A funny thing happened on the way to the Pantheon...

Well, we have been too busy to post lately, so here is an update. We're now in Rome, staying in the apartment of a generous friend of my family, Manu. It's lovely to be here where we can feel comfortable and enjoy privacy. It's also great to be out of the center, as we have experienced a little of what the 'real' Rome is like, as opposed to the tourist traps around the sights.

We arrived from Florence on Monday, but it was very late at night. We hadn't realised how big the Roma Termini station is, so when we went to get our ticket to Vienna for Wednesday the queue took over an hour. Then the taxi ride took a long time and thus became more expensive than we had expected, but it couldn't have been avoided as the apartment isn't easy to get to at first, especially in the dark and with luggage.

Finally we arrived and got settled in, but there was certainly no time to go out or do anything before bed. The next morning we got up and took a while to get out of the flat. We ate breakfast at a cafe nearby, then finally set off to find a bus to the Pantheon at about midday. We wandered down the street to an area we had been told was well connected to the rest of Rome, but we still couldn't find the bus numbers we were looking for. So we kept walking. After a while we stopped for some sandwiches which turned out to be disgusting - never order a sandwich when you see that the ingredients are preserved in oil. My sandwich was just dripping with the stuff, it went on my skirt and hands and the floor and everywhere, and it made me feel so sick.

Anyway, 2 hours after setting off we still hadn't found our bus. At this point Meg realised her purse was missing, so we trekked back up to the cafe and she found it hidden under a magazine. While we were there, we decided to take advantage of the guy behind the counter as he spoke the best english we had encountered so far that day. He told us to get the Metro just round the corner, and get off at Spagna. That's what we did, and when we emerged we bought a map so we could navigate from there to the Pantheon.

On the way we passed by the Spanish Steps, but without realising that's what it was because there was no clear sign or anything. Then we popped over to the Trevi Fountain, one of my favourite monuments ever. Finally we made it to the Pantheon and had a look around. Entry was free which is always nice, and Meg listened to one of the audioguide machines and pointed out some details of interest to me.

After that we realised we still had some time, so we wandered vaguely in the direction of some of the monuments illustrated on the map. Meg was also on the hunt for an ice cream place as she fancied some more italian gelati. We found ourselves in a gigantic square, which turned out to be exceedingly fruitful.

The first thing I noticed was in the centre of this piazza was a railing, obviously to stop people falling into some precipice beyond, from which ragged columns were poking into the air. I convinced Meg to ignore a possible gelateria and have a look at the ruins with me, and when closer we saw there were a bunch of crazy bright pop art works and wooden structures mingling with the ancient ruins.

Then Meg pointed out a black cat way down below. I got all excited and took a billion crappy photos of this far off cat. Then we walked around a bit, and saw another cat. Again, I got excited, took awful pictures, and we moved on. Then we saw another cat.. and another... and another two together.. then six or seven cats in just one patch of this huge square. We started really looking and must have seen about 20 cats. We joked that this was like a really cool pet store where you spot the cat you want roaming around the ruins.

After a while we went off and had ice cream, then planned to go find the monument we had initially been seeking. However, we were drawn again to look at the cats, some of whom were much nearer. Then we saw a sign saying there was a cat sanctuary. We couldn't really tell where it was, but I saw some steps leading down to a garden type place and insisted that we go in.

There were maybe 10 cats in this tiny patio, some friendly and some shy. Then we went inside... WOW. Dozens and dozens of cats just roaming around, sat in baskets or on top of a microwave, in cages on the wall, or in a big room to the side with restricted entry. The ones in cages were kittens who weren't ready to be allowed to roam freely, very cute. Then an American woman came over and started talking to us. She was a volunteer, and explained about the cats and how it worked there. Everyone was volunteers, no paid staff, and the cats were clearly well looked after and well loved.

