Panther's Milk, Go-go dancers, and Ice-skating!

[11:00pm, home-stay apartment]

Week 3 in Madrid, and wow have I been busy!  These descriptions are going to be short and sweet:

To begin, last Thursday night all the BC students in Madrid went to a flamenco show, which was good... but once you’ve seen one flamenco show, the non-sense singing and angry stomping isn’t quite as entertaining the second time, especially if the dancers are sweaty, old ladies and you’re only sipping on orange soda.

But the next day I went ice-skating!! Yes, ice-skating, in Madrid.  Pretty awesome.  But more unique is the crew I was with: a girl from BC, an Argentinean we had met earlier in the week named Herman, a British girl named Vicki (Herman’s roommate), and an American girl who was couch-surfing in Herman’s apartment (except Herman doesn’t have a couch… so she slept on the floor).  Needless to say, the experience was anything but ordinary.

That night my BC friends and I danced until the morning at one of Spain’s more famous nightclubs: Kapital.  Go-go dancers, multiple DJs, an air-gust system, and seven levels, including a house-music dance floor, a Spanish-hits dance floor, a soul, funk and R&B dance floor, and a mojito bar. It is the epitome of a late night party.

Over the weekend, we had our first official Botellon in the beautiful Retiro Park, drinking €1.50 cartons of Don Simon Sangria (I’m sure my brother Ben fondly remembers his times with “Uncle Don”). Then we headed to the Reina Sophia museum to see the 20^th-century paintings of Dali and Picasso, including the famous “Guernica”, as well as other contemporary art, which was rather trippy and eccentric; it was the kind of art that makes you ask “This is art?” or the kind you would except to come from a less-than-sober/sane artist or a two-year old.  But I’m no art appraiser, and some of the stuff in the museum was quite interesting.  And after the museum, we headed down the street to El Brillante, Madrid’s most famous place to go for Bocadillos de Calamares (small baguettes with fried calamari).  Hot and chewy calamari on fresh, slightly crispy bread: rather delicious.

That night we went to another of Madrid’s well-known bars, El Chapandaz, with a cave-like design and a “stalactite” to dispense their infamous Leche de Pantera (Panther’s Milk): an awkward mixture of gin, rum, milk, and cinnamon.  Worth trying and drinkable, but it’s nothing to drool over. 

Other interesting little tidbits from this past week:

Jaywalking:

No matter how narrow or how empty a street is, if the green man on the post isn’t lit, the Spaniards do not cross the street. What’s up with that?  Even on the side-streets where cars pass maybe once an hour, or even if you could hop across from sidewalk to sidewalk, there could be ten or more people standing on both sides waiting for the “Go” signal. 

Drugs and Alcohol:

-In Spain, they are introducing breathalyzers in parking garages for people to test their BAC before leaving for €1.  Good idea? 

-On cigarette packs in Madrid, instead of the innocent surgeon general warnings we have in the US, it says in giant letters “Fumar mata” (“Smoking kills”). Spaniards, however, still remain in the top five in consumption of tobacco in Europe. 

-Also, Spain is the world’s largest consumer of cocaine, and has the second highest percentage of citizens who have tried Ecstasy, third for cannabis (which isn’t too surprising considering private consumption is legal and “associations” can grow cannabis and share it among members).

-As for alcohol: Spain has more bars than all the rest of Western Europe combined.

Betting:

The Spanish are obsessed with lottery tickets, bingo, and betting in general: Spaniards bet twice as much as Americans or the British, with the average adult gambling nearly $1,000 every year.  To put that in perspective, the average Spaniard loses more on gambling each year than he/she spends on milk, fruit, and vegetables combined.  

Today I went to see the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace (see pictures below). 

Tomorrow I leave for a weekend trip to Interlaken, Switzerland, where I hope to do some skiing, maybe some sky-diving, and hopefully stay warm in the process.  Most of Europe is just beginning a near-record cold spell, and all I have to pack is clothes for the spring. Wish me luck.  

And next Wednesday night I will begin a 5-day trip to Morocco!

Also, apparently the email subscriber gadget did not work.  If you would like to receive updates on new blog posts, please send me an email (charliemegaman@yahoo.com), and I will add you to the update list.

And keep the other comments and emails coming.  Much love.

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