Friday the day of Trial, Madrid Spain

We woke up bright and early at 11 the next day, shocked that the
cortinas blocked as much light as they did, and the people in the
street didn't wake us.

Shower, shave, and shine up, and we hit the street again, looking for
some food, and aiming for a long walk.
We went all over town, down the gran via again, the Plaza de Espana,
over to the Palacio Real (but not into it) and had lunch, on the Plaza
Mayor.

Thing were going great (although expensive on the plaza) until the
salad showed up with tuna on it, and the tortilla español (entera)
really was an entire plate sized pie, and everything went downhill.
The sad part was that they had two salads,

Ensalada Mixta y
Ensalad Mixta de Bonito

Spanish speaker that I am, I asked about the Bonito, and the camerera
mentioned that it was a nice piece of atún on top of the normal salad.

Since Nicci eats nothing with the face, I didn't even concieve that
the "normal mixta" would not be the "Bonito" without the bonito (no
atún)

WRONG WRONG WRONG.

So, that was a $60 lesson. Food on the plaza is not cheap, and with
the Euro being at 1.5 a dollar, our 40 Euro meal whacked us pretty good.

When y'all come visit we can eat on the plaza again, but beware the
ensalada mixta.

So, we were in a good mood right? We walked around some more, and
checked our book for a vegetarian restaurant. We were going to go to
the second location of our favorite veggie restaurant. We walked down,
turned the corner and the place was gone.

NOT SO GOOD.

We needed food, and spain was conspiring against us. We ended up going
the The Wok, near the Plaza de España, about 10 block walk from where
the first restaurant wasn't.

Thankfully the wok was good, and we managed to get to our beds safely.
We slept well that night, amazingly.

Staying at the Hotel Ateneo on Calle Montera, Madrid Spain

Picking up the thread of our trip.

We got to our hotel, collapsed a bit and hit the streets. This is the
same hotel we stayed at last time we were here. Our room this time was
MUCH SMALLER. I think this was my fault, as I wrote them before we
arrived to ensure we are on the side street and not on the main street.

In case you hadn't heard the Spanish enjoy to party and drink and
smoke. The streets ring with el ruido late into the night, and poor
timechange suffering American's can take issue with those people en la
calle.

So, we showed up with our Three Bags (not 5) unpacked a bit, and did
the quick walk around town. I was still limbering up my lengua (or
tongue) as Nicci isn't very helpful in Spanish yet. I told the guy
downstairs to expect my bags the next day, and he seemed to think this
happened all the time. That encouraged me.

Bueno.

We went to the Plaza Mayor, the Puerta del Sol and started to figure
out the streets. I was armed with my map, my Moleskine. For dinner
that night, we went to the Irish bar for some Irish Breakfast for
Nicci and some fish and chips for me. Last time we were in this bar,
Nicci was deathly sick and we were at the end of our trip. Oh, and
someone puked on the floor that time, so we needed a better memory.

It was good, and on the way back to the Hotel, we got some Chocolate
con Churros (really thick chocolate in a cup, and fried dough sticks)
Yummy. Que delicioso!!

We slept and did ok. Our room was a bit hot, the bed a bit hard and
the pillows long and thin.

We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Petronius

Smells and Smog in Madrid, Spain

Something that Nicci and I have noticed, is that we notice smog, smoke
and other airborne pollutants much more than before.

The cars here are like ours, BMW, Opel, VW, Mitsubishi and many more
that we don't have in the states. The SmartCar (Smart Car?) is
everywhere (and those frigging things are so cute), they can park
facing OUT from the curb when everything else is parallel parked.
Mini's look big next to them.

Anyways. Clearly, we are from the SF Bay area (or at least I am) and
in general, you don't smell a car that drives by in Alameda, or San
Francisco, or really anywhere in America. A Diesel car (or one running
on vegetable oil, or Biodiesel) might smell terrible or like Krispy
Kreme donuts (depending on where they got their oil for their
biodiesel, but generally cars make noise, not smells.

We ran to a park near the Plaza de España today (se dice el Parque del
Oeste)(Western Park) and it was great to get into the park, because we
had to run down the Gran Via. Three lanes each way of smells.

Adding this pollution smells to the "natural smells" or Nicci would
say "Gross animal smells" is the smell of Ham, Cigarette smoke, the
smell of "Puros" or cigars and anything else on the wind.

I've not smelled any Spaniards themselves, and they seem to be as
clean as any other type of person. Sometimes they are overwhelming in
their cologne and perfume, but this is something I've noticed.

