Armani and I went yesterday during the afternoon for such an escape, with no particular plans in mind, which is really the way to go when heading to Madrid -- no expectations, just wandering around, trying to get lost and discover something new, something hidden away -- a treasure of the city. And we did just that.
For the first time in exactly two months I had a bagel. We were told of an international deli/market in Madrid by Fausto our cultural director that not only had bagels but also plenty of international foods. This was our first stop, our main mission of heading to Madrid.
I searched the relatively bare shelves encountering quite a few American goodies -- Betty Crocker cake mixes, Hersey's chocolate syrup, Southern Comfort -- and other foreign goods like Grey Goose (which is impossible to find elsewhere) and my favorite oddity, corned beef in a can from Brazil. So to answer my own question from long ago, yes, they do have corned beef in Spain and Madrid was the place to find it. Unfortunately it's canned and from Brazil, which might effect the taste of a reuben if I ever attempt to make one here. They had New York cheesecake and apple crumble pie or something and plenty of good old America foods.
Anyways-- the bagels. Plain toasted with cream cheese. It didn't really have a hole in the middle but no matter the shape a bagel is a bagel if it's cooked right, and it was. Delicious, though it has nothing on Bagels Forever, of course. The guy behind the counter was incredibly nice. We got to talking and told him we were studying in Alcalá and all that jazz. He's from Kenya and moved to Madrid just four years ago, he started out studying then decided to stay. Says his favorite place to go in Spain is San Sebastian, so of course I got along with him. He didn't even charge us for the bagels, it was so cool.
We headed onward to the giant Corte Inglés by Puerta del Sol in order to search out Moleskin notebooks (as I've almost finished one and only have one left, which will be filled quite quickly I believe, I needed backup). The bookstore didn't have any, which it odd for us Americans seeing as every Barnes and Noble and Borders are full of them, you'd think books and notebooks go hand in hand, those that read tend to like to write too. But no, there were no notebooks at all. They did have the smallest English language section I've seen, weird considering the very tiny book stores in Alcalá have a larger selection of English language books. Mostly it was full of American trash novels, Stephen King and the like, but they did have nearly every Hemingway about Spain and even the ones that weren't. I picked up "The Old Man and the Sea" as I've been dying to read it and it's a short breather before I get back into a Spanish book.
At regular, migraine-inducing Corte Inglés (I actually took Excedrine in the store due to the sensory overload), they had a huge pile of Moleskin books but not a single normal sized, hard back, book style lined notebook. They had every possible variety of a 2009 planner--daily, weekly, big, small, soft cover and hard. They even had lined regular journals...but reporter style, which just doesn't fly with this kid over here. So I gave up and headed onwards to find some food.
Walking around Puerta del Sol searching for a doner kebab I saw an alimentación with a wall of tiny one shot bottles of booze, and I immediately thought "Hey maybe they have a tiny bottle of absinthe as a cute little gift," so I searched the wall. Nothing. I walked around the corner, looked in the window and my heart skipped a few beats. There it was, or there they were. Four bottles of absinthe, a 70%, the 80% that we had in Asturias, another 80% called "Yellow Absinthe" and finally one labeled "Cannabis flavored Absinthe" with a weed leaf on it. They were reasonably priced, being about $22 a 750ml bottle, which is awesome considering the fake stuff in America costs about $75. You can guarantee I'll be picking one up shortly--but I decided to hold off yesterday.
From there to Starbucks at la Plaza de Neptuno and an odd thing that has been known to occur to us study abroad folks: forgetting we're in Spain for the briefest of moments. It seems hard when you're sitting en terraza right off a large plaza with a statue of Neptune and fountain and corrals of cars circling around at rapid speeds. The weather was perfectly cold and a bit windy. I looked up into the sky and remembered, wow, I'm in Spain, what is everyone in America doing right now? It's a crazy feeling to lose sense of yourself like that, even for a brief moment.
Sunday brought Maya, Monica, and myself to Madrid to see Guernica and la Reina Sofia. It's free admission to la Reina Sofia (the modern art museum) on Sundays so aprovechamos la oportunidad as did nearly everyone else. The place was packed, especially around Guernica, Picasso's immortal painting of the Spanish Civil War. The rest of the rooms paled in comparison, obviously, but there were plenty of paintings that caught my eye. One in particular was un mundo by Ángeles Santos . Such detail and imagination in that work. I could stare at it for a very long time. Another wasn't a painting but an installation by Nancy Spero, who has a temporary collection there. It was called "May Pole" and it was a room with a maypole and attached to the strings were severed heads of humans (not real ones of course), it was horrifying and humbling at the same time. I felt as if the heads were real. It was eerie.
Like the lunch at Llanes, the lunch I had Sunday in Madrid was perhaps one of the best lunches I've ever had. We went to Kaixo a very stylish and gourmety restaurant. The food was out of this world and a complete surprise from what we could have expected. I got croquetas, a pretty standard Spanish delish food. They came, five of them, on a small flat and black plate with a cut up tiny tomate in a flower shape and stacked like a pyramid. They contained jamón ibérico, and they were the best croquetas I've ever had. I knew these wouldn't suffice, so I got a toasted bread half sandwich thing. Brie cheese and caramelized onions. It was bliss in every bite. Oh, and a fine (if a bit small) glass of red wine on the side.
Did I mention dessert? Tarta de higos. Fig deliciousness. It beats out apple pie. It beats out any type of pie/cake thing I've ever had. At first it was alright, but as I dug into it-- the sweet, sweety honeyness of figs overcame me. Add a café con leche and I am done.
What do you do after a lunch like that? How do you go on? Well, head to a historic café that was founded in 1888 and was frequented by artists and writers and poets during the Franco era. It's expensive, it's ritzy, but it's awesome and full of historic atmosphere. There were reserved tables when we came in. We sat in a corner and observed the people. An old, white haired, man came in and sat at the reserved table. The waiter brought his drink before he could even order. We immediately began speculating who he could be. We decided he is a famous artist as he was sketching away in a journal he had, and was showing it off to different waiters, and a lot of his friends came in probably had extremely intelligent and important conversations. [Side note: sorry if I'm not making much sense but I'm watching the live feed from MSNBC right now as I am far too anxious right now for the election (YOU BEST HAVE VOTED!) and am planning on staying up until we find out who won this thing (which might be til 6am or so here in Spain)]
From there we headed home, as it was the only sensible option. A dish of four flavors of ice cream from the café and the energy you get from sitting in such a monumental environment, you have no choice but to head home. One of the best lunches I've ever had then this enlightening café. What was next?
Don Juan en Alcalá. A once a year outdoor theatre spectacular. Rotating stages. Crowds of people running from stage to stage as the scenes changed. Thousands of alcalaínos huddled in the freezing cold watching this one of a kind celebration.
Then home, and sleep.
Final note. Vote. VOTE. VOOOOOTE.
No comments:
Post a Comment