The Bar Named 'Thirteen'

You cannot imagine the extent of the love of soccer in Madrid until you've lived here and seen it, heard it, breathed it. Soccer may be the lifeblood of the city itself, not only in spirit, but in financial terms as well. Every single tourist shop one strolls into will have a separate wall filled only with the jerseys of players from both Real Madrid (pronounced ray-ahl; the word is not 'real' as in English, but instead means 'royal') and their across-country rivals, Barcelona which is sometimes here abbreviated as Barca (still pronounced with that soft 'c'). Jerseys range, depending on quality and a number of other factors, from 25 euro upwards of 125 euro.

Now, let me not paint the picture that each and every madrileño lives, eats, and dies for soccer. Also, let me point out what many of you will already know: in Madrid, it's fútbol but for the ease of copy and pasting in accent marks and to establish my personal voice as an American abroad, I will retain the usage of 'soccer' with no lack of deference for the traditional name of the sport. 

Political correctness taken care of, where were we?

Ah yes, correcting assumptions about the depth of the love of the sport. It's not all about the ball and the players--not by a long shot. Several girls here at the residence hall have said that many women in Madrid do not particularly love soccer; now that's just a handful of opinions from a few girls here. This is not a gender division issue; many women scream the loudest when their equipo scores a goal or feel the deepest pangs of regret when the semifinals are lost and a chance at the championship game become clear impossibilities for this season. Still, hasta luego, no?

The point is, you don't have to love soccer for the sake of soccer itself. You don't have to want to touch the grass of the keeper's box adoringly after an amazing stop or want to name your firstborn son after Messi. That the game serves primarily as a social tradition becomes quite clear after only a few weeks' stay here. You go to the games or, like the vast majority of people, to the sports bars to have a few beers, eat some tapas, cheer with friends, and simply, intrinsically, spend time with the people you care about. Soccer is for some what the dinner table is for others in that it brings us together and the result, despite the different paraphernalia accompanying, remains the same: we bond. 

Last night for instance was a singularly cold night here in Madrid (little did we know it would snow the next morning). Tuesday night though it was, tired from the slog of the work day and no doubt heavy with the burden of a struggling economy, thousands poured into the tapas bars and cafes to watch the clásico-- a battle between Real Madrid and Barcelona, the most heated of sports rivalries equal to any of our own in the US (such as the historical Bears-Packers rivalry). 

My friends and I pulled on coats and scarves and headed out with the rest. Nicole is a die-hard Real Madrid fan and she was determined to see every second of the 90 minute game to cheer on her men in white. Meeting up in the Plaza de Sol (the heart of the city if you recall) at 8:30pm, we had just a half an hour until the start. Nicole had a place in mind so we took another Metro after merging our whole five person group and got off at Gran Vía, the street that can best be equated with Broadway. One of the offshoots of this huge, bustling street boasted a sports bar with excellent tapas and several HD TV's. To our dismay, we arrived to find a line going out the door and a 10 euro charge per person--just to get inside. 

The vote was a unanimous 'no'. 

As we do so often in Spain, we began to wander. "We have thirty minutes. Surely we can find another bar with the game on," Tom, hailing from near Syndey, Australia assured the group. 

In less than five minutes, just a left turn away from the original destination, we found a place called "El 13" with white Christmas lights in the window and no businesses open on either side for several hundred meters in either direction. Our first descriptor for the place was, "sketch". We sent Tom in first. 

There weren't too many people inside, perhaps eight, but they were your average middle-aged Spaniards sharing a couple of beers and cozied up at a small round table just ten feet away from an HD flat. Once assured that the bar owner would be playing the game on that beautiful TV, we entrenched ourselves in the corner table, the guys on a bench built into the wall complete with black cushions, and Nicole and I in chairs at the sides of another small table, this one square. 

The walls of El 13 are painted dark. There's a mural on the back wall of a chimp with his hand on his chin in a thinking sort of posture and a there's sentence painted in red above his head that I'm sure is a slanderous thing to say about any politician. Incense gives the air a kind of thickness and the entire square footage is certainly less than my garage at home.

