotidiano downstairs. A clean, well-lit cafe on a narrow but very busy street. They have wonderful pictures on the walls. Some are of Madrid but others are in Paris or elsewhere but all of them are lovely and I would like to take some of my own like them to have whenever I do leave this place.
After breakfast Natalia declared her intentions to remain indoors for the duration of the day, but having been outside already I was anxious to clean myself and feel satisfied by nightfall. I never feel satisfaction after an entire day indoors. Sometimes it feels necessary and sometimes it feels comfortable, but never satisfying. So I walked back through Malasaña, eyeing the tarnished streets of calle Palma and Noviciado and revisiting scenes of the merriment from the night before. You can always tell it's a weekend morning in that area by counting the plastic vasos tubos on the street that people buy for 25 centimos in the Chinos with their botellon supplies of rum, coke, wine, and beer and things. It had been a long night for some.
Back at the flat I just started to clean things up a bit when my phone rang with a strange number on the screen. It was Cam, a new friend from the first party on Friday.
"Hey man how was your night?
Oh yeah, that's cool man. Hey listen, what are you doing today?
Well how would you feel about going to see a bullfight?"

It was one of those times (which always seem to be on the rise along the course of Spring) when a fellow has to admit he's got no reason to say anything but yes. So long as it's not too expensive.

It was somewhere around 3 and the corrida wasn't until 6 so I had time to relax and have a quick shower before heading out toward Las Ventas up Northeast way. God, I'm telling you that TV is loud. But at least my casera and her daughter are still out and I can sit in the salon without our TV joining the chorus. Along the way on the 5 I got a message from Cam. He had bought the tickets already and was waiting beneath the bronze statue of glorified torreros out front. Apparently the price was right. So I found cam and with some time to spare we went over to TRu's flat around the corner from the Plaza de Toros, picking up some beer and candy along the way. There we sat and had a smoke while they recalled their bullfight and spun tittilating tales of pomp and ceremony. But we didn't want to miss the opening acts they told us, so we made our way back to get our seats.

In through the massive iron gate and up up and up we went until someone finally gave an approving look and ushered us to our third tier bench. Travis had assured us that there was nowhere in the bullring, despite it's size, that was too far from the floor below to catch a good show. I doubted that very much, but he was right. The view was spectacular and so was the show. I'm not going to attempt an ernest description of such an event, but I will say that I left the ring satisfied. I left it feeling a little more aware of the traditions of this foreign land. And I left wanting to learn a lot more. 3 torreros, 6 toros. Some where not so well matched, and their intercourse was something more vulgar and forced. But others put on a visceral ballet, with at times terrifying grace that could leave you reeling. At the risk of being judged a bastard and a beast, I will say that I liked what I saw and I want to become more familiar with the deadly dance. The old woman behind me would call out cheers or jeers and I would wonder what it was that she was seeing that was lost on me. People would stand a clap, sometimes for obvious reasons but others for seemingly no reason at all. But it was not a thirst for blood as some might expect. It was an appreciation for spectacle. A romanesque gathering that brought on a newfound appreciation for the strange Spanish love of everything Toro.

And this was just the first fin de...

Increased Insight and Classes over Cañas...

MORE THAN SOBER and less than drunk, I stepped down into the toxic breath of Avenida de America's seething subterranean bus terminal. Mid commute, having just pulled in from my furthest, longest, and most profitable class I clutched my bag and my book to which I was eager to return. Stephen Fry chronicling the exploits of a young madman between public school (in the English sense) and Cambridge "turning tricks down the Dilly" as he eschews his inherited privelages. Enthralling material that allowed me to hold off analyzing the day's events and to enjoy myself in my native language once more.

In the recent reearrangements of my schedule, my hours have been temporarily reduced and today I had only four classes. There are changes going on all around, it seems, but in keeping to the point I'll say simply that attendance has dipped as well. Such was the case in the second lesson, where only two of my five alumnos showed up, one sporting a headache and the other aching for a holiday. Of course my only option was to take class to the nearest bar where we grabbed a sunny table on the empty terrace and spoke of weekends, holidays, and ways to say numbers. I sat for most of the hour listening with my water two my two lovely alumnas conversate over their cervezas. It was only toward the end, after a short tutorial on dates and large figures (numerically speaking) that I engaged with one of the topic of sending her two teenagers to England. Three weeks they wish to stay in the sunny city of Brighton but their mother worries both for their safety and her wallet. Well and good, I say to she, but I must confess that the four months I spent in London were both my most expensive and most treasured. There followed the predictable 'yes, but's, and I began to notice a reluctance that stemmed from something more than fiscal insecurity. I suggested putting them to work for the duration of their time in Spain and was met with the too-well-known mother protectiveness for her children. Well and good, I think to me, but there was a lack of enthusiasm for the general idea. Here, an opportunity of a lifetime for two teenage continentals and their mother was far from jumping. I recalled her previous refusals to take her children to American or British films in their original versions and listened to subtle facial and vocal clues that told me she would be much happier if they had asked for those same weeks in Mallorca, Alicante, or even the distant Canarias. Finally she said she had some friends here who had a house in the English countryside and expressed her desire to rent one of her own in the following summer for the whole family to live in together. We walked back to their office building and as they chatted about the tasks to come I considered my revulsion at what felt to be a definite xenophobia. 2009 and the world is getting smaller yet still so many resist the homogonizing blend. I couldn't understand it and still find myself struggling.