She took us into the restricted entry area which is for cats who aren't allowed to wander free for various reasons: illness, disability, runaways, or just cats who prefer it in the 'nursery'. She told us about all the different cats: this one has his eye out, this one has his ears cut off from skin cancer, this one was bit by a dog and has a big chunk out of its back. My favourites were these 3: Ramingo, a black fluffy cat with a neurological problem which made his walking really crazy like he was on ice and kept sliding around. Forrest Gump, an orange tabby who is deaf, blind, and has cat AIDS. And Ambrosino, an orange cat who reminded me of my dearly departed cat Spike, I think he was just shy and preferred the nursery. I stroked him for ages and he looked very blissful throughout. We chatted with the staff for ages and stroked many cats and it was wonderful.

After a long time enjoying the company of the cats and the friendly volunteer workers, we headed back to the apartment. On the way we kept an eye out for somewhere to eat, and we came across a nice looking, traditional Italian restaurant. We asked to see the menu and it looked a little expensive, but we decided to go with it and just have one course.

Then a youngish waiter came over who spoke great english. He was very funny and friendly, insisting that the restaurant was our home and we could have things how we liked etc. We explained that we don't eat meat, and he described how traditionally Italians would start with a room temperature bean soup, then a pasta, then a meat course, then dessert, but we could have just the soup and pasta. We asked how much it would be and he said €4 for the soup and €6 for the pasta, so it would be €10 total each. That is about par for our dinner budget, and great value for 2 courses. The menu had said the soup was €7 and the pasta €8 or something, so we began to sense this guy was giving us a nice deal, perhaps because he could tell we were stingy.

The soup was delicious and I am desperate to make it myself somehow when I get home. It has beans, and little squares of pasta, and the soupiness was thick beany goodness, yum yum yum. We each had a spaghetti with tomato and basil dish, only Meg had chunks of fresh tomato, and fresh chopped basil and parsley ('spring' pasta) while I had normal tomato and basil sauce and some cheese on top. These were also very tasty. Finally the guy came over and we decided to ask for the dessert menu as the food had been so good. The waiter explained that there were just 2 choices: a sweet wine with a biscuit to dip in it, or fresh watermelon. We asked how much the melon cost and he said it was a gift to us. Free watermelon! We were tickled pink to match our juicy watermelon wedges. Thus in the end we had 3 courses of delicious food for €10 - amazing! We decided to go back there on our last night, hopefully the experience will be repeated, as tonight we were forced to eat Chinese food which was extremely unenjoyable.

I will be brief about today as this is so long already: we saw the Palatine and the Colosseum. The entrance to the Palatine was not clearly marked so we trekked around for ages and got hot and bothered. It was great inside but without the audioguides (trying to be stingy) we couldn't know what most of the ruins had been. It is thus advisable either to shell out for some form of guide, or get lucky and hop on one of the free tours which I passed by after I had wandered around for an hour already. Also the Palatine is HUGE and Meg and I got seperated and found it very difficult to navigate our way back to each other. So try to stay together, or arrange a meeting point and time just in case. When you go to the Colosseum, do the Palatine first and then you won't have such a long queue for the ticket, as the Palatine has a faster ticket booth and the only available ticket is for both. And as with many other monuments with paid entry in Italy, residents of EU countries can show their passport to get a half price ticket, and that is a great money saver.

Ok, I want to go to bed soon so this is it for today. Tomorrow we will walk to the Vatican City and spend the day there, return to the restaurant for dinner hopefully (I worry that it will be too early in the day now that I think about it....), then we go to catch our train to Vienna at 7:10pm.

Mojo

Ramblings with no direction from Meg

Hello, bonjourno, etc. I'm writing to you today, dear readers, to bring you random thoughts and notes from my scantily-scrawled-upon journal and to update you and my psychiatrist on my state of mind, just in case.

Random/General:

• "Aiawawa!" - catchphrase of the trip, we heard a man shriek this at Weatherspoons at Gatwick whilst greedily ingesting our 7am veggie breakfasts like zombie gannets
• A moment in which we spontaneously hummed something from the Nutcracker Suite and danced like puppets
• "We ARE the station!" - a rather enthusiastic expression of quite enjoying waiting around in stations, something we've had to do rather a lot of. Reading good books (we've both been reading "If on a Winter's Night A Traveller" by Calvino, lying around on marble benches drawing faces in pen on my upside-down chin - Chin People, freaky, and making weird noises (and having weird animal noises made at us by various Spaniards...male and female)
• Watching a guy swiftly and adeptly play crystal glasses set out in front of him, each with different notes (different water levels)
• must mention again the boy-racer type taxi driver - music blaring, cigarette-readying. Reckless, slightly handsome (as is the Meditteranean theme, as I have said, time and time again), swerving terrifyingly to unwrap Starbursts. All in all highly inappropriate as Mojo was feeling sick...