Beers, or cañas, being only 1 euro each until 10pm only, we nonetheless ordered a round and the night began in earnest. Two mini pizzas and several more beers later, the game was on, Real Madrid had scored a goal already, and the bar was now as packed as it could be. Every table was occupied with men and women talking loudly, laughing loudly, cheering loudly. Such a lively place!

To emphasize what a cultural activity this is, I should note that a women came in pushing a stroller and, during the half time break, was breastfeeding a baby that couldn't have been more than 6 months old, illustrating my point that soccer here is a way of life and that a genuine interest in the adroit maneuvers or the statistics of the team is not necessary. When you grow up with this tradition, it becomes something you simply do. I found it encouraging--not to become poetically sentimental--in the sense that, despite what some might say about this new generation/the electronic age etc etc, we still have deeply rooted pastimes that bring us together into crowded little pubs on side streets for a slice of bruschetta and four or five glasses of cheap beer even on cold, damp nights simply to be with one another. 

And that in and of itself is a beautiful thing. 

The Bun of Legends . . .

Ahhh nothing like a good old fashioned road trip! Except that, when I used that term here, I was laughed at (goodnaturedly) and told, "Wow. That's just so American."

They didn't mean it in a bad way; road tripping is simply a part of our culture and it honestly makes sense given the enormous size of our country. That and we never really fell in love with public transportation like other countries did. Ergo, it's not the train or the bus or the metro for we star-spangled citizens. It's the open road and a mini van. Bring it.

Still, I considered our 4 hour trek to Córdoba to be a road trip. At least  mini one. From there we were scheduled to go to Sevilla (about an hour and a half more) and Sunday night we would drive back to Madrid from Sevilla (about 5 and half hours). 

But that's not exactly how it ended up happening. 

At 8 o'clock am on Friday morning, the ESN group met up at Atocha (a locale in Madrid near the large Cercanías train station) and left after a lengthy 45 minute wait for any and all stragglers who'd gone out partying the night before until 7am and were just now rubbing their sleepy eyes and swearing as they saw the time displayed on their alarm clocks. (You'll have to forgive a writer her imaginative digressions). 

About an hour and fifteen minutes into the trip, we pulled over to this cafe/hostel, painted all white with blue shutters and awnings, and sporting a large sign proclaiming the name, "Santa Ana". We all thought it was a bit early to be pulling over, but perhaps there wasn't anywhere else to stop for awhile. The Spanish countryside is quite deserted in terms of truck stops, gas stations, or roadside outlet malls. What there is a plethora of is vast expanses of vineyards, farmland, and, the further south you get, huge rolling hills. (See pictures and video clip!)

"30 minutes, everyone," the coordinators informed us. Ok, so not long enough to get a coffee since caffeine goes through me in like an hour and that's not something you want on a long bus ride, but long enough to consider the giant loaf of bread on sale for 3 Euro. 

"Hey Tom. Wanna split that gi-normous loaf of bread? It's only 3 euro."

"Sure. Why not?"

The old man who sold it to us patted it proudly, then made us pat it to show that it was still warm. I'm not even usually a fan of white bread as all my friends know (whole grains!!!) but I have to tell you, pulling light, fluffy, cloud pieces of warm white bread out of that baked behemoth was delicious and a memory I will always flash back to whenever I walk past a bakery for the rest of my life. So good. 

Audrey, Nicole, Tom and I "did work" (to quote Nicole) and were half way through Hercules the Bun when our coordinator Sergio raised his hands and called for our attention. "Ok everyone! I have a little bit of bad news."

Oh god. Eating this much bread is illegal. I knew it! God d---

"Our bus broke down and they can't fix it. So we have to wait for another one to come from Madrid and pick us up. So it's gonna be like another hour here."

Ahhh. Just a broken down bus. Red light road trip, green light eat bread. And . . . continue. But pause to get coffee because now there's sufficient time. And . . . back to the bread. 

By the end of the next hour, we had destroyed that thing (see photographic evidence). Making our way outside, we found not one, but two buses. No more double deckers were available so they sent one normal bus and one "bus" that I can best describe as the love child of a 80's van and a white safari vehicle. Something like that. It seated only 16 of us and myself and my friends all ended up on the little one, which turned out to be quite entertaining seeing as we had a handful of students on there who'd chosen not bread but booze during the break and had gotten quite drunk. 

