Día 98, 14 April: The Boys' Day Out In Madrid

Hostal Miralva, Madrid, Spain, Día 98. The Boys’ Day Out In Madrid

After the disbelief Joe, Vito (pronounced Vee-toe, by the way), and Vinnie experienced when I told them it was midnight (last night), they each went through a hilarious period of slow movement. Joe rubbed his eyes long enough for water to erode stone, Vito stayed attached to his pillow longer than it takes a glacier to shape a valley, and Vinnie was grounded to his bed as solidly as a sleeping bear. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy this spectacle. Eventually, though, they returned to normal movement and went out to a Spanish club while I stayed in to skype Katya for the second time that night.

      The morning was late before we rolled out of the hostel and onto the pedestrian streets perpendicular to Gran Vía, the main street in the area. There had been no breakfast at the hostel, so we scoured around for food. Joe was keen to get paellas, which inspired the rest of us to want them too. On our search, the three began to like getting lost—because it meant they could ask hot Spanish girls for directions over and over again. This happened successfully once or twice, but by then, we had gone through the same street, Campomane, a few times. Finally we settled on a Café y Té, a restaurant in multiple locations that served traditional Spanish food. Like paellas. We all had one, but I think I was the only one who found that it hit the spot (there may have been yet another stop at a mackers thereafter [mackers = aussie and British slang for ‘McDonald’s’]).

One Site I Forgot to Mention: The Plaza Major

      We never went on the metro to travel to sites today—we just walked. Surprisingly we saw a lot, but then unsurprisingly, it was a lot of walking. We passed the Plaza del Sur, the Teatro Real (in a very quiet plaza), the Plaza de Oriente (in which right before we entered, I picked up a small cup of cheesecake gelato to ease my mildly burned tongue (from the paella)), and we headed around to the Jardines (Gardens) de Sabatini, then onwards to our furthest point Plaza de España. [It’s funny how specifying the names makes the journey sound more legitimate than the simple truth that we walked wherever we saw big opened spaces.]

In Plaza de Espana

      The walk through the beautiful Jardines de Sabatini was spoiled by gypsy girls asking us to pledge for deaf and blind children. There were four of them. At the time, I just brushed through them and didn’t look back. None of us did, except Vito who decided to give them a few coins or something. Either way, he opened his wallet in their presence and this had consequences later on…

      One last thing about the gardens: there are tall, black railing gates left casually opened all around. Joe decided to close them. I laughed so hard as he did this, since who will know they are opened? It was mischievous, in a good way.

      By the way, the gesture of the day was seal-clapping. If someone said something stupid, the others barked like seals and clapped their hands dramatically. It was funny.

Outside the Palacio Real de Madrid
(Royal Palace of Madrid

      After the beautiful Plaza de España, we headed back and soon spotted the Palace Real on our right, in which we stopped to take photos and then continued onwards until we finally reached another bend in our loop. We made it back to Plaza del Sur and back to our hostel. Nap time.

       Recharged, we set out again, this time for dinner. Tapas. We tried the ‘early’ hour of 8:30pm and I mean early. Apart from the huge communist rally that dominated la Plaza del Sur, barely anyone was on the streets or in restaurants. Around this time, Vito decided to go to a cashpoint (ATM) and that was when he came to a sour and bitter realization. Two of his cards were missing.

      Always one to rely on logic in situations like these, Joe unintentionally misled the drama. After Vito denied taking the cards out in the room, Joe’s first suggestion, Joe made a second: the gypsies stole them. This only makes sense. It’s no one’s fault for thinking this, especially since Vito had opened his wallet and had taken his eyes off it to look at the girls at some point. It would’ve been easy for professional pick-pocketers to do this.

      The mood of our four-person group soured. I kept rejecting tapas places with the rest of them, Joe stayed in a quiet mood while his stomach was unsettled for some reason, and Vito called his parents to cancel the cards. Through this hour, Vito went through the emotions of regret, stupidity, shame, and self-blame. Later, once the cards were found at the hostel, he was thankful that whole scene did happen after all. A lesson learned all the same.

Tapas

      We walked up yet another stairwell but the inviting lights at the top and the mild bustle inside and the relatively cheap tapas on the menu brought us into the restaurant at which we ultimately stayed. The tapas (at least the ones we ordered) were all on small ciabatta bread, so it wasn’t entirely the Spanish tapas experience—but it was still delicious. Vinnie complained going in and afterwards that it wouldn’t be enough food. Well, I still relished the experience and the ratatouille one (of which we all had a bite) was my favourite.

      In the night, we headed off to a club called Zoologica which easily compared to a Norwich club, but I still had a good time. I remember after leaving that some guy kept yelling to us on the next street over ‘Libre! Libre!’ Vito and Joe just wanted cheap enchantments. Apparently he was ushering us into a sensuous club where there was free entry. We went in, down the staircase and straight to the bar there. (This whole scene took ten seconds.) Girls, the seductive type, came over to us, but like the others, I was able to ward them off within seconds. I literally made no eye contact. Nothing. Joe heard the bartender say a drink was fourteen euros. The next thing I knew we were back on the street walking away. After buying pizza slices on a street near Gran Vía, we headed back to the hostel for the night.