Some thoughts/notes on Madrid:

• "Madrid is SO GAY" - www.gaycircus.net. We saw them setting up stuff on HUGE trucks by the park we were in on our last day, and felt sad that we couldn't continue our perusal of liberal Madridian festivals. I must say, some very attractive men were readying for the circus, but sadly the title of the show hinted at their likely unavailability.
• "and we emerge as beautiful shiny conkers" - a phrase used to simultaneously refer to and disguise the fact that everywhere we've been so far we sweat about 10 buckets per day, each. Enough to provide one week's ration of salt for a WWII family
• I can't stop laughing about/remembering the drag queen performances we saw in Madrid. The most extreme, over-sexualised, gaudy performances.... drunk audience singing along, wigs swooshing through the air like nylon whips, fake patent leather everywhere, and the heaviest makeup and most energetic simultaneous miming and dancing I've ever seen

Trains:

• (I know Jo's covered it already, but..) the first train we had from Madrid to Barcelona was amazing - cold as a fridge, super-modern design with posh LCD screens and glass informing us of our speed and the outside temperature (35°C), a film showing (The Nanny Diaries, in Spanish, but nevermind), a genuinely comfy headrest with nice reclining seats that worked smoothly (rather than after 5 minutes of your irritable wrestling and jealous glances at reclined neighbours). The views were also great, I should sort out some photos soon, from the window. That said, they're rubbish, but give you an idea of the landscape. LASTLY, we travelled at 273km/h! Beat that, National Rail.

I'll post again later. I need to eat lunch, wash my feet (mmm..they get SO dirty), recover from the shock, awe and strange delight at the absolute downpour we just had in Florence, complete with thunder, lightning, and opera on an ipod, and on top of all that we plan to go to San Croce cathedral.

See you later alligators,

Meg

Well, it's been a while....

Yes, too long since our last post. In Barca the hostel comps were always packed with people, and in Milano our hotel charged €1 for 15 minutes of internet - rip off.

Here's my rundown of Milan:

We arrived as scheduled, but the bus proved hard to find, so we took a taxi. No one had heard of the hotel (no one= taxi driver and the people she yelled at asking where it was) so the ride cost us more than it needed to, but oh well. The hotel, though budget was pretty nice. No AC and the breakfast wasn't great, but the room was nice and private too.

We didn't do anything except eat that night. The next day we went to buy our train tickets at the station (we forgot to on arrival) and ended up with a different time than planned as it was cheaper. Then we walked down towards the Duomo. On the way we got some super delicious ice creams: Meg had chocolate cherry and 'buon biscotto', while I had the latter and cafe latte. At the Duomo we enjoyed the pretty building and tried to stave off African men forcing stringy bracelets on us (You're beautiful! It's free, a gift from Africa! I love you! I'm a good man! A euro for Africa? Come on, give me a euro....). Meg gave money to one of them, but learnt her lesson by the second one.

We wandered into a shopping mall next to the Duomo and came across a photoshoot for Italia's Next Top Model. This was phenomenally exciting for me, as I am a longtime watcher of the Next Top Model series. We stayed and took pictures of the photoshoot, which featured several models flying through the air, all in the same dress and make up. It was amazing to see how it's all done. We also had a snack of a pizza pasty that tasted a bit doughnutty (panzerotti) which was delicious and oozy with cheese.

After that we wanted to go in the Duomo, but sadly Meg had ignored her own advice and didn't bring a cardigan to put on over her revealing (by catholic cathedral standards) dress. So I went in with my cardi on, but was promptly ushered out again a few minutes later as it was closing time. Oh well, it wasn't as pretty inside as out.

