Going Mad In Madrid

Madrid Day One: Friday.

We got up around 9 Friday morning and went to Cafe Nebraska down the street for churros and chocolate caldo (super thick hot chocolate; like hot icing to dip the churros in) and to plan our day.

Our first stop after breakfast was Las Ventas bullfighting arena. The bullfighting season doesn't begin until April, but we got a fantastic tour of the arena. Our guide showed us the names of the most famous matadors to ever fight in the arena and told us some of their stories; like Antonio Bienvenida being carried out of the arena on the shoulders of a parade (the highest honor) eleven times in his career and another matador being gored through the heart and killed in his first Las Ventas match. The most interesting story was about an older matador in the early 1900's who was so popular, Spain would not allow him to retire when he wanted to. And when I say "Spain," I mean he was legally not allowed to retire by order of the King and Queen.

His solution? Throw a bullfight. He let the bull win and it cost him his life. I'm sure you can imagine how that went down.

After these lovely histories, we got to sit in the expensive season ticket holder seats (in the shade), then walk around the arena to see where the bulls are let in, where the matadors stand to wait for the bull and where the backup on horses enter the arena.

We then moved to a back hallway to see the matadors' dressing room, the arena emergency room where they operate on gored matadors and the veterinary hospital where they inspect the bulls to ensure they are in perfect health before going into the ring to meet their deaths. How warm and fuzzy.

Lucy, our tour guide, told us that in the arena's history, only four fighting bulls have been spared this brutal fate. A bull can be spared if the matador thinks the bull is unusually smart and brave. The matador can stop a fight to ask the arena manager for the bull's life. The manager then polls the audience and if he and the audience agree that the bull being fought is too majestic to kill, the match ends in a draw and the bull is sent back to the breeder to be used as a prize stud.

In every other case (which is essentially every case) the matador fights the bull in three stages, ending with the bull being stabbed through the shoulder, into the heart and out the chest cavity, supposedly the quickest and most human way to kill this animal. If the matador does well, he can be awarded in one of four ways.

The first way: He is allowed to cut off one ear from the bull to keep as a trophy.

The second way: He is allowed to cut off both ears for trophies.

The third way: He is allowed to cut off both ears and the tail for trophies.

The fourth way: He is carried from the arena on the shoulders of the fans in a giant parade through Madrid.

Naturally, the better you fight, the more prizes you get. It's fairly uncommon for a matador to get one ear, so anything beyond that guarantees you a spot in the record books. If you get carried out, forget about it. You'll be a national hero longer than there will be bulls in Spain. It's a big deal.

After a very thorough tour, Bethany, Caitlin and I asked Lucy if we could go back into the arena for photos. She had to take us because we weren't allowed to be there unsupervised, but she was very cool and talked to us for about twenty minutes after the tour ended, answering our additional questions and talking about how she fell in love with bullfighting when she was twelve. Born and raised in England, Lucy saw her first fight on a family vacation to Madrid and moved to Spain specifically to work in Las Ventas when she graduated university. She finally passed the audition for tour manager two months ago and lives and breathes bullfighting. Lucy addressed how even in Madrid, many people view bullfighting as a form of animal cruelty (which I can agree with). But she also explained how revered the bull is in Spain and how its a symbol of the strength of the Spanish people. The bull is sacred, in a way. There is a very technical art to bullfighting that triggers strong emotions in the audience, and those emotions are what bullfighting is all about.

I thought this was a very interesting answer and, even though I don't fully agree, I can understand now some of the deeper meaning behind these fights.

After talking to Lucy, we went to the Las Ventas museum to look at the matador costumes on display there, then walked across the city again to El Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, best known for its Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali collections.

If you are ever in Madrid, go to this museum. I know you probably don't like modern art, but this museum is sweet and the almost the entire second floor is dedicated to Picasso and Dali paintings and sculptures. So you know it's good stuff. Also, there's a series of movies filmed in the mid-1800's showing old Spanish men drinking and playing cards and some girl spinning around in a flamenco dress (two different movies; don't get ideas). As far as movies go, these are each about thirty seconds long and really boring, but the novelty of seeing really early film was something that I at least could appreciate.

After this museum, we took a metro back to the hostel. And this is where the weekend took a very fast, very bad turn. The three of us were about four stops from home when the metro stopped at another station. A man who had been standing near us got off the metro, then turned and looked directly at Bethany. He said something in Spanish, but since I wasn't expecting it and was a few people away from the man and Bethany, I couldn't understand him. Bethany asked what he said and he repeated himself, then turned and disappeared running into the crowd. This time I understood the word bolso, Spanish for purse.

"Check your purse," I told Bethany as the man vanished.

Bethany looked and her purse was wide open. Caitlin and I exchanged some dark looks, both of us realizing what happened as Bethany began shoving the contents of her purse into our hands while she searched for her wallet.

"It's gone," she said, panicking. "It was right on top."