At 18:00 that evening I strolled with my apple through the business park I visit twice a week in a wasteland place between Madrid and the city of Torrejon. The day had swam along thus far and I was well equipped for a lengthy lesson of speaking and grammar practice. But 20 minutes later when the lesson was to begin my first student, a man of a most erratic attendance record, stepped confidently in the room sporting slicked back hair and a shiny red and pink silk tie and announced to me his success in the struggle for an educational certificate. With more doors opened and a chic get-up to show it, Ricardo invited myself and his two other lesson-mates to take class to the bar. Porsupuesto Ricardo, que si.
We took a terrace table and I sipped my vino tinto while Ricardo elaborated on the process he had gone through. The topic of class experience and student interaction swiftly moved in the direction of recent changes in the country and the influx of immigrants from Morocco, Romania, and Latin America. A great deal of discussion and debate carried the topic from classroom communication to school quality to health care and all the while bounced between economics and the plus ultra. At one point the argument was raised that these foreign people have neither motivation nor desire to work and learn and I asked why it was they would ever want to leave their familiar homes for this foreign land in the first place. Hands went up and detestations were denied. So it's understood there's a problem with such general aversions but still they are harbored nonetheless. I sat in silence and let them talk things out with an English that at once increased in confidence and decreased in accuracy. We elected to enjoy the lesson for a full two hours and by the end we were discussing food and life in Iberia and I elaborated on my extraordinary weekend in an English that came out much more like Spanish than a profesor should allow.

With springy step I made my way to the bus stop across the concrete footbridge over the highway where I can never keep myself from checking the Madrid skyline like the face of a celebrity in the flesh. We had walked together from the bar discussing Spanish wines and locations in the city to find our favorite gems. At 20:20 the sun shown brightly and I looked at my city with love. Seven months I have been living here and if anything my feelings have only gotten stronger. But I still have so much to learn.

Today was a new day for me.
I gained further insight into these people with whom I share the venue of my life. First of all, women drink beer. If asked I could have testified long ago, but it still strikes me. Business women in dresses and suits eat ham and cheese finger sandwiches with goblettes of beer at 11:00am. They deshell nuts and slowly devour small jars of olives and pickels over multiple rounds at 19:00. It's miles from strange here but I never lose a vestige of childlike excitement bearing witness. But more importantly I am continuously reminded that no matter how many hours I spend with new people, walking new streets until they are no longer new, consuming their food and drink, visiting their cities and towns, and adopting their hours, I still have so much to learn about the people of this world. Twice today I found myself incredulously listening to what sounded little more than absurd distrust in things for which I feel only curiousity and desire. How little, I thought. How small. But maybe it's the opposite. I cannot avoid thinking of my own country and the call still sounding there for some barbarous wall to be erected high enough to stave off the slings and grappels of animals beyond. And my mind travels back to things I've read like holy men of Islam denouncing the idea that NATO and The West have any right telling theologistic experts how to craft their own laws. I once read an essay that challenged the view that the world was on a logical path toward rationalistic and enlightened atheism that so many like myself held to be self-evident. Many good points which I cannot regurgitate here were put forth and I have since been wary of rigid certainty in my ideals, when I'm able to remember.
And so today was a reminder. Perhaps the world is not continually shrinking just because we can access self-published videos and DIY guides in our palms on faraway beaches. Maybe there are limits and they're determined by the very people who are set to go beyond them. Either way I was taught today to avoid assuredniss and always consider revision. For instance my erroneous declaration that I am no longer a student. For now it's back to Stephen Fry and that most peculiar British...

