Goya, Dreamland and an Homage to Ham

In Madrid, we're staying at Hotel Room Mate Laura, one of a number of hotels in the "Room Mate" chain around Spain with cool interior design and an even cooler gimmick that each hotel is named after a "character" who is like a friend of yours who's offered their place for you to stay while in Spain visiting. There are, I think, 4 different "Room Mates" in Madrid, one in Granada, and two others... I can't recall. But check out the website here.

When we checked in, the clerk upgraded our double bed reservation to a bi-level duplex (YESSSS!) and when we got to our room... well, check it out.


At the loft, looking down on our bed






Chillin'



The view from outside our window

After taking much-needed showers, we were on our way to the Museo del Prado, which is quite possibly one of my most favorite museums. JD was excited to check it out and I was excited taking him there. Goya, Velazquez (yes, "Las Meninas" is housed here), Rubens, Titian, Rembrandt... yes, please.


Statues outside of the Prado



Entrance to the Prado


Resting outside the Prado. You know you can't take pictures inside, right? It's like, a museum, or something. LOL.

This was especially great for me because I've studied so much of this art, yet only seen them as color plates in art texts. "Las Meninas" was, in particular, a fantastic revelation since I had studied it in high school and done an interpretation of its composition.

But alas, after about 2 hours in the museum, we had to call it quits because our bodies just crapped out on us. We got back to the hotel and zonked out for 5 blissful hours. Ahhh, bed. How I missed the concept of a bed.

Afterwards we got up completely ... um... alive (better than refreshed - try NORMAL?) and went out to walk the town and grab a bite to eat. The last time I was in Madrid, I practically LIVED on these cheap, beautiful, and delicious ham and cheese sandwiches from a place called Museo del Jamón. That's right. MUSEUM OF HAM. But you know, it's blasphemous to just call these things ham and cheese sandwiches. For anyone who knows Spanish cuisine, you'll know that dry-cured ham is one of the greatest culinary masterpieces that this country offers. This is a whole different species from American ham, which is pretty much "wet" and roasted with glaze. This is like Italian prosciutto in texture, but I don't want to make too much of a comparison for fear of Spanish outcry. This is dry, chewy, sweetly salty gorgeous stuff, (and coming from me, a generally anti-pork kind of girl, this is huge) and there are different levels of quality from the basic jamón serrano to the the sublime - and much more expensive - jamón iberico and pata negra. The hams come in whole hocks, hanging on walls and hooks to air-dry and the butcher or deli person just takes one down and cuts thin shavings off of it for tapas, raciónes or sandwiches (called bocadillos if on a hard roll.) The cheese on these sandwiches is the most delicious manchego cheese I've ever tasted.

The way to rock this is to come up to the bar, order a bocadillo (the cheapest way to enjoy the hammy goodness), a caña of cerveza (a small glass of beer), and a bottle of aguá minerál. Total? 5 Euros apiece or about 7 dollars. That's right, kids. Now you know why my poor ass was eating here every day back in 2002.


Can u guess which cana is mine? Wuss.


God, I look like a duck. Thanks, JD. Quack Quack. Salud.


Check out the wall of hocks ...

No, these aren't plastic, geez.


I'll take the 20 at the top.


Mmmm... One of the things that strikes me when abroad is all the cool cultural particulars that I look at and think, what the fuck, America? What the fuck? Why can't we have these things in the US? Sandwiches of thick slices of manchego and what, to many, would pass as a more mild proscuitto, on a savory artesan roll? For about 2.50? I'd pay that! I'd eat that! McDonald's in Europe serves beer! My mind is blown.

Afterwards, we strolled Puerta del Sol (one of the oldest plazas in the city - part of the old city and central hub of Madrid), and got a hankering for some churros and hot chocolate at the famous Chocolatería de San Gines.


The bear and strawberry tree statue, symbol of Madrid, at Puerta Del Sol



I wish you could see the statue's face better. I got it down, sez da bf.


Spain's answer to nectar and ambrosia. Don't tell me otherwise, fool.

The hot chocolate is amazing. I stared at it for a while and asked, "it's in a coffee cup... are we supposed to drink it when we're done dipping the churros?" Apparently so. I mean, just imagine dunking a coffee cup into a chocolate fountain and that's your beverage. Well, the hot chocolate is a little more... what's the word... there's a base to it that is sort of thick milky or starchy, but the taste is dark, rich, and semi-sweet. Delicious.

Now we're back in the hotel and part of me feels ashamed that we're not out at Kapital or Palacio de Gaviria dancing the night away, but my "mature" half is telling me to take it easy and go back to bed now to prep for tomorrow. Besides, I've already done the partying in Madrid deal. Partying in Barcelona is next on the list. Don't worry, boys and girls. Mo hasn't lost it yet.

Boo For Bad Parents

Hi all!

Well, the moment has finally arrived. We're in Spain after months of anticipation and I hope I do a good job in the next two weeks of documenting JD and I's adventures in Madrid, Barcelona, and in San Zoilo for the Vaughan Program. Just so everyone knows, this is going to end up being a CO-AUTHOR blog between JD and I, and so to differentiate JD's comments, anything written in italics will be his words. (except those).

