Archive for the 'Madrid' Category
I do really enjoy this city. However it doesn’t hurt that it’s the beginning of spring and the sun is shining brightly with a nice cool breeze rolling through, and everyone seems to be happier as a result. Following the advice given to me, I grab the bike after walking the city for a few hours and head over to Parque del Retiro as previously mentioned. I spend the rest of my afternoon enjoying the afternoon sun with a mixture of writing, napping and people watching.
That evening I head back over to the Plaza de Santa Ana where I have my old room waiting for me at the Hostal Lucense. Debating over how I should spend my final night in Madrid, I remember that a friend of mine who was a fellow Anglo in the Pueblo Inglís program was back in Madrid and is always up for a night out. As it turns out Nick was already meeting with a few other friends and invited me along to join them. Turns out that his friends were from the most recent Pueblo Inglís class of which Nick was training to be one of the MC’s for future classes. The group consisted of three Canadians, one of their cousins from Germany, a Brit looking to live in Spain and me. Ended up out for a nice dinner followed with a bit of traditional Spanish tapas bar hopping.
Monday morning. I pack up my bike and decide to get an early start on my departure from Madrid. It is only a 2+ hour drive to my next destination, but I figure I would take a slower route and perhaps enjoy some of the scenery on my way there. But of course, I would get lost first…
Ok as mentioned before, Madrid has been an adventure for me driving wise. Well this day was no different. Apparently there are some massive tunnels deep underneath the city. I had a glimpse of them during my last trip into the city, but nothing like this time. When I say I spent a good ten minutes at a time under the city in these tunnels, I am not exaggerating. First they are huge. Larger than any other tunnel I have driven inside before. Four or five lanes wide, they split off into dozens of different directions burrowing deeper and deeper underground. I was quite amazed. Well at least during my first trip through. Yes, that is correct, it took me a grand total of three passes within the tunnels before I found the correct way out. Including one complete circle underground.
So being I lost so much time navigating through the Madrid underground, I decide to stay on the Autovia to Valdepeñas. It actually turned out for the better as the area directly south of Madrid, including my destination city of Valdepeñas, was far from beautiful. Very flat, dry and not much vegetation. Valdepeñas was not a destination of mine because it was a noteworthy city, however it is a very large wine producing area, but because the ride to Cordoba and Sevilla was longer than I had wanted to travel from Madrid I decided to spend a day or two in the area. The only real highlight to my time in Valdepeñas, was the brother and sister from So Cal that I ended up staying with for one night. They were in the area on a English teaching contract and enjoyed the small climbing community in the area.
As the area was such a disappointment, I decided to hightail it out of there and shoot off to Cordoba and Sevilla a day early. I inform my hosts, pack up my gear and head out. Now this little city is a true definition of a sleepy town. So when I walked outside to load up the bike, I was quite surprised to find out some bastard stole my bike cover! I mean come on! I left my bike unattended in an undefined parking area for SIX WEEKS at one of the most major airports in Europe and not one issue. One night in a tiny ass village in the middle of nowhere and they steal something. I was pissed! Didn’t touch my tankbag or anything inside it and no scratches on my saddlebags, so it was somebody who just wanted the cover. So I did what any rational person would, drove around the city looking for it! It wasn’t vandalism or a major theft, so I figured there was a good chance it was already in use somewhere. But no luck. The bastard got away with it.
With such a bad start to my morning, I just take off out of town towards Cordoba. A little over an hour later I roll into Cordoba. Now I know very little of this city, except that it’s on my way to Sevilla. So I look around as I enter the city and see a huge Mosque in the center. Figuring that’s a good place to start, I aim for it and park outside. Super paranoid now, I lock it down tight and make sure it’s in a good trafficked area. Turns out the Mosque in nestled inside an old Moorish walled city. So I take a walk through. As I enter the walled city within a city, I’m thinking how beautiful it is and well taken care of. This thought is still lingering as I make another turn down a small path that dumps me out into tourist central! A medium sized square filled completely with a mixture of American tourists with their cameras, beggars, scam artists and plenty of neon lights and tourist trap shops. I quickly exit the area and find out that almost all of this inner city is like this. As I wrestle my hand away from one of the street woman who was trying to get me to buy some crap from her, I get overrun with a busload worth of tourists and can’t navigate my way back to the street.
Utterly frustrated still (I’m sure the morning didn’t help with my shortened fuse), I try to walk around the city a bit and determine that it has zero to offer me. Ignoring my need to pee and my ever growing hunger, I set a course for Sevilla.
Whenever I do end up walking a city, I typically don’t carry a map or have a set agenda. It kills the mood and it defeats my purposes for traveling. I don’t really need to see every church, museum or national monument as every city has dozens and they all start looking the same after a while. I am more interested In the culture. How people live. How they spend their time. Are they happy or just going through the routines as we are all programmed to? Well Madrid was alive. People everywhere seemed to be happy, friendly and helpful even if they don’t know their own city to well. (Directions to particular streets tend to come up lacking, not out of lack of desire, just lack of knowledge of the many confusing names all through the city)
As confusing as Madrid is to drive in, it becomes quite basic in layout once you start exploring it. Beautiful architecture deep rooted in history, a cleanliness that didn’t border on sanitized, and plenty of lively tapas bars that really just have a great feeling to them (not to mention dirt cheap!). I spent around 5 hours walking the city and testing a few different tapas selections and headed back towards my host’s home.