We knew what it was, of course. By this point we were one stop from home. One of us told Bethany to put everything back in her purse and zip it shut until we got somewhere safe.

It was a really tense ride home with Bethany having a silent meltdown and Caitlin and I wondering how, if possible, we could console her.

When we made it safely back to our hostel, Bethany dumped the entire contents of her purse onto her bed, but the wallet and everything in it - money, credit cards, drivers license, insurance card, keys to school and to the hostel - were long gone. We reported it to the hostel manager, but she said there was nothing that could be done, which we understood. We already knew there are no security cameras on the metros or in the tunnels.

Since Bethany clearly needed some time alone, Caitlin and I walked around for about an hour looking for souvenirs and exploring the neighborhood shops. We got home in time to shower and get Bethany before dinner. The three of us had new roommates now: two girls from Philly and a girl from Boston. We talked to them for a while (we were so lucky that five of the six roommates we had this weekend were wonderful), then went to a flamenco club called "Las Tablas."

Las Tablas was another spectacular deal. For €22 each, we got sangria, tapas and a nearly two hour flamenco show. The drinks and food were good, but the show was excellent. I was surprised that the dancers were all older (two women and one man, all in their mid to late 40's), but they were really talented. They each danced solos while a flamenco band sang and played behind them, then all three danced together for the finale. The two women wore about eight beautiful costumes between the pair of them and they put on a very entertaining show. The three of us were especially impressed when the man danced because he moved his feet so fast it didn't seem humanly possible.

Even Bethany left the show in a very good mood. We got out of Las Tablas around 11 p.m. and tried to find somewhere to go dancing ourselves. Unfortunately, in Spain you can't get into any clubs if you're under 18 and since Bethany no longer has any I.D. with her, we wandered from place to place being rejected. Apparently we look younger than 18? We finally found one bar that let us in, but the crowd there was not our style, so we didn't stay an hour. Instead, we wandered around observing the nightlife from outside before going back to the hostel and going to bed.

Madrid Day Two: Saturday.

We went to breakfast at Dunkin Donuts Saturday morning. I got a maple glazed donut and black coffee. It tasted like America. As we sat on the restaurant's street-side patio eating our donuts, we planned day two.

The plan ended up to have no plan. Instead we walked all day. We saw street performers and a wedding in Plaza Mayor, Palacio Real and Los Jardines de Sabatini (Royal Palace and Gardens), the Gay District, the Shoe District (conveniently located just outside the Gay District), Puerta del Sol, San Francisco El Grande, and El Parque de Las Vistillas, where we watched the sunset along the edges of Madrid.

After the sun went down, we wandered in search of food since - again - we had been too busy touring all day to eat anything. We managed to find a restaurant where not a soul spoke English, which meant the food was going to be authentic. I ordered something unidentifiable that involved lobster and nothing else I recognized. Caitlin ordered an assortment of tostas, or open-faced sandwiches, and Bethany closed her eyes and picked something.

What I ended up with was a plate of many things resembling hush puppies, filled with pureed lobster. They were good once I got past the puke-like consistency and discovered that they were most definitely pure lobster rolled in oil and bread crumbs.

Caitlin got three types of tostas: Raw salmon on brie, seafood salad and liver pate. Caitlin does not eat seafood, but she pushed through anyhow. She ate the bread and cheese and picked at the fish. She ate all the liver because Bethany was able to convince her that it was oddly colored cheese.

Bethany did the best out of all of us, ending up with steak and french fries even though she definitely ordered some kind of tacos out of the seafood section of the menu. Caitlin and I were very jealous of this dinner until Bethany cut into the steak to discover that it was - in typical European fashion - completely raw inside. At least by now we know you can eat totally raw meat in Europe, so she survived, albeit being somewhat letdown.

We ended up all sharing our plates so that no one ate too much of something vaguely threatening. Needless to say, the menu this weekend was a far cry from the nachos and enchiladas we had expected from a Spanish-speaking country.

We were home by 11 Saturday night since we had a plane to catch at 9 a.m. We left the hostel just before 7 in order to ensure we had enough time to make our plane. As it turned out, we needn't have gotten up so early: our RyanAir flight was delayed by two hours. We spent that time talking to a girl from Texas who is engaged to a guy from Florence and was visiting friends in Madrid for the weekend. She talked about how she met her fiance while he was studying as an exchange student in San Marcos and about the language/cultural barrier between her and her non-English speaking in-laws. We all talked about the biggest differences we've found between American and Italian culture and about how rude Europeans are. It helped pass the time.

We finally got to Pisa around 1:30 and took a train home at 2, where Bethany and I promptly ran home to eat since we'd had nothing but snacks all day. I don't think I've ever been so excited to see a bowl of penne and 59 cent tomato sauce.

So that was Madrid. It was high highs shadowed by low lows, but all in all, I'd say it was a good weekend. It sure beats being back in Ohio.