Sunday, March 21, 2004
Well, we have been back from Madrid for a couple of weeks now, and I did say I would do an entry about the trip, until now I haven't really got round to it, so I am going to start it now.
First of all I have to say I had a wonderful time, it is the first time I have been to a country where the main language wasn't english. Now, some may thing this would be really stressful, trying to be understood, and understand, well maybe for some that is the case, fortunately I was with someone who does have some grasp of the language and a good vocabulary, although, she doesn't think she has. But even so, the people we came across were all very patient and helpful and didn't make us feel silly or uncomfortable because we were not Spanish speakers. Myself I know a handful of words,( these would include swear words that I was taught .... as seems to be the norm when you know someone who speaks another language .... teach them some of your swear words ... its all good fun) never the less, with only a small handful of words, you will realise I had very little clue what people were talking about. Frustrating??????? Not at all!!!!! Totally the opposite, I loved it!!! It got me thinking and made me realise just how much time, energy, effort and concentration we use up that is far from necessary. Have you really considered how much energy and brain power you use up listening in on peoples conversations, either consciously or subconsciously. Being in an environment where the background chat was in a language I didnt understand, it became just a back ground noise, not something I strained to listen to, not something that interupted my thoughts and head space, and allowed me either to switch off or think about other things, like how lucky I am, and what a wonderful time I was having. Having said all that though, sometimes, without even knowing the language you can get the gist of what people are on about, or rather the sort of conversation they are having…. Take the time we were chilling out in a trendy little, gay coffee shop/bar, in comes two dykes, they sit next to us, and one starts getting animated, gesticulating, her face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, it was obvious they were having some sort of lesbian drama, ( it seems they are universal, without lesbians there would be no drama). Well, fortunately this time, our friend Alberto was with us, and was able to give us a quick summary of what the bitching was about, apparently it was about a third dyke, who we assume was the girlfriend of the one ranting.
So what else can I tell you? The architecture is amazing, of course here in England we have some beautiful old buildings, especially in London, these seemed different, I am not sure why, I think the only thing I can think of is they look cleaner, more crisp. At the time we were there, a lot of the buildings did have scaffolding around them, apparently the city is being ‘perfected’ in time for the royal wedding.
On the first night we got there , we had been invited to a tapas bar for a birthday party, it was on the way back to our accommodation that we realised just how different Madrid is to England, it was after 3 am, and we were stuck in a traffic jam, the streets were full of people, it was like early evening.
But for those who just don’t want to click here is one that we took on the first day we were there.
silly me I can’t remember what this place is called, but it was gorgeous, a great big park, lots of people, but quiet and peaceful, cept for the many people dressed as mickey mouse and winnie the pooh trying to collect money. But the part where this picture was took, was stunning, looked like it had been snowing.
Ok that’s the boring tourist guide bit over.
Here is a good link, if you want to read other peoples travel reports about Madrid, some are factual, some amusing, theres lots of pictures too.
Well before we went to Madrid, I had found a webcam online showing Plaza mayor, and we had told our friend that one day we were going wave to her on the webcam…. So soon after we had got to Madrid, we went to look at plaza mayor, and realised we couldn’t tell where we should stand to be seen on the cam…… no problem, we would find an internet café, and find the cam online, and work it out, so we thought, or so I thought, google was Spanish and I didn’t have a clue, fortunately, someone very clever thought to put the English google on and found it, so I had an idea after looking where it was that we should stand. On the way back from the internet café, was the day we found ourselves in the thick of the redlight area, wall to wall women in their tight trousers… usually white, or maybe red, there were some banners up saying something like ban prostution from the streets, this does not however mean that the aim is to get rid of prostitution, the aim is to get it from the streets, to legalise ‘brothels’ making it safer and I guess not making it look bad for tourists. (Now that could well be a topic for another entry) Our friend told us that of the older generation, many married men will have more than one woman, some even marry prostitutes, he joked, that way saving them money.
Any way, nuff of that, I will write about all that on another entry.
So, one night, its quite late, and we decide to ask the woman at the teacup if she is at home and online, she sends a message back on the phone saying yes, and that she is wetting herself waiting for us to come into view on the screen. We walked in, a little bit like a scarey western movie, looking round, deciding where to stand, smoking our ciggies so she would recognise us…. But they helped us get noticed by a bunch of drunks, who then decided to nag us for cigarettes, that was when we pretty much pretended we had no spanish vocabulary. So there we are thinking hurry up, send a message and say you have seen us, when the message comes, telling us to move cos she cant see anything cos of the lights, so we moved a bit more, and by now we had finally shaken off the drunk wanting a smoke. Knowing the webcam streams every 20 seconds, I must have looked a fool holding a waving pose for 20 seconds or more, which incidently didn’t get noticed, except for by the people around us, wondering what the frig we were doing.Finally we got the message, she had seen us, and saved pictures, …….. we later found out, she wasn’t sure it was us, but guessed it was, cos noone else would have stood there that long.
Well, if I re-read that it probably sounds like we didn’t do much, so maybe I will write some more things later, but maybe not, I’ll have a think about it… in the meantime you could click away at the links and see whats around.
# posted by gilly @ 3/21/2004 10:39:00 PM 
PEZZIE
