Hola! I have just returned from Spain, where I met my good friend Megan for a few days of fabulous food, drink and avoidance of American Thanksgiving rituals. She met me on Tuesday evening at the airport in Madrid, and we promptly made our way to a restaurant recommended by her guidebook (bearing the title "Art Shop Eat Madrid," she knew that it couldn't lead her wrong, and she was right).
We couldn't read most of the menu, but we knew enough to order red wine (tasty), gespacho (even more tasty), and random seafoody things. A good start ...
Later we walked around to take in some of the city sights. Madrid has lovely architecture - relatively typical 19th century European, I would say, but with lots of wrought-iron touches that make it look very "Spanish."
Along the way we passed this picture, part of a lighted poster ad at a bus stop. It is a picture of Chance's and my exact clock radio in Seattle, and it says "sleep more," which I took to be a personal command. Megan and I didn't have an alarm in Madrid, so we happily obeyed.
Megan found us this lovely little hotel for our first couple of nights. It was run by two very nice ladies and was adorably retro ...
I especially loved the chandelier.
The other very cute thing about Madrid is their obsession with American state names. Above is one example - Cafe Iowa - but I also saw pictures of wigs named after different states ("New Mexico" was short with pink highlights), and later we ran across Cafe Nebraska.
The Madrid mascot is a bear eating from a strawberry tree. I didn't even know there were strawberry trees, but apparently in Spain there are, and bears like them.
Mmmmmmm. Spanish sweets. In Spain, when you order a croissant, it comes covered in a sticky substance that is a lot like, but isn't, honey. Megan thinks it is agave. Anyway, it tastes good.
I also loved the doors in Spain. They are all very ornate and formidable. A good combo, I think.
We both wanted to find a "vista," seeing as how Madrid has hills and we both currently reside in very flat cities (Chicago and Berlin). Finally, we found one. It was gorgeous.
Spanish people also seem to have a fondness for
trompe l'oeil. These balconies and windows were painted onto the side of the building. They were really done well.
Here's another one. Can you tell which is the painted side?
And then, Megan finally found her Utopia. This was even funnier because we had just been talking about the irony of the fact that the word "utopia" literally means "no place." Heh.
Later we visited the Prado, the famous museum where El Greco, Valasquez and Goya are enshrined. It was much smaller than we expected, but we liked the art.
Then we took a stroll through the nearby Parque del Retiro, where the manicured gardens and sunset looked a lot like some of the paintings we had just admired.
And for those of you who had almost lost hope, do not despair: THERE IS HOT SOUP.
That night we celebrated the existence of hot soup with what was possibly the best dinner we had ever eaten, at Casa Alberto.
There was bread. There were bruschetta with fresh anchovies. There were little shrimps and fish and really wonderful Manchego cheese. And wine, of course.
I know they look scary, but they were
so tasty.
And dessert. Don't forget dessert. These had cream inside.
Next to us was a British couple who reminded me of the Dursleys from Harry Potter. The man was fat, the woman also fat but long-faced and missing teeth. They were very drunk, spilled their wine and the man got horrid pipe-tobacco ash everywhere. Megan distinctly heard him utter the phrase, "He's a very well-respected banker." When they left, we had to take a picture of their mess just to remind ourselves of what we do not want to become.
Here is Megan's 100% true story of our encounter: "I turned and said to the aforementioned stodgy British couple, 'Our Beatles kick the [butt] of your precious Rolling Stones ...
... Later, upon reflecting begetting regret, did I sing at Laser Karaoke, one famous Rolling Stones single, 'Angie' ...
... and then promptly thereafter ...
... settled an old score by beating up the Paseo del Prado.
Veritas."
The next day we (after a long adventure in which we tried to find the bus station, walked all around the block where the map said it was, and then found that the bus station had mysteriously been moved) took a bus to Toledo, about an hour southwest of Madrid.
We stayed at a really nice hotel that smelled like a dentist's office and therefore, we figured, must be very clean. This (and the previous picture) was the view from our balcony.
