Madrid

In Madrid me and Krystin went to a couple of art museums, checked out a number of parks, town squares, statues, restaurants, department stores and churches.

El Corte Ingles is Spain’s response to the department store. It is interesting that the name translates to the English Court, when it is such a dominant Spanish department store. The stores are usually found in different buildings (taking up an entire building) but similar to department stores in malls that might have a “mens and home” building and another building for “women” or something.. Often each store contains a variety of sections including: clothes, house hold goods, groceries, electronics, cds and movies, make up and perfume, etc etc. As is usually the case in many Spanish cities (speaking from previous experience) the Madrid El Corte Ingles are located near the central square, Plaza Del Sol, and the buildings are on various corners near the center.
I decided I needed a towel. So we checked out the various buildings, we also checked out their entertainment cd and movies sections and spent a lot of time listening to various cds. These stores are set up similar to many cd stores that have headphones you can listen to certain cds on. The sections were divided in to popular categories, but had a distinct Spanish section and then a various international section, however the American artists were often in both, or in various categories around the store… seeming to cross over at will.
The store itself looks like a replica of many American department stores, and besides the language it would be hard to tell apart.

We ate at a number of restaurants, Krystin had developed a taste for Kebabs (gyros) and we frequented a place near our hostel called Istanbul. This restaurant was set up similar to a Mcdonalds, only their primary food was kebab meat rather than hamburgers, other than that, you could get coke, fries, etc. The seating was plastic booths. The pictures on the wall were of various places in Istanbul –but they were prints, and even had some of the same ones repeated throughout the store. Later we saw another Istanbul restaurant, and found out it was a chain of fast food kebab places.
Another night Kyrstin really wanted to find a fun bar, but we couldn’t find any (odd) and ended up at a TGI Fridays. One interesting thing was that they had different food on the menu, didn’t know how to special order, did not have any one who spoke good English, and didn’t seem to serve many American customers… they did however have American film memorabilia and American quotes and slogans all over the walls in English. The waiter was a black man and wore a funny cowboy hat. They served Krystin nachos (a tex-mex food) and electric lemonade. I had coke… this was a bizarre taste of American life in Madrid.
Spanish bars, usually consist of men standing at a bar in a small room. Sometimes they have tapas. We did not try any authentic Spanish food I don’t think.
The museums were obviously amazing (my second time to both) my brother had visited me during my first time in Madrid, and went to one of them twice in that 2-3 days we were there… on that trip my brother and I ate at a “Japanese” fast food restaurant, where you point to the food you want and they microwave it or something… we also ate at a Spanish buffet that served a mix of American Chinese and Spanish food. Paella, fried rice and white rice… it was interesting.
Outside of one of the museums, I saw a man doing street paintings. Oil paint on tile.
One of the interesting parks in Madrid, has an Egyptian temple in it. This temple was stolen (I believe) from Egypt and recreated in the park in Madrid.
Another interesting thing I saw was a Church of Scientology. I really wanted to go inside, but wasn’t sure if they would speak English.

All in all, me and Krystin did a number of the tourist things, but found some of the random non Spanish things were more interesting. A mix of American culture transformed in to Spanish style.

I included a conversation on the blog.