Then we trekked out towards a restaurant we had read about in the guidebook, Il Verdi. On the way Meg stopped to photgraph a flowerstand man, and his colleague gave us each a flower for free - take note creepy, pushy African bracelet men! Sadly at this time I began to feel a migraine coming on, and by the time we made it to the place I felt awful and couldn't eat. I had already ordered my €9 plate of pasta so that went to waste, as I brought it back in a doggybag but couldn't stomach it even a few hours later (luckily for Meg, she could).

We got a taxi back to the hotel because of my migraine, and the driver was awful. He swerved all over, opening a starburst packet and sticking a cigarette into the flaps of the air conditioning vents on the dashboard. Finally we were back, and after a brief rest and a shower I felt better, and we had a late night chat before sleeping our final night in Milano.

So today we came to Florence on the train. The train wasn't as nice as the Spanish fast train, but it was a good journey because the views outside were pleasant. The man next to me had terrible breath, but I managed to survive it by listening to my ipod and daydreaming. On arrival we realised that the train station was different from the one I had planned for. Yes, it turned out that the nice woman gave us a cheaper train but failed to mention it went to a different station. We emerged in the sweltering heat of Florence and had no clue how to get to the hostel. With the aid of a map we found a bus stop to take us to the other station, and when we got on the bus we realised we were both covered in sweat - more so than before. It was gross. At the main station we got our tickets to Rome, then walked to the hostel.

And thus here we are, at Academy Hostel in Florence, less than a minute's walk from the Duomo. We share a bedroom and bathroom with 4 other people here, the beds are singles not bunk beds, and we have found out that they do breakfast for free too so that is something to look forward to...

Until the next blog,

Mojo

The Prado and the Botanic Gardens.. Last Day in Madrid

After another night in our hot little Mad Hostel 4 -bed room recovering from our strange drag-queen and jack daniels infused night before, we decided to make the most of our last day in Madrid by heading out to another of the 3 must-see Madrid art galleries, Museo del Prado. It seemed to be much busier than the Sofia Rene, and we had to wait in a queue outside in the sun to get tickets, before being sent round to the main entrance. Once inside we strolled appreciatively (at first..) through dozens of rooms of medieval and renaissance works, huge moody canvases caked with dark, mostly biblical scenes. I really liked some of them, and HATED many of them, but admired the skill put into all of them. We got a little insight into that: as we were walking round, artists from a Madrilean art school were sat with canvases and oil paints copying paintings. It was incredibly impressive, it obviously took a fairly long time, a lot of concentration and a hell of a lot of skill. The copies were to such a high standard - obviously the style of the originals was very intricate and detailed, and the copy painters emulated it almost exactly: often the differences were imperceptible.

My favourite part of the trip to the Prado, as it happens, was a youngish painter copying a portrait. He seemed to capture the essence of being a bohemian artist, and was very attractive, as seems to be the trend for Spanish boys so far. We shuffled around to get a look at his painting ( yes, the painting) and admire it. Unfortunately he had not actually begun painting again for the day and was just preparing his palette, so we returned later to see him painting away very impressively. He looked up, saw us, and smiled and waved, which was somewhat unexpected as we didn't know him. I waved back perhaps too enthusiastically. Later on, when we returned to the hostel, I thought I saw him in our bar as we sat blogging. Jo didn't think it was him but I like to think it was - and it would explain why he may have waved as he might have recognised us from around the hostel. Jury's out on that one.

After tiring ourselves out shuffling through the Prado, and perhaps somewhat tired of being surrounded by fellow tourists, we struck out for lunch and found ourselves in a lovely restaurant next to the Botanic Gardens, titling itself in accordance. It was great as there were hardly any other tourists there at all, if any - we could only hear spanish. We had a spanish-style slow lunch drenched in sun, with finches darting around us, and briefly, an accordion player serenading us. In this instance not a touristy thing as he serenaded all the Spaniards too. He was pretty good, played one of my favourite songs - la vie en rose - odd choice in Spain, and also somewhat less graceful on an accordion. Then we happily trotted down to the Botanic Gardens - about 1 euro to get in, and very nice too. Although I prefer our hometown Oxford Botanic Gardens! We had a nice time relaxing on a bench. with the birdies.

