Juergues

Mon, March 28 - This is the start of me slacking off with the blog... :P Now I have a whole 5 days to catch up on! Let's start with Thursday:

When Spaniards go partying it's called going "de juerga". Thursday, "Jueves", becomes "Juergues". Very similar deal as with college ppl in the USA. Partying really starts before the weekend, Fridays are very unproductive and mostly short days.

So, of course, we had to go out. We decided to make a girls night out, and since we had so much fun at the goth place on sat, we looked into more places for a Thursday night. Whomever advised us either didn't factor in the crappy weather and end-of-the-month low economy, or they didn't know that the place they recommended sucks on a Thu night. It's called Phobia, right in the gay district of Chuecas. We left the house early, which was our first mistake, as nothing is really happening before midnight, even on Thu. We found the place the first time around 11pm. *no one* was inside! We made a hasty retreat and started walking around. The night was basically spent trying places out and seeing cool ppl. One of the places we ended up spending most of the time had a thing where when you walked in you could ask for a sticker with a number on, and on the bar there were pens and message pads. Ppl could then write others msgs, addressing them to a number. The bartender would call for each number as it was deposited at the bar. The only prob was that I felt sooo out of place, all gothed out, with black eye make-up, among a bunch of gay, happy ppl... lol. Angela took a liking to the place, so we didn't leave until they closed, at 2am. We tried out Phobia again, but all I got out of it was play some foozball with the bartender! (yeah, not much of a clientele again...). The last of the night was spent dancing at another place, delirium, which some ppl showed us. Very happening, almost too much! When we got tired of being squished we made our way back home, by cab.

Friday was another late start day, of course. At least for me ;) Angela bravely got up and went to work as usual. After she got out we did a food shopping run. We actually found a "real" supermarket :) Later that night I went out north and Cris showed me a "real" shopping center. It was almost like a Long Island mall! There was a huge computer store, electronics, home depot, supermarket... unfortunately we got there a bit late so we didn't see much. we did, however, have a chance to pick up a second playstation controller... :D i tried to kick his ass at tekken 4, but he ended up taking it seriously and winning :P

Saturday we did a (late) day trip. Further north to the mountains, the Sierra de Guadarrama. There is still snow there! There were kids with sleds and even snowboards hanging out and playing. A bit further north we reached Segovia, a very quaint touristy town, with an old roman aqueduct, the palace (castle?) of Alcazar, and old narrow roads. The only problem was that I forgot my camera...!!! It was an impromptu deal, we just started driving and didn't think we were gonna go that far... story of my life ;)

We got back on time to go out again... of course :) We got all dressed up (group shot and goth girls) and by 1am we were on the metro to Gran Via. We had been looking forward to checking out the Dark Hole, the main goth club around. This was actually closer to what I knew back in NY. Like the old Batcave, you had random ppl all decked out with leather and corsets and full goth getups. After the fiasco on Thu, I hadn't felt like putting much of an effort myself, so it was a simple make up job and no horns. The music wasn't all that great, and the DJs here also need to learn to switch songs. The place itself was cool, but the whole night was... odd.

Sunday. The whole company, 4 of us, went walking. There are movie theaters that show movies in english, so we went to look for that, much to Ariel's dislike. we tried to convince him that it would help his english... but when we reached the place there was nothing a kid could watch anyways. Here's a fun shot along the way. the one movie Cris and I wanted to catch, Syriana, wasn't for another hour and a half, so we all walked to Plaza Mayor. A street performer was there, and we killed time watching his lousy show. he was either very good at pretending to be bad, or he was just plain lousy. but it was entertainment. By the end of the show it was 15 minutes to the movie, we parted ways so angela and ariel could go find something more suitable, while we went to buy tickets for Syriana. we asked for the 7:15 show. the girl said the next show was at 10:30, not 7:15. we insisted that we wanted tickets for the early show. the girl finally explained that that day they changed the time, it was daylight savings time! So we totally missed out on the movies. we went off walking again. We found a comic book store (closed, unfortunately) and some random food places. Churros are big around here. They have them with different fillings, dipped in chocolate, plain... we gave those a try. While sitting outside of a restaurant, next to plaza mayor, I had one of those moments of realization: I am in Europe, I am hanging out at an outdoors cafe, it's Sunday, and I am free. It felt good. :)

Monday was finally a day of rest. I slept all day while everyone was working, and all we did at night was watch the movie "Delicatessen". But I planned some more sight-seeing, I want to go through the park of el buen retiro, see the Rembrandt show at the National Library, see the Royal Palace... I'm hoping to get motivated tomorrow and Wed for all of this. I also have to get tickets to get to Paris... Cris told me his bday is next week, so i might as well stick around 'til then, for one last party :)

And tomorrow is another day in Madrid.