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.
Slowly and carefully mashing up three ripe aguacates before adding the onion, cilantro, lime and spices (she saves the tomatoes for the last minute), while I stand there with a Gollumnar look in my eyes. It's like Christmas or Thanksgiving. So we talk for a while and I retrieve an apple from the freezer.
[A note: there's been recent talk of cold fruits and delightfully frozen grapes and blueberries. So I took it a step further and froze some Apples. The effect is highly strange. The fruit becomes like a stone and one needs to really bear down on the knife to cut it. Don't even try biting into it at first. Give it a few minutes and teeth will penetrate but it's colder than chewing ice and massive brainfreezes threaten physical well-being. After the freeze passes the texture strikes and it's just weird. The fruit has been irreparably altered. This is clear by looking at a thawed half left out overnight. Most apples will dry and turn only slightly tan, and usually will still be good to eat. After freezing, it becomes a semi-translucent dark brown with visible dark veins beneath the surface. And it's squishy. Lesson learned, but unfortunately I froze all my apples instead of starting with one. Another lesson learned, now I have six cherries in the icebox, with the rest in the fridge. Aaanyway...]

Moments later Steph calls and she's feeling the night before. She comes over and we head to our favorite free tapas bar in Chueca. Lack of foresight and we find that every place has jacked the price (!) for Orgullo: gay pride week. Indignantly we refuse and walk back toward our beginning, passing a party of men dressed like Marie Antoinette and dozens of street bars and outdoor music gearing up for the evening party. Dip into a market to seek tabasco and leave with a bottle of Rosita, organic artisanal beer from Tarragona that is the most similar brew to IPA that I've come across yet. I'll not forget you, Rosita.

Past Tribunal pop into Cien Montaditos, a chain bar that makes fresh-baked fist-sized baguettes with cien (100) filling opitons ranging from 1-1.50e apiece. Tinto de veranos and a jarra of beer and we're off to see the Aussies. In one mouth and out the other, Tribunal to Tirso de Molina and we're up the lift to the rooftop terrace of love to start with the drinks before spending the afternoon growing in numbers and increasing in spirits and cooking and eating kebabs, wings, prawns, ribs, veggies and other forgotten goodies too.
[Speaking of goodies: Frozen cherries are jarring at first but when you think about it, they make natural and delightful cherry sorbet bites. Quite tasty and refreshing, and they chill your belly. Just make sure to remove stems and pits before freezing or you can crush a pit and try spitting all the pieces out, whereby you succeed only in spitting out all the fruit and having a mouth full of pit pieces. By the 6th one I pretty much have it down.]

Santiago's wings are a particularly sweet memory. From there the food continued in waves, and the drinks flowed on. Stephanie gave caipirinha lessons in the kitchen and cups were constantly produced for group tasting. We ended in discussions about the effects and weights of different human emotions; and also Spanish obscenities. A delightful bunch they've got. Just as the sun's light began to dim the girls persuaded me to accompany them to the other major, and in all fairness much more major event of the day: Madrid's annual gay pride parade. We walked less than gracefully through the crooked sunset streets of La Latina passing couples, families, and old people with horrified expressions along the way until we finally crossed in front of the Palacio and arrived at the end point of the parade, my old home Plaza de España.

From Cibeles in the East by Paseo de la Castellana westward along Gran Via to Plaza de España, over two million reported revelers had hijacked the motorway and turned it into one big mass of gayness (in both senses of the word). Makeshift bars in every direction and loud music from unknown sources filled the streets below as people of every shape and size looked on from the hotel terraces above. Double decker buses drove down occasionally carrying 60 or more dancing people, one of whom was out friend from the rooftop the night before, who later said the parade was the largest crowd and most fun shes ever seen/had at one time. As for me things were a bit less enthusing after hours of eating and drinking and I was fast losing patience with the standing in the street business. At one point I went off to bum a cigarette and nearly lost the ladies.

But as it happened we found each other and I was able to persuade them to move over and sit on a grassy spot in the plaza from which to sip on cheap vino and watch at a distance. There we blended with another group and talked about all the different parts of Spain we were from/had visited and by the time the sun set the parade was over and the crowd began to thin. This is what it looked like diminshed:

At this point the reunion with the rooftop gang was immenent and so was slumber, and I opted to get my rest to make way for the long last day of weekend one/zero. So not quite Christmas or Thanksgiving. More like summertime. More like Madrid