After our usual sweaty siesta we headed off, on Madrid time (9pm), for dinner. We went to a restaurant called La Artemisa or something to that effect, not far from the almost unbearably popular and crowded Sol plaza and area. Luckily the restaurant is about 10 minutes walk away and nowhere near as crowded. We had a great vegetarian dinner - I was really surprised to find so many good places to eat in Madrid (seeing as the concept of being vegetarian seems to be somewhat alien to many - vegetarianism seems to be a new thing in trendy areas like La Latina and Malasana). Finally we headed off to a very popular and touristy establishment for some churros con chocolate - essentially long thin doughnut type affairs with syrupy and sweet cups of chocolate: tasty, but in my opinion, a little overrated, at least where we tried them. Cheap though, at only 3 euros each, and we couldn't even finish the portions we were given. My advice is (unless you have the stamina of a Madrilean bull) to share a portion between 2 or 3 people.

All in all an absolutely fantastic day, if I remember anything else I'll add it in later. See you,

Meg

Since the last post

Meg is going to do a post about the day before last, this here is a post about yesterday.

The plan had been to get up at 8am, get fed and ready and leave for the train station at 8.45am to catch the train to Barcelona at 9.30am. Here are the things that caused us to miss that train:

1. Meg has a tendency to turn the alarm off and go back to sleep before I hear it, so we got up over 20 minutes late.
2. When we got to the train station we waited in a queue at a ticket booth and when we got to the front we found that the man didn't speak English, and were instructed to go to customer service.
3. We waited for a while at customer service, before being told by the woman at the desk to go to the room next door.
4. That room had a lot of people in it, and you had to take a ticket and wait your turn. We had to wait maybe about 15 minutes.
5. When we finally got to the desk, it was half 9, and the man told us the train was full too.

So we bought tickets for the 4.30pm train, and spent the day lounging in Retiro Park reading the Guardian. Today we are going to the train station (a different one, or else we would have done this on arrival) to buy our tickets to Milan for a few days time.

It's definately advisable to book your tickets on arrival in the train station, or if like us you don't arrive by train then make an excursion there a day or two before you want to depart. You never know if the train will have space, if you will need to wait a long time, or if you will simply be unable to find where you need to go.

And the best advice is if you are ever in doubt, ask someone. When we went to the station later to catch the train, we couldn't tell where to go to find the platforms. So we spent a few minutes sat in the customer service booth, before approaching the desk, and receiving a withering look and given the simple explanation that it's upstairs. It wasn't obvious to us!

The train was fabulous by the way, sleek and modern, with a film showing in Spanish (The Nanny Diaries) and reclining seats. So a comfortable train ride later we arrived in Barcelona, metroed our way to the right station, and emerged... directly across from Gaudi's bone house. What a great way to start our time here. I think Meg is a little less excited because she has been here before and see all the Gaudi, but it's all new to me and I am very enthusiastic to see it all.

We found our next hostel without too much traipsing, Centric Point, a huge building with staff who speak good English, thankfully. This time our room is 12 bed, and so far it's all girls. After two much needed showers and getting set up in our room we ventured out to find dinner. The place we intended to go was closed, evidently not everywhere is open as late as in Madrid, though by this time it was 10.30pm, somewhat late even by Madrid standards. We ended up at a very polished tapas place, and went a little overboard because it seemed so cheap. We need to start curtailing our dinner spendings, but it's tough when we just snack all day on whatever we can find.

The plan for today is to go to the Bone House and get our tickets to Milan, then maybe stroll down the Ramblas.