It's a wee bit of a controversial issue so I'm going to refrain from commenting on those events here. Those of you who know me have no doubt heard the story anyhow and anyone who hasn't, I'll talk to you when I get home. Ask me in June about the bus ride to Córdoba. 

We arrived at 4pm, only two hours behind schedule. Ahh well. The route to Sevilla was at least uneventful, in the best of ways. No, there may not have been a jumbo bread experience, but there was a castle in Sevilla. And that's even better than bread. Hard as that may be to believe for some of you. Pictures up soon to prove it. :)

Morning Drill

A typical day--let's clarify, a typical day during the school week, seeing as the weekends are far from predictable here--doesn't at first appear too terribly different from mornings waking up in good old Wisconsin and heading off to a day of classes.

But Spain is in the details.

For starters, it doesn't get fully good and light outside this time of year in Spain until about 8:30am. It's dark when the alarm blares near my head at 7:30 most mornings and I slap it reproachfully, muttering a bit under my breath as my feet touch the cold, hard floor. No carpeting here like the dorm rooms I'm used to, which renders naps on the floor, yoga without a mat, and myriad other activities a bit more difficult.

The coldness comes from the fact that every night at exactly midnight, the heat shuts off in the entire residence hall and doesn't come back on again until 9am, by which time I'm off at school in a completely different suburb of Madrid. You may be thinking, "It's Spain! What do they need heat for?" Well, tonight for example, it's only 36 degrees (Fahrenheit, I feel the need to specify) outside and overnight my room tends to drop anywhere from  7 to 10 degrees. I love having an alarm clock with a temperature gauge.

Also unlike Whitewater though, we can set our room temperatures all the way up to 30 degrees. This time that's in Celsius. So we generally crank the heat the last 2 or 3 hours of the night and perhaps suffer minor heat strokes in the swelter all so we can sleep comfortably at night. It's completely worth it. One night we went out to the club and neglected to crank the heat before hand. When we came back to the residence hall, shivering from the mid 30's (F) and chilly winds of Madrid at 7am in February, we returned to find our room only about 65 degrees. Not exactly a toasty reception.

Anyhow, I've made quite the digression, but back to the morning routine we go!

The shower is tiny. Good thing there aren't many fat people here in Spain because they wouldn't be able to function. The bathroom that houses the shower is on the right side of the dorm room (one with the toilet and the sink being on the left) and is only about twelve square feet by my estimate. However, the actual shower itself is give or take only 6 square feet, a teeny little rectangle that even I sometimes have a difficult time maneuvering about, on account of my height, which includes long arms and legs. Go figure. (Pun not intended).

After that, forget about using adapters for your hair dryer, you'll just blow out the fuse and get a nice puff of smoke--I unfortunately speak from experience--so you use the one you bought at the grocery store down the block for the reasonable price of 10 euro.

Breakfast is cereal, yogurt, and an apple along with water and a cup of coffee that has just a splash of 1% milk. At the hall cafeteria they offer 1%, 8%, or fully fledged whole milk. Fat free, or skim, milk is only offered at fancier coffee shops in the downtown. If you don't ask or specify, it's whole milk for you!

Now, with such a breakfast, I am clearly highlighted as a foreigner. The Spaniards typically take two slices of white bread which they toast and then cover in jelly and/or butter; otherwise, and this seems to be more popular, they take one of those mini loaves of white bread I've mentioned before (ellipsoids about 5 inches long and 3 wide) cut it in half, toast it, then pour first olive oil on each inner half, and then spread salsa on both sides. The salsa is only put out at breakfast and is kept in a large metal tray about a square foot in size. Many of the regulars have that same meal everyday I've noticed. Although I stick to my guns on the breakfast front too so I can't wave the banner of "Switch It Up This Morning!" without also earning the much more blunt badge engraved, "Hypocrite".

After this staple meal--and it's come to be the favorite of the day's three meals for my friends and myself based solely on its consistency--it's off to grab my notebooks and folders, stuff them into my satchel, and head off to the metro station, conveniently within sight of and only a 2 minute walk from the residence hall.

