Madrid, Espana
April 4, 2004 - April 12, 2004

Madrid. This is the city I didn't like at all last time I came. This time around, I was going to skip it all together in favor of Seville and the south. However, you may recall the tragic bombings in Madrid's Atoche train station; I was passing through Atoche a few weeks after the bombings, when another bomb was found... on my train tracks. Well, I can't say I was terribly upset that all the trains were cancelled for the day. It beats the alternative. Unfortunately, in all the commotion, pickpockets were having a field day, and I was one of their unlucky victims. I got my $700 rail pass stolen only minutes after arriving in the station. This begins my story of 3 unexpected weeks spent in Madrid.
 
I checked into the Puesada Hostel and immediately made some friends.  Marc (Germany) was a Graduate student of Anthropology in Munchen.  Ariana (Brazil) was an undergrad in Brazil.  And Victor (Mexico) was a 16 year old skipping his high school exchange program in Belgium in favor of hanging out in Spain.  Right on.  So the 4 of us became known as "The Fellowship" for some forgotten reason, and spent the next week exploring Madrid and the surrounding towns, and gather more friends to travel with.


The Puesada Hostel




The kitchen


The TV room



Upstairs hallways outside bedrooms




Our first outing as "The Fellowship" was to the Sunday Market in Plaza Mayor


The old men have been trading stamps and coins in this square on Sundays for ages










That's Marc with the camera looking back, and Victor is on the right with the red shirt.


Next we headed down to the "biggest flea market in the world".  




I'll be the first to admit, I never got accustomed to Spanish food...


A street side locksmith.  Guarantees to fix any lock.  He's gotta have a key for it anyway...


...and the market keeps going and going...




"The Fellowship's" favorite park
We came here one a day or so.  On at least one occasion we just spent the whole day here chatting about life.






Victor, Marc, and Ariane




Atoche train station, and the memorials














Back at the park near the Crystal Palace






Holy Week
I was lucky to be around for Holy Week.  The precessions lasted all week, and often marched 
right in front of my hostel.  Lots of fun, though the music is depressing...  Which may explain the occasional 
old woman sobbing uncontrollably.  the normal thing to do as an audience member is shout to let the men
under the floats out, or to let them rest.  But the historical roll of those men is that of purgery of sins.  Sins
grave enough to have landed them in jail often.  So this is a sort of religious punishment and forgiveness.
Also, the crowd would erupt into clapping every few minutes.  I guess for the float carriers?




You can see how slow the march was.  These 4 pics were taken about 2 minutes apart from each other!












I don't think anyone was meant to be comfortable in this parade...






Plenty of people march barefoot... shoes are too comfortable for these sinners!


The Bear in Plaza del Sol
I have no idea what this bear is so famous.  It seems to be the mascot of Madrid, but why, I don't know.




This kid looks pretty comfortable... she must not be a sinner like the rest.








The jazz bar across from the hostel was pretty good, but kind of too crowded
















Yuk.  You can still see the blood from the bull... or maybe the matador




Peacocks were so pass for me by now...


This park was funny.  It seemed kind of devoid of people.  My friend Stephanie (France) and I couldn't figure it out until we got to the main road.  Well, Madrid doesn't have an official red-light district, so the prostitutes are left to work the streets.  And work, they do.  We walked past women with no shirt on, and even no skirt on!  They were doing the whole "hey baby" thing in Spanish to every car that drove by.  And most cars seemed interested.  After all, this park road didn't go anywhere, so there was only one reason to be driving on it anyway...

I tried to take an incognito picture, but one of the women saw me, and I worried about their boss misunderstanding.

One of the prostitutes was kind enough to tell us not to continue up the road because of "bad men", and to take this other path off the road.  Pretty soon, we started to suspect that by "bad men" she meant peeping Tom's, not muggers.  And that she had mistook Stephanie for another prostitute and wanted us to have some privacy.  Well, this path was sketchy with guys coming out of bushes and stuff, so we headed back to the hostel without seeing to much of the park.