Til the next blog,

Mojo

The first leg of our voyage - from London to Madrid

Hello everyone, from sunny Madrid. Sorry to make you jealous, but the weather is amazing here! Strong sun with plenty of shade and a nice breeze to ventilate, hahaha. It´s important to think about hygiene, guys. Anyway, it´s nice sitting around in the sun being peaceful here. A stark contrast to our mission to get here. We awoke at 2am on Wednesday morning after both having troubled nights trying to sleep with butterflies in our stomachs. We taxi-ed into town, a very friendly taxi driver chatted to us along the way about where we were going, but to be honest we were both so tired and nervous we didn´t want to talk. We did anyway however, so as not to appear rude. That´s true English behaviour. We both got cash out at Natwest but the schizophrenic machine decided to let me type in my pin then completely and utterly break down, not giving my card back! The screen went black and Windows appeared. Typical. I´m sad to say, as a mac-user, despite my horrifying loss, I found time to snort at the fact the ATMs used nervous-breakdown Windows. After I´d finished snorting, I started to panic. I hadn´t even left Oxford, let alone England, and my card had already been lost. I had a grand´s worth of moolah on that card, and there it was, just beyond reach in the jaws of the ATM. I was furious. However, we had to make sure we got the plane, or the entire trip would be jeapordised. As soon as I got to the airport I used my iPod touch in a genuinely useful way and hijacked Gatwick airport internet to find useful contact numbers for Natwest, and cancelled my card. So I´m now using my emergency credit card, the parents are paying it off as the expenses rack up, and I´ll pay it off when I get home.

You know they say that whenever something stupid happens something smart happens somewhere to balance it out? OK, maybe that´s a bank advert, but I´m sure someone says that sort of thing about good and bad things. The GOOD arrived in the form of Seb, a friend from school. In a beautiful stroke of fate, Seb got onto the coach to Gatwick right behind us, and, unbelievably, was booked onto exactly the same flight that we were - Easyjet from London to Madrid. He even came part of the way on our Metro ride in Madrid, before heading out to his organic farm placement just outside of the city. It was really nice to see Seb, as neither of us have seen him in quite a while. We also got to laugh at an incredibly racist man claiming to be an Ex-Pat in the boarding lounge together - he decided to spout a torrent of vile anti-Muslim comments at a poor unsuspecting man sitting in the seat next to him (clearly a one-way conversation). We watched and cringed, and laughed. I really couldn´t believe someone would vex himself up so much like that, with so much self-conviction when he was clearly an idiot, at 7am in the morning.


Luckily, after our flight (during which we all slept), we got the hang of the Metro fairly quickly, and got to our hostel to flop down and chill out. We even managed a good day of sight-seeing afterwards (see Mojo´s post). I loved wandering around the streets getting to know the neighbourhood, and loved the art gallery. One of my favourite artists there was Daniel Rozin. Google Sachiko Kodama and Ferrofluid, perhaps, for the magnetic liquid stuff, or try this video (I can´t watch it, no flash on this computer). Also check out Theo Jansen´s crazy Strandbeests, and Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen´s "Listening Post" here.


Love,



Meg

What Meg and Mojo did next

Yesterday was a great day. We started with a rather good breakfast of croissant (anaemic donut for Meg, regrettably), hot chocolate and orange juice. All free courtesy of MAD hostel. Then we began our days activities by rambling around in the general direction of where we thought El Rastro street market was, but didn´t manage to find it. None of our maps were informative enough to resolve this, so we changed plans and walked towards Plaza Mayor. It is a beautiful square but not much more than that, so after taking lots of pictures we set off for Palacio Real.

Before going in we sat at a cafe for Meg to drink a cappuchino, and we observed some little details of people walking by and the tiny, fast birds that are all over Madrid. After chilling out for a while we went and took pictures of the Palace and the Cathedral opposite before going in. Most attractions have been a reasonable €3 or so with the student ISIC cards we´ve got, which is good for our budgets. Inside the palace was some amazing interior design, including a room where the walls were entirely decorated with painted porcelain pieces (try saying that 10 times with a mouth full of grapes).

After perusing the Palace we wandered toward the Puerta Del Sol. On the way through a park we bought some cold treats - for Meg, a decadent ice cream sandwich for €1, for me, a simple lime icepop for a miserly €0.30. We planned to get the metro to Sol, but the line was closed so we walked there. It´s not difficult to walk almost anywhere worth going in central Madrid, as long as you have a decent map. When we made it to Sol we were starving so we sat down at a cafe and bought spanish omelette (tortilla) sandwiches. Meg and I have trouble adhering to the Madridian routine of lunch at 3-4pm, dinner at 9pm or later. We have tended to indulge in lunch at noon, then again a bit later, a late siesta at around 6pm, then out to dinner.