Toledo was, in earlier centuries, the capital of Spain, and it has wonderful winding medieval streets that are fun to get lost in.
It also has an amazing Gothic cathedral.
...
... which has one of the most ornate interiors I have ever seen.
In one of the chapels, they have the painted portraits of every Bishop of Spain since the second century, including the most recent one (on the right).
It reminded me a little of a Vermeer painting, even though Vermeer is not gothic.
They also had lots of very old bishops' robes on display, as well as a pretty large art collection.
And a garden with unharvested oranges.
After taking in all this, we lunched at a restaurant whose ceiling was covered in cured legs of ham. Megan, a "pescatarian" (she eats fish but not other kinds of meat), just tried not to look up. It was fascinating.
Later we toured the edge of the town we had not yet explored ...
... met a black cat ...
... and climbed the tower of a different church, challenging us both to defy our fear of heights.
Then we made our way back to Madrid, stayed a night in a strange hotel owned by a Russian couple (my two sentences of high school Russian were not at all useful, but did serve to break the ice) and my camera battery died before I could document our last fabulous meal (served by a very friendly but non-English-speaking waiter). It did, however, come back to life long enough to let me capture the last view I had of Megan in Madrid - as we parted ways at the subway station. She was an amazing travelling partner and I cannot wait for our next vacation.
What a week!
[Veritas.]
Yummy!
On Saturday I had lunch with Kristin at Babel, my favorite Lebanese restaurant. She left on Tuesday back to Washington, but we'll see each other again very soon at Paul's house, where we will once again be roommates! Yay!
The exterior includes, as part of the entrance, the balcony of the Prussian City Palace (Stadtschloss) from which Karl Liebknecht declared the Communist Republic at the end of World War I ... the rest of the City Palace was dynamited by the East German regime in 1953.
The building is now an historical landmark, so most of the interior has been preserved as well - with the same furniture and especially the fabulous lighting fixtures!
In the lecture hall there are socialist murals featuring happy women dancing about with flowers. farmers harvesting wheat, and engineers and workers building the industrial communist future.
The emblem of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, or GDR) is part of the tilework in the council chambers.
Here's an interior view of the balcony, with the silhouette of our tour guide, Marek Dutschke (son of Rudi Dutschke, a very famous student leader from the 1960s). As you can see, right across the street a huge Christmas carnival has been installed. Complete with screaming teenagers on rides.
The building is leased now to a private graduate school for public policy funded by a bunch of rich German corporations. Therefore Erich Honecker's office (he was head of the GDR from 1971 on) is now used as a student lounge.
Tiles for a special, sound-proof room were donated by Mongolia - doves of socialist peace.
I just love this kind of interior design. This is a pair of doors leading to Honecker's office. Aren't they fabulous? I'm so glad this building has been preserved. Across the way they're still hard at work tearing down the Palast der Republik, another relic from the same time period. It breaks my heart that so many examples of this style are being demolished, mainly for political reasons (though no one will say so).
Afterwards a few of us headed across the street for a stroll through the carnival. Ieva decided to have some "Eierpunsch" (egg nog) ...
Left to right: Kellan, KC, me, Sam.
This, I believe, was the source of the teenage screams.
The colors were just amazing. So much sensory input. The music was hilarious too - mostly German "Schlager" Christmas music. Each ride had its own unique soundtrack of cheese.
Kellan had a candy apple - "gooey on the outside and crunchy on the inside." All that Red #5 turned his tongue bright pink.
The sunset and the lights made for really gorgeous color combos. This is, of course, at about 3.45pm.
Later that evening the class dined on fabulous Russian food at a restaurant called Voland. Todd even hired a band to play for us. They did jazzy, folksy tunes - mostly traditional Russian songs - and they were fantastic! In all, a very good day.
... eat some really tasty Turkish food at the restaurant where the Doener was invented! (Doeners are the gyro-like sandwiches consumed so often and so enjoyably here).
... and I saw a really pretty sunset, set off by the lovely silhouette of the Michaelkirche in Kreuzberg. This was at about 4pm. Yes, it is a dark, dark place I live in.