Dos de Mayo

The day happened in the sun. Lazily I rose and took my time slicing the golden apples I get for next to nothing at the market and took my bowl of fruit and yogurt to the porch. The view is obscured through the foliage of the tall trees sprouting from the street below which I used to discuss jumping out to with my other aviationally-inclined bretheren. The international traveler's forum otherwise known as skype carried news of the seeking of a get-together and within a short hour there was just that in Parque de la Montana. Your Humble and the old Team sat circular in the shade of palms alongside the Egyptian Templo de Debod, flown in brick by brick some years ago in gratiuitous thanks for assistance during the Aswan affair. Gentle breezes ruffled boughs overhead as runners strode by and muffled chatter comingled with avain chirps and all other pips and squeaks brought along with verdant warmth. With little spoken we three enjoyed the ante meridian peace and bright light among sunbathers gossipers and would-be Woodie Guthries. Then the mobile sounded the call of afternoon happenings and the trio lazily rose to stroll sunny palace promenade on our way back to the callejones of La Latina.
**(above fotos were taken days later in the latter half of the day. same setting, much different radiance)

At Plaza Tirso where Natalia patiently waitied, Travis and Ruwan turned back to their northern territory and left lady and I to make our way provision-laden way to join the Aussies for their barbie and the sweetest part of the day. Behind heavy peeled-paint doors the cool dark lobbies of the old city apartment blocks make great refuges from the bright heat of the spring afternoon. Up the open steel grille elevator shaft and Talhie the Aussiette greets us in her doorway. A lovely sunny flat with hardwood floors and high ceilings before stepping out onto a grand rooftop terrace larger than my current salon. I need to find new digs. Anyway, Kyle stood tending the coals while we sat drinking Mahou cervezas, Kalimotxo, and Tinto de Verano in the sun. Talhie slowly stuck plants and meats on sticks and I recalled a time in my life when kebab did not refer to the 2lb meat pocket peddled as Turkish food throughout Europe's metropoli. Our gathering swelled before our bellies with the addition of an Austrian whose name escapes me despite his agreeable manners and Santiago, who helped regale the group with descriptions of feasting and nocturnal goings-on as Kyle cooked merry goodthings and we cajoled our jowls with delightful drink.

The afternoon passed easily con comidas y bebidas and much discussion of things that flowed smoothly from one to another like courses in a well-planned meal. The sun slowly travelled its arc while electropop evaporated out of a stereo and we shifted places to avoid melting into our chairs. In the thickening light the golden sun told us it was time to begin thinking about eveningtime. At some point in the previous weeks the powers that were decided to schedule the most important match of the Primera Division football season for that night. Madrid was set to reclaim their shot at winning La Liga from rivals Barcelona for a second year in a row after a season racked with pitfalls and blunders. The last matchup in the fall left Madrid reeling on their return journey from the Catalan camp but was also the last defeat Los Blancos experienced. Now at home the papers touted the partida, known as El Clasico, as the most crucial in the past 31 seasons. Hardly hyperbolic. So logically we lethargically left our tabletop and shuffled back out into the street toward the plethora of flat-screen and projector packed sports bars in good old Sol..

Unfortunately anyone who follows football knows what happened for the next two hours as afternoon bliss devolved into evening anguish. After the fourth Barcelona goal the screams and cheers of fans in the underground theatre that had been set up for the event were beyond tiresome and we skulked out after the final whistle with a craving for hearty food and drink. We shot over the Las Bravas, a brightly lit bar chain that claims to specialise in patatas bravas, small friend potato chunks in a wonderful secret semi spicy red sauce that differs from place to place, as well as several other standard tapas. Twas my first foray into the place and it shall remain my last. Those bravas are nothing to write home about, and when there are plenty of places that well give them to you for free with a round of beers, I was hardly satisfied. So Santi and I crossed the street for some croquetas that were better than expected and we headed over to another bar to wait for some people. There we drank and demanded some free cheese and waited as my spoiled mood simply worsened for having to remain in Sol. I dread the place on a normal night, as it is full of overpriced bars and guiri - the Spanish version of gringo, but on the anniversary of the great Madrileño rebellion which takes place every year in Malasaña further north I was decidedly unhappy. Eventually we did make our way out there and the crowds filling the 1am streets were a cause for elation. Santi and Natalia were still hungry and we made straight for a pizza place in Plaza Dos de Mayo to devour a fantastic pie of cheese and gambas (small shrimp). At that point our energy levels were all pretty well spent and we decided to scrap the street scene and head to the flat for to end the night.

SO the day was much more tranquilo than we had anticipated, but then again that just left us more human the next morning. With a beautiful day and excellent afternoon, a less than lustrous evening can be forgiven, especially when another city like Barcelona comes to spoil all the fun. On top of that, a new place to go in Sol for croquetas if one finds oneself to be stranded with an apetite(Cervezeria La Abuela, c/ Espoz y Mina), and a great place to get your own pie down in Malasaña where you can wait at the bar with a caña or two and watch the solitary teen pizza wolf pump out visual appetizers every minute(Pizzeria Sandos, NE corner of Plz Dos de Mayo). I'd say we finished in the green. And of course, it was only Saturday...