Well that is just what we did after leaving the Puerta Del Sol. We had a little snooze to recuperate from our hard days walking. Meg had a shower and did her hair while I sat on the somewhat sunless sun terrace (it´s blinding there during the day) and read my book (Kafka, in anticipation of our visit to Prague). Then we planned out our night: Metro off for dinner at another of Madrid´s vegetarian restaurants, followed by a short Metro ride to Tribunal and drinks at some of the trendy bar venues there, leaving for bed at 1am latest. 1am is a very early night to native Madridians, but we didn´t want to eat into our time the next day.

Well we got confused and started the Metro ride to Tribunal rather than toward the restaurant. We realised and got off the Metro and back on to Sol where we could switch to the red line to Sevilla.... could, if that section of the line was in operation, which it wasn´t. Luckily Sol was only a short walk from Sevilla, so we ambled down the road and found the restaurant, Al Natural. Left alone with the menus entirely in Spanish for about 20 minutes was a little awkward, especially when the waitress finally came over and we asked if she spoke English: her face fell, and she gave us some menus in English which were out of date but would give us a better idea of what the dishes were. She translated some words for us and I decided on a spinach and mushroom pie, while Meg dared to try `seitan´, a meat alternative made from wheat, which was coated in breadcrumbs and fried. It was quite a nice meal but not as delicious as El Estragon the previous night.

After our meal we successfully Metroed to Tribunal where the bars are, however there was some trauma: a skanky witch with ugly white high heels on tumbled as the train stopped, stumbling back and essentially stamping down on my foot, on the top where it was uncovered. It hurt so much and today it is bruised from the impact. Oh well, I soldiered on, determined not to complain. Now came a slight low note: we had trouble finding the bar we wanted to go to, La Via Lactea. Meg navigated us down a street, glancing into each offshoot, but it was no use. Finally we strolled off course and I spotted someone singing on a stage a block or two away. We approached, and realised it was part of the gay pride celebrations that are prominently advertised throughout the city. We decided to stay and watch, and for a while we brimmed with enthusiasm as we watched the glamorous drag queens miming on the stage, confidently strutting around and performing with buckets of sauciness. We were watching it from behind the stage as it was so busy, but we still had a good view. The performers were all utter divas, dressed to the nines in corsets and hairpieces, and we were glad to have happened upon the show.

However, the fact remained that we had set out to find La Via Lactea, and we wanted to find it. We still had time, so we set off down another street and asked directions from a club hostess standing outside her place of employment. She and those with her seemed eager to help direct us, but their broken English and vague gesturing weren´t enough to get us back on track, and after more wandering we headed back to the street we had started on. We asked a trendy looking young girl and she obviously knew where it was. Her friend was quite good at speaking English and together they managed to point out where to go much more clearly. Sadly it was the opposite direction of where we had been searching. We found the street but still we couldn´t see the bar. We did pass a bar which I had expressed interest in visiting. It was called Tupperware, and described as being decorated with dolls and pictures of television actors, and playing 80s pop. This didn´t appeal to Meg at all, but exasperated with our long bouts of searching for her choice of bar, she suggested that we check out Tupperware so that the night wouldn´t have been in vain. We went in and it turned out to be a lot cooler than it sounded. It was a really funky hole in the wall, playing indie music rather than 80s, and the `dolls´ were actually vintage toys and gadgets, displayed behind the bar in cute plastic toy TVs. We each got a Corona and ventured upstairs where we were able to sit down. This bar was clearly no tourist trap, and unlike anywhere in our hometown of Oxford. It was very hip and independent, and everyone there was young and fashionable.

It was nice to be in a `real´bar rather than a tourist trap, but it meant that we couldn´t strike up conversation with anyone, as we don´t speak Spanish. So after that drink and chatting to each other we decided to have one last look for La Via Lactea. We tried the street parallel to where we were looking when we saw Tupperware. Halfway down the road, there it was, and we were excited to have found it. The guidebook had promised old soul and rock n roll music, which the bar delivered, though the patrons weren´t dressed up in a retro style as had been suggested. Meg ordered a Jack Daniels and coke, and I tried to order just a coke, but the woman started pouring some unknown spirit into my glass and I didn´t want to make a fuss, so I went with it (even though`it´made for a €6 price tag, humph!). We got good and tipsy from that, and again ha a nice time chatting and observing the locals.