45 minutes before class starts, I head out the door. It's a necessary time buffer; the metro ride itself takes 25 minutes, but the trains are spaced 7 to 9 minutes apart in the morning depending on when you exactly leave. So you might end up just missing the train and adding 7 minutes to your total trip. Add to that the roughly 2 minute walk to the metro and then once you get off the metro, it's another 10 or more minutes to campus (depending on which side your class is on).

I am actually quite the fan of the metro now; it's a guaranteed 50 minutes of reading a day. Ahhh sweet public transportation. But that subject merits its own post, another time.

El Rastro and the Prado

Sunday in Spain . . . ahhhhh . . .

The day begins roughly at 8:30am (for this American anyhow). Simply the usual routine for starters: shower, dry hair, put in contacts, eye liner and the list of little morning routine intricacies carries on until around 9:30am when I, accompanied by my roommate and two other down-the-hall mates walk down to the reception, the mini flight of stairs, and through the automatic doors to the cafeteria, which is only heated during mealtimes. Luckily, weekend breakfast begins at 9am and so the several hundred square foot dining hall has by this point reached a habitable temperature.

Breakfast has become my favorite meal of the day because it is plain and consistent. No strange gray meats nor identifiable stews here. Just whole grain cereal, an apple, plain yogurt, and a small cup of black coffee.

The pace of the day escalates from there. We leave the residence at around 10:30am, catch several lines of metro to arrive, roughly an hour later, in the heart of Madrid: the Plaza de Sol. Everything in the city essentially emanates from this central location so it's a favorite meeting point for friends, tour groups, etc.

Meeting up with two more friends who live in the downtown (and it's not as crazy expensive as you'd think: anywhere from 400 euro for your own room and 500 euro or more for your own bathroom to boot; I've seen several such student apartments and they're much nicer than my double room shared bathroom situation for way more . . . we won't even get into that here).

Then it's off to El Rastro, the almost 400 year old Sunday morning (here, "morning" signifies any time before 3 o'clock in the afternoon) tradition: hundreds of vendors spread out over several streets of the city and sell everything from blankets to scarves to prepackaged snacks to watches to toys to jewelry (lots of owl themed stuff here, not sure why exactly) to shirts to knock off iPad and kindle covers and the list goes on and on and on.

So do the crowds! Thousands of people wander and mill about the stands, laughing and chatting, carrying foam cups with steaming drinks (it's still pretty cold here in the mornings--upper 40's and then there's wind too) and pulling coins from purse and pocket alike to buy small treasures.

Up and down the sloping streets we walked, keeping our group of six together as best we could, careful to wander off only in two's or three's because it was far too easy to become completely lost in this veritable sea of people.

Around 2pm everyone started feeling hungry so, at what we would find to be the wise suggestion of one of our friends, we found our way to a chain called Mondanito's, which on Sundays and Wednesdays only, has an "everything for one euro!" menu. Perfect for college kids on a budget.

I bought three bocadillos: tiny versions of sub sandwiches, about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide (although sizes can vary slightly depending on where you go) a cesar salad and a bottle of mineral water. For the bocadillos, I indulged in a shrimp, tomato, and lettuce combo, a chicken and guacamole, and a tortilla filled one. Tortillas here are eggs with chunks of potato. This sandwich had a slightly spicy red sauce on it as well. Mmmmmm. After 3 hours of walking and a chilly wind that was especially unwelcome in the shady portions of the street, a nice warm meal (for an excellent price) and a cozy table nestled in the center of the crowded, popular little restaurant, served our group exactly the refresher we needed to continue the Sunday adventure!

Across town now, back through Plaza Mayor and then the Plaza de Sol, a pit stop at Starbuck's (I had a bit of a sore throat and their spearmint green tea was calling to me . . . even though it was double the price as back at home) and then on to the Museo de Prado with the international student group organized by our university.

We spent an hour and a half walking throughout the extensive gallery open to the general public (there was another, but it cost quite a few extra euro so we skipped that exhibition). I suppose I'm cultured now, having seen several of the greats: Rembrandt, Goya, Velasquez, Rubens, and El Greco.

I definitely took several pictures--yes I know that's a huge taboo in an art museum--but I'll have you know that I respectfully turned off my flash. And only got two pictures anyhow before a curator came up, tapped me rather roughly on the arm, and said, "No photos!"