Petronius

Eating out in Madrid:

Our first few days in Madrid were different than the last time we were here about 5 years ago. I will say, I looked at the city very differently this time knowing that I was going to live here for about a year instead of just being on vacation for a couple of weeks. It's a very different ball game. The biggest question is could I survive and could Andy survive trying to support me. I know that even by the average American standards, I am on the healthy side. For most of you who know me, you know that I am daily worrying about my water intake, exercise, protein, fruit/vegetable consumption, etc. In the Bay area, it was very, very easy to be healthy. Excellent produce everywhere, no smoking, very vegetarian friendly, lots of activity options (yoga, dance, pilates, running , biking, you know - everything). Eating out was not usually a challenge - certain establishments were always avoided (e.g. seafood restaurants, steakhouses), but I always had vegetarian options whereever I went and at the very least, could always ask for vegetarian options and the chefs were always willing to accomodate.


My life has drastically changed. I can't tell you how difficult it is to be vegetarian here - and this is supposedly not as bad as some other European countries. It's astounding. Not only are there very, very few vegetarian friendly restaurants, going into a 'normal' restaurant here is an absolute nightmare. I can eat tortilla espanol and olives - and that's about it. That's okay if I'm on vacation for a couple of weeks, but those being my only options for lunch and dinner every day for a year? I don't think so. Supposedly, lentils are common (haven't seen that yet) but they're always cooked with sausage, so still no dice. I can get cheese sandwiches occasionally - but still I can only eat so many cheese sandwiches in a day.


Early on I perked up a bit when we were here a couple of days and were eating at a place that actually had an ensalada mixta!! I could hardly believe it - we ordered that in hopes for even iceburg lettuce. But much to my disappointment, I found out the hard way that even the basic salads come with tuna on them. If vegetables are served anywhere, they are just another avenue for putting meat into their bodies. It's disgusting. I used to think walking around Chinatown in SF was offensive. That's almost nothing to here. So many animal limbs hanging on display everywhere - if they could exchange air for meat - they would. I would also not be so irked if I knew I had an endless source of ethnic restaurants to choose from as an alternative. Um, it seems that those are also rare. We went to a Japanese place one night and were told there were probably 10-20 Japanese retaurants in ALL of Madrid - a huge city of millions of people. We had 10 Japanese places in Alameda alone. Not bueno. We've seen a couple of Chinese restaurants - since they are in Madrid, they are not veggie friendly at all (it's like they've never heard of tofu and they are Chinese!!!!)- not to mention super sketchy. If they are anything like the Chinese place we tried in Salamanca last time we were here - talk about bad Chinese food. We're still in search fo Thai. We came across a couple of Indian restuarants today. Who knows about anything else.


I know to not expect tons of variety when I go to small towns in the states or back to the south or the midwest, but silly me, I just thought that most cities of millions of people in a European country would have decent selections of ethnic food. Well, let me tell you not in Madrid. You have to aggressively search for the few that exist. Andy and I have spent hours upon hours searching for eating establishments that have anything I can eat - forget the requirement of it even being healthy!!

All in all, it seems that the locals eat meat/animals as their occupation and smoke as their hobby. There are also many pastelerias around, which are their bakeries - were they sell baked goods/sweets, etc. I would defintely say that the Spanish have amazing sweet tooths also. These are more eating options for vegetarians, but I just don't know many vegetarians who would be okay with living on nothing but tortilla espanol and pastries for months on end for every meal of their day. Eventually, some protein and vitamins are required. I honestly have no idea how the Spanish have survived. Between the chain smoking by all who are above the age of 12 and the unvaried consumption of sweets, bread, and animals (often fried) - I can't imagine what their health situation is like. True they don't have nearly the obesity problem that we have in the states - which is probably largely due to the walking/strolling lifestyle they have (which is a good thing), but still - no amount of strolling can save your lungs from a pack of cigarettes a day or your colon from eating nothing but animal flesh and sugar.


In the end, it seems that the non-smokers are probably as rare and discriminated against as the vegetarians. It doesn't seem to be an active or hostile discrimination, but moreover it is a complete lack of accomodation (most restaurants serve the same food as the ones down the street) in regular restaurants and the inability to conceive of a person who would not rejoice in eating animals every meal and smoking all day everyday. Being healthy or vegetarian or having variety here are concepts so rare and foreign as men having babies or bunnies flying. There is no way a vegan could survive!!!


I truly miss the Bay Area. Those of you living there, please enjoy the variety and healthiness for me while I'm in lung cancer land searching for veggies!!!!!!


Hasta luego!