where did we leave off?
we left the hotel in the search for interesting and quaint spanish bars, and stumbled across several who provided us with beer in a variety of shapes and sizes of glass. My spanish, which pretty much extends to 'Una cervaza por favor' allowed us to do little more than drink leisurely, which suited us just fine. First stop, a pool hall - we shamefully fell for some young lady giving out flyers on the street, and after UK closing time, we still found ourselves wandering around dimly lit and in many cases badly metalled roads, sitting on street corners drinking said cerveza and generally grinning.
One more turn around a street corner, and we were welcomed into a fantastic little bar where we started chatting with the owner.
My Spanish is truly dreadful - i spent about three months at school in Spanish classes for the simple reason I fancied the teacher, and came away with knowledge of the first six numbers, "where is the.." (but no destinations to ask about) and the word for beer. Fortunatly, the owner spoke better english than me too, yet still the understanding of some idioms I use isn't quite there, and I find myself speaking in some stilted Jane Austin like English, "We would like to go dancing, do you know of establishments where this may become a reality, and how is Mr Darcy?" Nonetheless, we managed to build a comprehensive list of cool places to go, including Pacha, which i had a hankering to visit and bop the night away.
In direct opposition to the previous blog where i predicted that i'd be merry enough to fall asleep by 10.30pm after the previous mammoth day, we found ourselves drinking the night away in the bar with no name, meeting up with two other english types. simon taught the owner how to make B52s, and i drank far too much gin and ended up stumbling outside to cool myself down in a sprinkler i found adorning the roadside. We wandered back to the hotel, well, Simon dragged me along ensuring me that the direction he led us was correct despite my drunken disagreement. Apparantly, we got back to the hotel and went upstairs to fall asleep on the roof terrace. An hour later we fall into bed (seperate beds.. don't worry). Day 2 bedtime: 5.30am.
Day 3 wake up time: well, debatable really, simon went downstairs to get breakfast, as is his perogative, and i stayed in bed, as is mine. I seem to remember he came back to the room, and then we both got up around 6pm (insert large innocent grin here). We wandered (there was lots of wandering this holiday) back to the bar with no name for a slap up meal of guacamole, pasta and croquettes (ever one for a fusion of a dozen different cultures). Day 3, friday of course, and we planned on making the most of the, erm.. rest of the evening and visiting three seperate areas of Madrid which are 'good for going out'. The first of these was a street festival, where sheepishly we ordered food from a stall. I think we ordered the 'most expensive food for the tourists, ho ho ho' meal deal, and my usual ploy of giving the people at the till the largest note in my wallet failed miserably as she kept saying something about dos euros, and i nodded and smiled in a very english 'yes yes, thats wonderful, and how is your family?' way. the combined mighty brains of simon and matthew eventually worked out that she was asking for two more euros as the E20 note i'd given her wasn't enough.
still, food was good, and the place also insisted on us drinking 750ml glasses of beer, so hooray for lack of understanding and pointy pointy communication. after [more] wandering along the plethora of crappy game stalls (throw a ball in a hole three times and win a prize! oh, you missed one, here have another free go on me, oh, you missed again.. here, have a prize anyway.. bless) simon desired waffelage, and returned far too close to the stall with the lady of large bosom who have chorizoed us earlier. simon, all churros'd up, we wandered [count them folks] up a hill, turned left, turned right, wandered, more hills, tra la la, "somewhere down here, erm. no, here.. yeah.. erm. oh fuggit, there's a bar" for a few hours more and ended up in a delightful shoreditchesque bar where we sat on a balcony overlooking other drinkers. made me feel very important (oh, and gave me a fantastic vista of the barmaid too).
right, onwards and upwards.. lets go to pacha (pronounched pa-chja), that club with the cherries innit, for a night of full on thud-thud-thud disco disco. We arrived at the club around 2am, and being the well known types that we are, we were able to jump the queue and get straight in*.
(Editor's note: there was no queue. there were no people. the staff behind the bar made up around 70% of the population of the club)
So, the club was banging, we were right in there on the dance floor bopping away*.
(Editor's note: no, it wasn't. it was a little more like eurodisney when it first opened: a handful crazy european types, and us. we sat at the back of the club and kept saying to ourselves, "no really, it will perk up, i suppose 2am is a little early for these spanish ravers")
4am and the club was heaving, the music was pumping, and it was hard to breathe of the dance floor
(Editor's note: the club was nice and breezy, and i was doing the swing a cat dance.. still, the music was quite funky to be honest, and we had a bit of a larf anyway.. leaving at about 5.45am)
bangin'!
(Editor's note: pathetic)
wandered home
(Editor's note: yup.. we did).