In my best American accent and with the wide innocent eyes of a tourist I said, "Lo siento!" ("I'm sorry!") and pretended to hastily stuff my camera back into my purse as though terrified of the consequences. I'll post those two pictures soon; they were of this amazingly ornate mosaic table. Absolutely gorgeous.

We arrived back at the residence around 8:30pm, exhausted but satisfied. And isn't that the best kind of satisfaction?

El Teatro Kapital

Perhaps those of you who know some Spanish are thinking, based on the title of this post, that I attended some sophisticated theatrical production in Madrid; and perhaps, if your opinion of yours truly is high, you might suppose that I've emerged with some sort of cultural epiphanies and/or artistic insight.

Well . . .

Kapital, as it's simply referred to, is a seven floor nightclub in the neighborhood of Madrid's famous Parque del Retiro. First word that comes to mind when attempting to describe it? Superfluous. But in a good way.

Due to being members of ESN, my university's international student organization, my friends and I were able to get in for free. We decided not to opt for the 2 drinks for 12 euro deal (yes, "deal"--without each drink was 12 euro) because for 6 euro I can buy about 3 bottles of wine at any grocery store, or 2 bottles of mediocre hard liquor. Although that's not really my scene.

Anyhow, the main floor plays house/techno music and was by far the coolest floor. Other levels boasted lounges, discrete "conversational" areas, private booths and balconies, chandeliers in some, and different types of music on various levels ranging from Hip Hop/RB to Latin to who knows what the designated smoking floor was playing. We visited each, although the last of these for only a few minutes, just to say we'd been to each floor.

Although I danced the salsa with my friend Andres, and a strange mixture of grinding/Latin something with an Italian guy for a few minutes, most of the night bore witness to the girls and I (plus Tom) simply dancing, laughing, and sweating profusely in the several hundred strong mosh pit on the main floor. I got so thirsty by about 3am (we got to the club by midnight, in by about 12:30am) that I had to step away for a minute with Melanie to go to the ladies room and stick my head under the faucet to get a drink. FYI, you can drink the tap water in Madrid so that was fine; plus, I'm a very frugal person and didn't much like the idea of spending 5 euro for a bottle of water.

But sinks are generally not very satisfying in terms of quenching thirst. Take it from Lady Frugality; I've tried a lot of sinks. So I broke down, bought an ice cold delicious water which I didn't regret at all as soon as I began chugging it, and we headed back out to the dance floor until about 5am.

That's right. 5 hours of straight clubbing. Not to mention the 2 hours of travel + pre-gaming that we'd done before arriving at Kapital.

Kapital is insane though in the amount of excess in all things. Again, in a good way though. The menu boasted a 1200 euro bottle of Grey Goose, erotically dressed women dancers performed alongside the DJ's for certain songs (that was a bonus for the men who nearly fell silent when the ladies first came on the stage), a very attractive, muscular male acrobat who did a number with those scarves they hang from the ceiling and flip from plus a very impressive routine with a metal hoop, both about 30 feet above the dance floor.

At one point hundreds of glow sticks were throw into the audience. Screens behind the DJ's showed bits of music videos, the huge metal light structure some fifty feet above our heads flashed crazy patterns and random words (like "grill" . . . I have no idea why). Every twenty minutes or so, smoke would shoot out of the ceiling, gushing along with a blast of cold air that felt like a miracle in that 100 degree mass of people.

It was absolutely insane and absolutely fantastic.

Especially if you consider that I was, in essence, paid to go to the club. Explanation? I paid 3.50 euro for my train ticket, 1.60 for my one glass of "pre-gaming" wine, and 5 euro for my water, 2 euro for my coat check fee--a rough total of 12 euro.

While waiting in line for the coat check, I found a 20 euro bill on the ground. I picked it up and started looking around for anyone who looked upset or was patting their pockets or something. I even waved it in the air and yelled after a cluster of retreating girls who I thought may have dropped it. But no one claimed it. So I made 8 euro going to a club for the night. Score!

When we finally got back to the residence hall at 6am, I collapsed into bed, prepared to only get about 2 and half hours of sleep before getting up for my Friday class.

It was completely worth it.