One thing we have seen a lot of in Madrid is horny couples unashamed about public displays of affection, and there was one pair in the bar which really needed to get a room. We´ve also noticed that a lot of people smoke and there is no ban on indoor smoking like we have in the UK, so after we emerged we smelt of smoke, an unpleasant downside to going out. Another thing we have seen a lot of is what we call time-sensor lightswitches. They turn off the light off automatically after a few minutes, and that is just what happened to me while I was using the bathroom at La Via Lactea. Unfortunately, the switch was outside the door, so I was forced to make myself respectable in pitch black darkness, my forlorn wailings of "Meg!" having ellicited no response.

After this we went back to the hostel and went to sleep, and that was the end of that chapter. In summary our night out was really fun, we found an awesome outdoor concert by chance, and we each got to see our bar of choice and enjoyed both. Tomorrow we embark for Barcelona, so the stories of today will have to wait.

Mojo

Hola from Madrid!

Hola people, it´s 9:20am and I am sat in the common room at MAD Hostel in Madrid while Meg is primping and preening back in our room. We agreed that she would write a post about our journey here, which had some interesting twists and turns, so I am covering what happened after we got to the hostel.

We checked in and were given some room keys which are electronic watches that you swipe on things. At first we couldn´t open our door, and no one came to help us so we were forced to ask the man at the desk, who already seemed a touch exasperated with our ineptness. I could just see him thinking "newbs".

After he taught us how to open the door, we went inside to flump down on the beds and rest.... only the beds were messy and had various items strewn o´er them. One even had a set of clothes on it; another had an empty bottle and a lot of hairs of suspicious origin...

We decided to lock up our luggage and head out for a wander round the neighbourhood while the cleaners tidied up our room for our return. It was nice and hot, and after sitting on the sun terrace eating squashed danish pastries we set out. Meg bought some Pineapple Emotion juice and a sticky yellow plum from a little shop, and I continually referred to Spaniards as Mexicans by mistake (I can´t stop doing that for some reason).

After meandering around some backstreets that weren´t very intriguing (several Indian restaurants on one street), we headed back to a main street and followed it down. We saw a pet shop with lots of tanks with animals in them. There were adorable kittens and puppies, but they all looked hot and it was dirty and smelly in there, so it made me feel sad to see them all cooped up.

We went further on and I noticed an impressive looking building down a turning, so we went there and found ourselves in a big square, dominated by the Museo de Arte Sofia Reina. We decided to have a drink and then go in, so I had a beer and Meg had a latte and we staved off several men scrounging for change (one of them at least serenaded us on his guitar first).

In the Museum we saw lots of Picasso, Dali and other famous Spanish painters´works. We saw the Guernica and lots of works Picasso did to prepare for it. We also saw some exhibitions that weren´t in the permanent collection. One was photography by Steichen which was exellent, and the other was about technology combined with art, which was AMAZING. There was one piece which was a wall of pieces of rubbish, which fluttered and rippled like the ocean. We realised that there was a camera in the middle, and the rubbish was moving in response to us moving, forming our silhouettes on the board. This was called "Trash Mirror". There was also one that made our picture from woven curls like a mat or basket, and one that used spinning discs to the same effect. Then there were some amazing pieces looking at light which I can´t even describe. Finally there were some pieces using electromagnetic fluid that forms into spikes like stalagtites, then melts back down into liquid, it was so interesting.

After the Museum we headed back to the hostel, napped briefly and met one of our roomies who was crying and thus not very sociable. We left her to herself and headed out for dinner. After a lot of wandering and asking for directions we found El Estragon, an all vegetarian restaurant I had read about. We enjoy a lovely atmosphere, delicious food, and great music (Nina Simone), but didn´t enjoy the price (€30 in total, ouch). We will need to be more careful finding cheap food in the future, but it was our first night and we were exhausted.

I think Meg will cover our nighttime antics, so I´ll sign off and grab some free breakfast, i.e. a croissant.

Mojo