Madrid, short and sweet

The bus to Madrid was again shortened by some blogging and a lot of sleep. There were of course the magnificent views of the landscape and wind farms. Not sure what the fuss is about in Australia about them being a blight on the landscape, I find them a very interesting and reassuring site seeing these things generating electricity without any unwanted by-products and only a small ground footprint. I'm sure the furry, feathery and scaley animals around these things would prefer that than the continued damage caused by our dirty brown coal generators, so would our children. More pontification from the pontificator.

Madrid was only a whistle stop on my way to Valencia. I would have liked to stay longer but I had higher priorities (literally as I plan to visit Televez which is the highest altitude pueblo in Spain). The hostel in Madrid was relatively quiet when I got there. A couple of young Aussies were there, funny I haven't seen many so far, Brendan and Julia had not long finished university and were doing some travel before getting back to the grind of looking for work. The resilience of people in a crisis is a good way of judging character, Julia had her backpack taken from a hire care not long before I arrived and they were hard at work arranging replacement passports, getting clothing and organising themselves to continue their trip. Some people would have dropped their bundle and maybe even jumped on the next plane home but Julia and Brendan put it down to experience, did what they could to remedy the situation and got on with things.

Madrid is a bit of a party town for tourists although that would be unfair on the city as a whole; it has a very vibrant and mature culture but the backpacker scene is definitely slanted to the young party animal. Mathew from County Kerrie in Ireland was one of those party animals, he was at the front of the queue when they were handing out carefree attitudes, his hobbies are drinking alcoholic substances and arm wrestling. James from Iowa in the good old USA is a lieutenant in the army. He had served in Afghanistan as a private. He liked to party also but had a couple of truckloads more self discipline than Mathew, which is not a criticism of Mathew, there was a lot to like about both of them. I showed James the speech from Lieutenant Colonel Tim Colins to his troops prior to the invasion of iraq, it can be found at : http://journal.dajobe.org/journal/2003/03/collins/

It should be compulsory in every officer training course.

Then there was Isabella from New York, she was going to get a tatoo, when she described to me where she was going to get it (I'm talking anatomically not locality here) I suggested that it should be a titoo. I then received a lesson in female anatomy as to where the chest stopped and the breast started, it was a verbal lesson only. She changed her mind later and decided not to get it.

A large group, 15 at least, of young English backpackers descended on the hostel at about 6.00 pm. The whole nature of the place changed in an instant, they were clearly there to hit the night spots and got themselves well primed (as did Mathew) prior to going out.

I spoke to a fellow named Jaoa from Portugal, he spoke Spanish and Brazilian (Joke Joao if you ever read this, we all know the Brazilians speak Portuguese as do the Portuguese which is logical when you think about it). He was a muso and was in the process of organising a Celtic music festival spanning multiple countries, how cool. He pointed me to a place not far from the Hostel where there would be some Jazz, that started at 9.30 pm. In the interim a group of us went to a tapas bar. The problem with going to places mentioned in those lonely planet travel guides is that they are full of people who read lonely planet travel guides so the place was jammed full of bloody tourists. There was one funny moment though when a German tried to have a conversation with me in Aussie, they don't do the accent very well but he knew all the good lines like “gidday mate” and “shit yeah.”

The Jazz bar had a sensational jazz act playing, the pianist had talent oozing out of his pores and the American guest trombonist was a magician. The rest of the band weren't there for the ride either. I had to take a back step in the exotic stakes at the bar, although as I found out being an Aussie in the more populated areas is hardly new for the locals, they are everywhere, Jodie however is a very nice looking and happy go lucky medical student from Alaska. I was going to ask if she had a 3 bedroom brick veneer igloo at home but I didn't want to appear as dumb as I looked so I resisted. Also sitting with us were cousins Guiomar and Nuria. Guiomar is a Doctor working in an emergency ward and Nuria is an architect. Nuria was at a bit of a crossroads career wise and was in the process of upskilling herself so she could use her architectural knowledge for more public good. They both spoke perfect English and Spanish of course. We were then joined by David another local but he was working in Scandinavia, he is also a blogger so take a look, go to blogspot and search for David Gambarte. Another Dutchman joined us whose name I did not get, he had the ability to talk a lot but he did have a very interesting past so it was all very worth listening to. The Pianist was Guiomar's piano teacher, I wonder if she could play as good as him.

After the band finished we stayed around chatted for quite some time, eventually Guiomar left as she had to be in a fit state to work the next morning, and I suppose with a job like hers it pays to be in control.

Unfortunately it was not a great sleep that night, the poms arrived in very noisey dribs and drabs and Isabella got up early to travel elsewhere. It did not matter that much however as I was due on the bus at 10.00 am. I'm not sure that I gave Madrid as much credit in my mind as I should have, I met some great people and I'm sure if I stay away from the party tourists I could make my next visit longer.