After letting my feet take a breather, Kris cooks dinner and informs me that we’re meeting a few friends of hers out in the city that evening. So we get cleaned up and take a walk through a city that is under a soft glow from the lights of the city, and a nice spring breeze. We end up at a pretty trendy uptown lounge to get well introduced then head out for what turned out to be a crazy night at a Brazilian pub with live music and plenty of Samba dancing. Wow, do these people love to dance! Given there was a rather large Brazilian audience, but everyone was just up and out on the dance floor. It was so bad that even the guys that had no one to dance with and were sitting off to the side, seem to be unable to control the lower half of their bodies as their legs danced along without their permission. It was a great night out. The following morning wasn’t exactly marvelous, but well justified.
After Recovering the following morning, I went out and gave the BMW a much needed bath and once over. After riding through the rain a few times and then sitting for 6 months next to a heavily trafficked airport road, it was getting pretty funky. Not to mention that Kris had offered to take some photos of me with the bike to correct the incorrect photo on the header. After a few hours (it’s pretty tough cleaning a bike without a hose) I got myself cleaned up as well and went out for a quick photo shoot. After the standard me and bike shots, she headed up onto her balcony as I did a few laps around the block to get a good riding shot. After confusing all the neighbors with my dozen or so laps around the block, we called it quits.
That evening we ended up meeting a few more of Kris’s friends out in the city for some traditional Spanish cuisine. However as we all failed to realize that it was a Saturday night, we ended up going to a so-so spot that was too hip on the presentation of the food and allowed the quality/quantity suffer for it. As it was a Saturday night, the evening ended with a small bar hop to some pretty cool music centered spots that had a strong feeling of a few places I used to frequent in the village.
To be continued…
I am a little sad that I am leaving this city tomorrow. More so than any other city I’ve traveled to while in Europe, Madrid has made me feel like I could live here. I’m not sure what it is though. But I do feel very at home here. Let me think about it and I’ll try to return to this subject.
When I arrived in Madrid, I had no set plans for a place to stay. My only focus was the condition or location of my bike. Once that I was relieved of that stress, I drove into the only part of Madrid that I was familiar with, Plaza de Santa Ana. Near the plaza there are quite a few hostels that I have either stayed at already, or knew of their existence as I have done a fair amount of walking in this section. I took a chance, and went to the Hostel Lucense where I had stayed during my last visit to Madrid to inquire about a room. I was greeted by the owner of the hostel, an older Spanish man who lives and works inside the hostel with his wife and son. It’s a small family owned hostel, that makes me feel very welcome.
That evening as I was pretty tired from the earlier stresses and traveling, I decide to just take a small stroll through the area I was in to see about getting something to eat. As I mentioned before, I ended up at a quite popular tapas bar right around the corner from where I was staying. After a few small snacks and some beer, I headed off to bed.
The following day I received an email from a fellow couchsurfer in Madrid who I have been in contact with for a few months. We had tried meeting a few times previously but our schedules never matched up well. We were supposed to miss each other again this time as she had a planned vacation to Amsterdam with her mother for the week I was to be in Madrid. However she had hurt her knee quite badly a week or so earlier, and decided to cancel her plans to visit Amsterdam and invited me to stay with her for the next few days. Excited to not have to spend my time in Madrid at a hostel and a chance to finally meet up with a friend that has been quite elusive previously, I notify my hosts that I will not be staying the full time at their hostel after all and get myself packed up and ready to go. As I am packing up, the son of the hostel owners knocks on my door and asks if I can help him before I leave with some pronunciations as he is preparing for an English exam so he can study in the states. Without any real agenda, I head off with him to the private residence attached to the hostel and spend a nice afternoon with this Spanish family that have plenty of stories and advice to offer me.
After leaving the Hostel Lucense, I decide to drive straight over to Kris’s flat, as I am quite prone to getting lost in this city and didn’t want to arrive too late. Well as predicted, it took me close to an hour to travel the 1.4km to her flat. I’m not sure if it’s me or this city, but I cannot figure it out. It’s like Boston, but with no street signs and more one way streets that always go in the wrong direction. Not to mention that I still haven’t gotten used to the fact that bikes can ride down a lot of the walking streets that most cars are not allowed on. I arrive in a really nice neighborhood right down the street from the Madrid’s opera house.
As Kris (my host in Madrid) had recently hurt her knee, my first night in Madrid was a quiet one. It actually worked out for the better, as we were able to have a nice dinner in and have a chance to get to know each other a bit better. A professional photographer and committed traveler, talking with Kris there was rarely a quiet moment as we had plenty to talk about.
To be continued…
Now as I was quite rushed at the time of departure in February, I didn’t leave the bike in the best of conditions. It was quite filthy, a mixture of six weeks of airport traffic, but also from a previous ride from La Alberca in the rain to Madrid. Not only that, but I left it with an empty tank. But minor issues compared to the fact that IT WAS STILL THERE!!
