Marvelous Madrid

On Thursday, November 12^th (my half birthday), I took a bus back to Madrid to meet up with a Very Important Person and my travel companion for the adventures ahead:

David just finished a 6-week training course for Rock Climbing Guides called “Mountain Training School.” He was climbing very difficult rock cliffs all over Spain from sun up to sundown. I was actually not jealous at all! Since David was not used to sitting or standing around we went on some long runs around Madrid to see sights and get some energy out.

Retiro Park, Madrid

Alcobendas, a suburb just 20 minutes outside Madrid where David’s friend Manuel lives.

I have a couple friends from college in Madrid (who’d never met each other), and we had a blast hanging out with them.

Jessica, Me, Jeannette, David, & Nabil at Artemisa (delicious vegetarian restaurant near Plaza Santa Ana where Jeannette lives)

We went to “micro theater” with Jessica which consists of 6 different 20 minute plays going on at once in tiny rooms of a small house. The play we saw was about two bakers and was called “Más amas, más amasas,” which translates to “the more you love, the more you knead.”

Knead like the action you do to dough in order to mix it up and get it ready to rise nicely, but also it’s homophone “need” makes sense in that context as well. It’s my first pun in Spanish. The bakers kneaded the dough because they loved each other, but they also “needed” things from each other because they loved each other. We were literally about 5 feet from the actors.

We also went to a flamenco show at a theater called Cafetín la Quimera with Jeannette and her friend Belén who was visiting from Argentina.

I didn’t want to video during the show b/c we were right up front and I thought it would be rude, but I found plenty of other people’s videos posted online. So here is the group we saw. Something I love about Flamenco dancing (and singing and guitar!) is that you can really feel the performer’s emotions. As you can see, it takes an a lot of athleticism too!

In Madrid, I ate vegetarian food to my heart’s delight since David had been in Spain long enough not to object to a change of restaurant scene (he’s not a big fan of the large hunks of meat, soggy French fries, and fried egg common in run-of-the-mill Spanish restaurants). Madrid has about 50 vegetarian restaurants and I think we sampled about 1/6 of those!

When we stayed at Manuel’s house we did some of our own cooking too (for him and lovely Carmen):

Manuel is a Physical Therapist and regaled us with tales of his rich and famous clients. One of my favorites: he taught a 14 year-old who’d been a bit too pampered his whole life, how to safely jump from his living room couch to the floor.

Here is a lunch we made: Gazpacho, Salad, Honey-vinegar quinoa, Goat cheese and vegetable stuffed peppers. Manuel poured us cider the fancy high-up way (Asturias in the north of Spain is famous for this- I’ll make sure to get a photo of it when I reach the North!)

I found this book, “Fluir,” or “Flow” in English, by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (that’s Zofia’s grandfather!) in Manuel’s bookshelf–proof of its international popularity 🙂 

Manuel and Carmen toured us around Madrid, including bringing us to Parque del Oeste which has a real Egyptian temple.

Manuel took us on an epic bike ride into Madrid from his town, Alcobendas. Luckily he had extra bikes (although my seat was too high so I learned the word for allen wrench in Spanish:, “juego de allen” since we asked every biker who passed us if they had one).

Manuel explained that for every new housing complex that goes up they have to build a park. I’d never seen a park with such tiny trees. Check out the “buena vista” (good view):

Playing around in the park with a view.

Pollution in Madrid can get so bad that they limit the number of cars driving into the city according to license plate.

Manuel says on a good day, you can see the mountains perfectly. Notice how hazy they were looking during our adventure. That’s smog 😦

Luckily there are parks for respite.  In addition to Parque Retiro, Casa del Campo is an enormous park in the East of Madrid. We walked there one day from the Plaza de España, pictured here:

Me with Don Quixote and Pancho Villa

A couple last things about Madrid (actually Spain in general):

There’s lots of plazas- public squares- where people gather, and where you can always find kids playing soccer

There are candy stores everywhere! Spaniards seem to especially love gummy candies. This shop is underground in the metro.