Madrid

Time is disjointed. That’s how I feel, anyway, as I sit at the aptly named “OK Hostel” in Madrid trying to gorge myself on the all you can eat, 3-euro breakfast. I’ve been grinding my teeth at night and drinking too much, so I guess that’s to be expected. I’ve also turned my life upside-down.

My flight here was long, sweaty and dirty. I smelled terrible by the time I wandered into the hostel and I felt like I was hit by a caravan of overenthusiastic Spaniards. I walked in after making the 2 hour commute from the airport to the city center and was told I couldn’t check in for another 2 hours. In an attempt to maintain consciousness I went and had two glasses of vermouth at the same dingy little tapas bar I discovered last November, stumbling on it entirely by accident while marveling at the 45-degree weather. It’s not the middle of the summer but it’s not Minnesota, either. I sat on the patio.

 The moments between those two drinks and shutting my eyes in bed felt like an eternity. I couldn’t form proper sentences, let alone try and communicate with those around me in Spanish. After forcing myself to wash off the stench of 24-hour travel and attempting to shave my legs with the backside of the razor, I slept for three short hours.

My first thought upon opening my eyes was, “What the fuck have I done?” I suppose I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t at least a little terrified of the fact that I sold all of my belongings and hopped a flight to Spain. I felt like shit and knew that I couldn’t just lay in bed and contemplate the meaning of life, so I decided to pull myself together and remember why I was so enamored with Madrid.

When I stepped outside I immediately felt relieved. The streets were filled with low-humming words too quick to for me to comprehend, but I knew that they were warm and filled with encouragement. People strolled down the middle of the road, moving only when a car veered close enough to nip at their heels. I met my buddy for dinner at a brightly lit tapas joint and we ordered massive plates of calamari and some strange potato/sauce combo that wasn’t entirely terrible.

Most tapas served are meat-related. Severed limbs hang casually from the brick walls until they are occasionally disturbed for a pound or two of flesh-removal. If you order a beer (typically for 2 euros), you’ll receive a small plate of food, often resembling a bread, meat and cheese combo. If you order another beer, you receive another plate of food. Tapas are the perfect excuse to drink, because you’d rather have a coffee but you’ll order a beer because it’s your fiscal responsibility.

After tapas we headed to an Irish pub for open mic night and wandered down a series of decrepit wooden stairs before encountering a man on a stage playing a kazoo and rhythmically “singing” in monotone. He was dressed in a red tuxedo with a top hat. After a few more inspiring performances I sang backup vocals to “Lonely Boy” by the Black Keys and enjoyed what were most definitely my 15 seconds of Spanish fame.

We held a few broken conversations with drunken locals and then worked our way over to an insanely vibrant basement jazz bar. Sunflower seed shells were strewn across the floor and people bounced enthusiastically (and recklessly) to the bleary-eyed band. My red wine quickly became a new feature of my outfit as I joined the chaos. When the music ended the dancing didn’t; whether this was because they didn’t care or because they failed to notice is beyond me.

A group of raucous Irishmen were ushered in by their hostel-appointed leader and we decided to have a few street beers in an unoccupied park. I assumed that in order to drink beers on the street we would have to walk into a store and purchase them, but instead we were greeted by a man with a plastic bag filled with cervesas. After filling his pockets with our change he strolled away, promising to return for round two. I regaled my company with stories of duck hunting and fishing in the motherland and the rest of the evening fell away.

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