So I spend a good half an hour getting re-acquainted with my bike and putting everything back into place. She started right up on the first attempt, but blew out a bit of smoke at first in a fit of distaste for me leaving her there for so long. Either that or just the result of sitting for six weeks without being started.
I head out of the airport with my focus to find a gas station but that objective quickly changes as the sky starts to open up and dump a gallon a minute of rain on me. I estimate that I have plenty of gas and just bee-line it to the hostel. After about a half an hour ride in the rain, I finally arrive at Plaza de Santa Ana and park my bike in a familiar spot. Remove my gear and head over to the hostel right around the corner.
Rain is the one factor that I hate about riding a bike. It just makes everything so miserable. Visibility is lessened, confidences decrease, and it’s just plain miserable riding while wet. It’s been something that I had planned on avoiding as much as possible, but like the ride from the airport, sometimes it’s unavoidable.
After I get myself settled, I head out in the evening rain to find a cozy spot to eat. I stumble upon a cool looking pub that brews it’s own cervesas and serves tapas gratis (free Spanish finger foods typically consisting of a slice of bread with a variety of toppings on top. Highly recommended!). After two grande cervesas and a few tapas, I head back to the hostel to finish off the night with only a minor dent in my wallet. What would’ve cost close to 20€ in Helsinki was only 7€ here.
Forgoing my worrying over my motorcycle’s current condition/location, I am feeling quite good at the moment. Not sure if it’s the excitement of continuing my adventure or the fact that I have gotten quite comfortable in traveling in this style and have a lot of confidence in what I am doing. I’m not so much flinging myself into the unknown as I felt like I had done so when this whole thing began. Not to say this has become routine, but that I have become very aware of my surroundings and my confidence is growing daily.
However the bike is still occupying most of my mind. Let me give a bit of the back story here. When I left my bike in Munich, I had contacted the local BMW dealership and repair facility and requested that I store my bike at their facility. It apparently was a common request that they fulfilled willingly, for a fee. So I got it into my head that ALL BMW dealers offer this service. So four hours before my flight left Madrid for Helsinki, I headed off towards the Madrid BMW dealership. After getting quite lost and frustrated, I finally arrived at the dealership only to find out that the repair facility was at a different location. Not far, but on the other side of the major motorway that had given me so much trouble getting to this first destination.
So I head back onto the road, get sufficiently lost again and finally locate the service center by driving down at least one sidewalk and heading down a few one way streets in the wrong direction out of sheer frustration (sorry mom). Entering the BMW service department, I get what I think is a strong of good luck. It appears that the service manager only speaks Spanish and I cannot get my point across as to what I need. Turns out that there was a local man from Madrid, that had lived in the states for many years was in the room with us. He overheard my struggles and offered to help. I thought I was home free. As luck would have it (and if you know me by now, my luck is only bad) this center doesn’t offer storage and will not give on the policy. So the gentleman helping out suggested that I submit the bike for some service and be a bit late in acquiring it when the work was completed. Seemed reasonable.
So we spend most of my remaining moments before I needed to head to the airport filling out the service request forms and booking the bike in. The manager states that the work can be scheduled for the following Thursday, and said that was fine and I was not in a hurry. Once everything was completed, I requested that they call me a cab to take me to the airport and the manager refused! Confused as to why, we inquired as to why they would not and he politely replied that they refuse to hold the bike until Thursday, but I can return Thursday morning with it. And if I refused, they would charge me 50€/day storage fee. Trying not to blow my top, I try to finagle a different result. After too many futile attempts, I abruptly leave and thank the gentleman that had helped in the translation. As I do not want to miss my flight, I do the one thing I can think of.
Yep, long term parking. My only hope here was that the fees for the long term lot in Spain were not as offensive as in NY. Yup, you guessed it, I was dead wrong. How does 350€ per month sound?!? After I recuperate from the shock of the price given to me by the parking attendant, I ask the woman gently if she knew of any other option since the six or so weeks planned in Helsinki would cost me over 500€. She then explained to me that at the airport near one of the arrival passenger pick-up points, there is an unofficial motorcycle parking area. I thank the woman and with desperation setting in, I head to the terminal arrivals.
I reach the area mentioned by the woman and do a slow drive by. Just as she mentioned, there was a sidewalk area opposite the terminal that was under an overhead walkway that joined the terminal with the parking area. On the sidewalk area behind a steel railing, a dozen or so motorcycles were parked. With a small sigh of relief I drive a full circle and pulled into the section with the other bikes. Now normally, I would not think to park a bike illegally at an airport. But throughout Madrid and the rest of Spain, I and every other motorcyclist freely park on the sidewalks without any repercussions. I remove all valuables, lock up the bike and hoped I would see it again.
After I arrived in Helsinki, I started freaking out about it being there. So I found out a friend who was in La Alberca with me was going through the airport. So I emailed him and asked if he could check on the bike for me. He sent me back a message a few days later saying I have nothing to worry about. That was four weeks ago.
Ok getting ready to land. I feel like I’m going to throw up…