A bump in the road

Churros y Chocolate at San Gines, apparently the best in Madrid. Delicious

Written 8/14/11

Wow it has been a crazy ride. I’m currently in a sleeper car en route to Lisboa, Portugal. After running frantically to the train, we jumped aboard a mere two minutes before we were scheduled to leave. Thankfully it didn’t close the doors to some of the compartments even though they said all doors would be closed five minutes before leaving. We jumped into the first open car and walked to our seats horribly sweaty and on the receiving end of many raised eyebrows. So lucky.

We went to the Reina Sophia and I was thrilled to stumble upon some Dali.

For the most part, we’ve been incredibly lucky in all our travels, but yesterday we had a bit of a struggle when Lisa got her DSLR snatched. We were eating in 100 montaditos when it happened. There was a man sitting alone at the table behind Lisa. It was crowded so everything was all bunched up and his seat was by ours. We saw the water ask him if he wanted something a few times but he said no. We even scooted our table over a little bit to give him room. We saw him get up and leave and we were like aw he got stood up. About two minutes later, Lisa looked over and saw her camera was gone and ust said Oh my god he took my camera. She ran out of the restaurant fuming. Two girls nearby saw him pick it up but didn’t realize that it wasn’t his. They remembered what he looked like and I asked them details. I ran out to find Lisa and she was furiously running up and down the street saying she was going to punch someone in the face. She hadn’t backed up her pictures so all we had were the few she picked up from Paris and my camera. I don’t take nearly as many pictures as her though so that’s too bad. We found the police and I worked with Lisa to tell them what happened. The two girls also helped. Luckily they saw and spoke Spanish. Between the cops’ little English, my broken Spanish and the girls it was passable. We went to the police station and filed a report.

While we were there we managed to let off some steam. We had to wait a while in the police station for our turn we managed to step back and at least realize that no one got hurt and that we were still safe and shouldn't let it ruin our trip. We also met some cool guys from S. Korea, S. Africa, and Spain. They were traveling around Spain. The S. Korean guy got his wallet and iPhone 4 snatched out of his fanny pack while they were on the subway a week earlier but since they were traveling so much they didn’t have time to report it until then. They were really nice. The funny thing is that were in the La Latina district today for the Sunday flea market (which is absolutely huge and wonderful), when the S. African just walked up to us while we were sitting on a stoop eating sandwiches and said hi. It’s amazing the people that you can meet and run into even in a big city.

We also ran into our friend Mona Lisa at the flea market. We missed her in Paris, so I just had to get a picture.

Another person we’ve run into multiple times is Gael, a flyer-hander-outer for a club called Independence by Alonso Martinez Metro Stop. We've run into him two nights in a row. The first night it was raining and we ended up sitting on the street corner of Madrid hiding under some canopy eating oreos. Gael was handing out flyers and I invited him to sit and eat cookies with us and chat but he refused saying his boss would be very upset. I told him that a) it was raining and he was without a coat or a jacket b) his boss wasn’t there c) no one wanted to go clubbing/stay out they just all were looking for taxis. Hi didn’t listen but he at least took a few cookies and hwe had a semblance of a conversation with him by yelling across the streets. We had a better view around the corners than he did and would give him warnings when people were coming. At one point a woman and her two friends walked by. They each had an umbrella and when they saw how soaked he was they insisted that he take one of the umbrellas. People are so amazing.

The next night we ended up on his corner again without planning on it. He was super nice and remembered us. I kept telling him it was fate and that we were destined to be friends now. In reality, his corner was on the street our hostel was on so it wasn’t that big of a coincidence. He still had to work and hand out flyers but we talked more. He works three jobs and doesn’t have time for school. He was great. Got his facebook and tried to add him later hopefully he accepts. We ended up going to his club. It was fun, but not my type of music. Rock, classic rock. Not totally danceable but we definitely gave it a good shot. People inside were fun but definitely not as crazy as Lisa and me.

Had a quick run through El Prado to see Goya's Dark Paintings. It was too crowded/tiring to spend the entire afternoon at.

            Life is good. Crazy, but good. Tomorrow will be fun. Today was fun. Bummed about the camera still but oh well. Life goes on. “Money is not important.” Direct quote from my Turkish leather friend. Lisbon will be a new adventure and our final days before joining the World Youth Day troupe. From what I've heard, Lisbon is even better than Madrid. We shall see.