So... I really have to start by talking about the plane ride. Plane rides as a rule are pretty straightforward business to me - just way to get from point A to point B without much hoo-hah. If you're doing an overseas jaunt, in my opinion, there's guaranteed to be a certain level of discomfort and the best you can do is to be patient, try to occupy yourself to pass the time (paperbacks and Nintendo DSes are good for this) or just drug yourself and hope to wake up closer to landing time.

Well, anyway, I have to say that so far, in my short history of plane trips, this plane ride to Spain was the MOST PAINFUL PLANE RIDE OF MY LIFE.

Start off with that on paper, we're supposed to depart from L.A. to arrive in Miami 5 hours later, then have a 4 hour layover (yuck) and then enjoy a 6-hour fly to Madrid.... But wait, let me back up a bit....

The night before, I got a total of probably 2 hours of sleep. We get to LAX and get on the plane and I immediately doze off on some semblance of sleep. We land in Miami on time and I try to add more "sleep" to my already deficient reserves as we try to kill our four hours of layover time. We finally get on the plane and - of course - the seats suck, and I take a deep breath and prep myself for the 6 hours of good times. The plane rolls down the tarmac and we're on our merry way....

Yeah....

2 hours into our trip, the captain comes on the P.A. and announces that we'll have to make an emergency landing in Boston. There is a medical emergency on the plane ("an ill child") and the child and her parents will need to land as soon as possible to take the child to the hospital. The closest airport just happened to be Logan Airport and so "we'll be landing in about 1 hour." The captain also adds that we'll have to remain on the plane while the family disembarks and he couldn't say at this point how long we'll have to wait. At this point, I'm a tad dismayed, but mainly concerned for the child and totally accepting about this turn of events... because... well, this little girl needs medical attention.

I noticed something odd: during the first two hours of the trip, whenever the television screens would show our little google-maps-esque flight path, we we're going up the coast instead of across the pond...

Over an hour later we land at Logan and I see all of these ambulances and cop cars with their sirens flashing near the runway, and when the plane rolls down the tarmac, all of these medical/emergency vehicles follow us. Crazy. When we finally roll to a stop, I get up and go to the bathroom and end up striking a conversation with one of the passengers, who was sitting very close to the ill child in question.

Anyway, apparently the story goes that the child had some sort of bleeding problem, and that the family came on board with the child ALREADY BLEEDING. Somehow, the family thought that the child would be alright for the flight (since, in the passenger's words, "the child seemed normal and active and the mother thought she would be fine"), but an hour into the flight the girl just started bleeding worse. What the hell. What. The. Hell.

After being on the ground for over 2 hours, we finally are cleared to take off again (much to my relief since I started getting these frightening thoughts of 8 hour waits like those controversial recent flights in the news). The next 6 hours were more painful than usual. I couldn't sleep, my stomach was acting up, and I was getting cricks in my neck, swelling in my feet, and hot and cold sweats. YAYYYYY!!!!!

We finally touch down in Madrid a little over 6 hours later. But then....

When we pull up to the gate, the mechanical gate/tunnel pedestrian thingie (you know, that walkway that extends and attaches itself to the plane's door [I think it's called a 'skywalk']) WON'T WORK. Everyone has gotten up and grabbed their bags in a hurry to try and make their connections, and when the captain announces this, I start to laugh... to hide the tears. (Just kidding. ) Man, this plane trip is awesome!!! When the ground operators finally get it to work, I was surprised there wasn't a bum rush to the door like we're a bunch of crazed lemmings going over a cliff.

Thank god the rest of the airport experience was uneventful. Customs was even extremely quick - stamp stamp, "gracias" and we're off.

Well... Barajas airport is very pretty at least.

Plane trips for me are the make it break it clause of the trip. The vacation has to be substantially beneficial to counteract the decidedly un-holiday nature of being in coach on a plane. I'm also a bit jaded, because I've been rescheduled to first class a few times when trying to return from trips to Pennsylvania during snow storms. Coach, now, is a form of inhumane torture.

It's also a bit frustrating when the flight attendants remind you that you are in coach. After our 2 hour unscheduled lay-over in the plane in Boston, the flight attendant assured us "we apologize to our passengers in coach for not serving your meal, but that will be our first priority once we reach cruising altitude." Because you know that first class has been boozing it up and eating sundaes the whole time... at least... I know... because I've been there. Bastards.

So yeah -- 13 hours on a plane. I was thankful to be dying of combined hypothermia and dehydration because it meant, at least, that I wasn't stewing in my own sickly sweat. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

But now we're in Madrid, and our first few hours walking around like the reanimated dead through the Goya galleries at the Prada made it all worth while... but I'm getting ahead of myself; Mo! Let's talk about Spain!



Yeah - enough about this stupid plane crap and its obvious reminder that classism is alive and kicking. Let's move on to our trip fun-ness.