Chinchon

by annie

About an hour bus ride southeast of Madrid lies a quaint pueblo, Chinchon. We woke up "early" on Tuesday morning to catch the 10:30 bus. The landscape outside of Madrid reminded me of northern California, except green instead of brown. Upon our arrival, we quickly spotted a hostel and obtained a map of the village.We made our way through the narrow streets, gaping at the stunning stucco buildings, tiled rooftops and unique doorways. We toured the main church, the plaza mayor, and the center of town.

After sufficient exploring, we stopped in a courtyard to make tuna sandwiches on fresh baked bread from a local bakery. Brian cut his finger on the tuna can and so began my first solo Spanish-speaking journey, into a nearby insurance business. Brian taught me the word for napkin- servieta- and toilet paper- papel higienico- but by the time I came face to face with the stern man behind the desk, I could only remember servieta. A reenactment:

me: tienes una servieta?
him: que? que quieres...and more Spanish I didn't understand.
me: hablas ingles?
him: no.
me: uh, mi novio tienes un...(insert ridiculous theatrics and sound effects of a person stabbing his finger with a knife)
him: ah! (and more Spanish). He walked over to the bathroom and pulled on the toilet paper, looking at me for validation that this was indeed what I wanted.
me: Si! Si! Muchas gracias!!!!

Success! I walked back, beaming, and helped Brian clean up his cut. With his finger fine, we enjoyed our lunch and had a good laugh about me butchering the tense of the verb tener under pressure, and also resorting to good old-fashioned, cross-lingual charades to get what I wanted.

I have to start somewhere, right?

More pics of Chinchon:

One Sunday Night

by annie

"I'd rather be sitting in a gutter, glad that I followed my dream, than sitting in a mansion saying 'I would have, but...'" Peter is gushing support of our travel aspirations over and over again with comments like this, and I'm grateful for it. We're standing in a loud, smokey Irish Pub in La Latina, where we just heard a live jazz quartet. Peter is a friend of Ben's and knew us when we walked in the door, "even before Ben waved to us." He's a friendly guy, avidly enthusiastic about our travel plans and has no problem mentioning that the US is low on his priority list of places to visit. He'd like to visit the States, but has so many other places on his list. He's originally from England, has been living in Madrid for 10 years and spent 6 years in the mountains of India before that.

I ask the same question to everyone I meet that has been to India: "Is it safe to eat the street food? Will it make me sick?"

Peter adamantly defends street vendors in India, stating that he only ever got food poisoning from fancy restaurants. His logic revolves around motive: street vendors have fierce competition and survive on word-of-mouth reviews ("if a guy has a bad hotdog, he tells all his friends"). Fancy restaurants attract rich people and tourists and don't rely on word-of-mouth because their fanciness does their advertising for them.

I hope he's right. I'd really like to eat street food in India and not regret it.

We invite Peter out for dinner and he says he's not hungry, the three beers will tie him over for a while. We leave with Ben, grateful to have met him, and step out onto the street gasping for fresh air. On the cold streets, we begin our search for dinner, complaining about the smoke still clingning to our clothes and our hair and our skin. "How do babies grow up healthy when they spend time in smoke-filled bars?" we wondered. "Should we even bother washing our clothes now, or just wait until we leave Madrid?" We end up at a tapas bar and order tostas with salmon, pickles and arugula, tortilla (Spanish omlette), baked goat cheese salad and empanadas. Green olives are served first.

Madrid is fantastic for walking, with it's winding cobbled streets, vivid street life and beautiful architechture to catch the passing eye. On this night though, our bellies full, the streets appeal much less as we battle cold winds threatening to steal our hats.

Here We Go

by annie

We were standing at the counter in JFK airport, staring blankly at the Swiss Air rep. "We´re closed" she said. "You´re too late to board." Our flight to Madrid was scheduled to leave at 9:55pm and we had arrived at 9. Apparently the subway ride was twice as long as we thought.

"They´re boarding your flight now, you´re too late" she repeated.

A few shocking seconds passed before she told us that she was joking. "You should have seen your faces" she said. We weren´t laughing.

The next lady at the kiosk made sure we understood exactly how late we were, treating us as if we were much younger than we actually are. She succeeded in significantly raising my anxiety level, repeating that the counter was closing and that the plane had already started boarding. We rushed through security, only to find that boarding hadn´t actually started. The plane itself was also late.

We arrived in Madrid, pleasantly surprised by the ease in which we could navigate the subway system (especially compared to our time in NY). We met our friend, Ben, in Lavapies and walked through the cobbled streets to his apartment, where we joyfully unloaded our heavy packs.

We ate wonderful Indian food and walked around Madrid for a few hours, stopping at the Plaza Mayor and the Palacio Real. Ben took us to a word-of-mouth hang-out, an illegitimate business tucked on a cobled street, behind a partially closed gate and a knowing knock on the door. It´s a community of young people, who jam together, sing flamenco and monitor the curtained bathroom to make sure nobody walks in on somebody else (like I did, unaware of the warning yells- "occupado! occupado!"). It was an amazing place, and we heard fantastic music while drinking fresh mint tea and beer.

By this point we had stayed up long enough to sleep during the Spanish night, and so we did. Today in the streets of Spain, we relish in the warm sun and our freedom.


Palacio Real

Lavapies