3/21/10
I really love how cosmopolitan Madrid is. On my way home for lunch today, I came across a man playing the Chinese lute in the Atocha subway station, It was so beautiful. Spent the day studying with the girls at Café Faborit, a café chain where they decorate the foam in your coffee and serve me my chai tea in my own glorious pot.
These past two weeks have been spent exploring Madrid night life. Last Friday Nicole, Vanita, Antoinette and I, with the intention of going to a Spanish club, ended up bar-hopping till 6:00 in the morning! Which, by the way, is how Madrileans party. The norm is, dinner at 10 pm, followed by going out for drinks between 11 pm and 1 am, and then hitting the clubs from 2-6 am. Debauchery? It sure felt like it.
So, Friday night was Irish pub, followed by churros con chocolate at San Ginés chocolatería, a really old churrería with marble floors and 1920’s style green moldings and light fixtures. With the intention of stopping by a bar to grab one more drink, we ended up staying at a Spanish bar off the L after a group of students from Complutense University bought us a pitcher of sangria. By 4 am, we were convinced that taking a taxi would not be worth the money. (The Metro opens at 6am.) So we spent the remaining 2 hours of the night hours at another Irish pub, crowded with people, smoke, and dancing.
The night right after, we hit Club Duom. And danced till 6 in the morning. Madrid night life is incredibly tiring. And the men at clubs here can be very disrespectful to women. But I have to say, their night hours really make me feel like I’m taking advantage of every minute of my youth. It’s almost like they don’t sleep!
I really don’t think I saw very much daylight that weekend. Because when you party till 6 am and come home at 7 am, you sleep through the afternoon!
Then this past Wednesday we went to Café Centrál, a jazz café off Plaza de Angél. The band a jazz & flamenco trio from Argentina took me to another place. The harmonica player cried as he played Argentine folk music to the saxophone and the trombone. The songs were full of agony and even during the lighter songs, you couldn’t help but feel the density of emotion that the band emanated. The drummer’s solo was very intimate, and the mixture of Argentine flamenco song with jazz—oh, it is breathtaking.
Right now I am sitting in Café Faborit with the girls, taking a study break. We have been studying all day. I have a literature test tomorrow that covers Modernism and the Generation of 98 novels, and then Rubén Dario, Antonio Machádo, and Juan Ramón Jímenez’s poetry.
I feel like I’ve progressed with Spanish academically. I came home today for my lunch break and realized that I had just studied for 3 ½ hours straight in Spanish without noticing until I popped in English music on my lap-top when I got home.
Spring break is this Friday! I just have to get through this week of mid-term exams and my poetry presentation. Then I fly to Milan on Friday and will spend 10 days backpacking throughout Italy. So very excited!
Love you all,
Christina