Now, Madrid, I'd say is a 24 hour city, you can get beer anytime, you can go dancing (BUT NOT AT CLUBS) anytime, but can you get nosh? are there any food shops? nope.. but don't worry! help is at hand! by people who sit on the street and sell chinese takeway from little paper bags they have between their legs. if this freaks you out as much as it did us, then not to worry, we didn't purchase any.. we decided to stick to some equally dodgy bocadillos sold in a similar manner. yom.
we left the hotel in the search for interesting and quaint spanish bars, and stumbled across several who provided us with beer in a variety of shapes and sizes of glass. My spanish, which pretty much extends to 'Una cervaza por favor' allowed us to do little more than drink leisurely, which suited us just fine. First stop, a pool hall - we shamefully fell for some young lady giving out flyers on the street, and after UK closing time, we still found ourselves wandering around dimly lit and in many cases badly metalled roads, sitting on street corners drinking said cerveza and generally grinning.
One more turn around a street corner, and we were welcomed into a fantastic little bar where we started chatting with the owner.
My Spanish is truly dreadful - i spent about three months at school in Spanish classes for the simple reason I fancied the teacher, and came away with knowledge of the first six numbers, "where is the.." (but no destinations to ask about) and the word for beer. Fortunatly, the owner spoke better english than me too, yet still the understanding of some idioms I use isn't quite there, and I find myself speaking in some stilted Jane Austin like English, "We would like to go dancing, do you know of establishments where this may become a reality, and how is Mr Darcy?" Nonetheless, we managed to build a comprehensive list of cool places to go, including Pacha, which i had a hankering to visit and bop the night away.
In direct opposition to the previous blog where i predicted that i'd be merry enough to fall asleep by 10.30pm after the previous mammoth day, we found ourselves drinking the night away in the bar with no name, meeting up with two other english types. simon taught the owner how to make B52s, and i drank far too much gin and ended up stumbling outside to cool myself down in a sprinkler i found adorning the roadside. We wandered back to the hotel, well, Simon dragged me along ensuring me that the direction he led us was correct despite my drunken disagreement. Apparantly, we got back to the hotel and went upstairs to fall asleep on the roof terrace. An hour later we fall into bed (seperate beds.. don't worry). Day 2 bedtime: 5.30am.
Day 3 wake up time: well, debatable really, simon went downstairs to get breakfast, as is his perogative, and i stayed in bed, as is mine. I seem to remember he came back to the room, and then we both got up around 6pm (insert large innocent grin here). We wandered (there was lots of wandering this holiday) back to the bar with no name for a slap up meal of guacamole, pasta and croquettes (ever one for a fusion of a dozen different cultures). Day 3, friday of course, and we planned on making the most of the, erm.. rest of the evening and visiting three seperate areas of Madrid which are 'good for going out'. The first of these was a street festival, where sheepishly we ordered food from a stall. I think we ordered the 'most expensive food for the tourists, ho ho ho' meal deal, and my usual ploy of giving the people at the till the largest note in my wallet failed miserably as she kept saying something about dos euros, and i nodded and smiled in a very english 'yes yes, thats wonderful, and how is your family?' way. the combined mighty brains of simon and matthew eventually worked out that she was asking for two more euros as the E20 note i'd given her wasn't enough.
still, food was good, and the place also insisted on us drinking 750ml glasses of beer, so hooray for lack of understanding and pointy pointy communication. after [more] wandering along the plethora of crappy game stalls (throw a ball in a hole three times and win a prize! oh, you missed one, here have another free go on me, oh, you missed again.. here, have a prize anyway.. bless) simon desired waffelage, and returned far too close to the stall with the lady of large bosom who have chorizoed us earlier. simon, all churros'd up, we wandered [count them folks] up a hill, turned left, turned right, wandered, more hills, tra la la, "somewhere down here, erm. no, here.. yeah.. erm. oh fuggit, there's a bar" for a few hours more and ended up in a delightful shoreditchesque bar where we sat on a balcony overlooking other drinkers. made me feel very important (oh, and gave me a fantastic vista of the barmaid too).
right, onwards and upwards.. lets go to pacha (pronounched pa-chja), that club with the cherries innit, for a night of full on thud-thud-thud disco disco. We arrived at the club around 2am, and being the well known types that we are, we were able to jump the queue and get straight in*.
(Editor's note: there was no queue. there were no people. the staff behind the bar made up around 70% of the population of the club)
So, the club was banging, we were right in there on the dance floor bopping away*.
(Editor's note: no, it wasn't. it was a little more like eurodisney when it first opened: a handful crazy european types, and us. we sat at the back of the club and kept saying to ourselves, "no really, it will perk up, i suppose 2am is a little early for these spanish ravers")
4am and the club was heaving, the music was pumping, and it was hard to breathe of the dance floor
(Editor's note: the club was nice and breezy, and i was doing the swing a cat dance.. still, the music was quite funky to be honest, and we had a bit of a larf anyway.. leaving at about 5.45am)
bangin'!
(Editor's note: pathetic)
wandered home
(Editor's note: yup.. we did).
Now, Madrid, I'd say is a 24 hour city, you can get beer anytime, you can go dancing (BUT NOT AT CLUBS) anytime, but can you get nosh? are there any food shops? nope.. but don't worry! help is at hand! by people who sit on the street and sell chinese takeway from little paper bags they have between their legs. if this freaks you out as much as it did us, then not to worry, we didn't purchase any.. we decided to stick to some equally dodgy bocadillos sold in a similar manner. yom.
