Madrid Te Quiero, pero hoy tu no me quieres

The fatties that we are, we decided to hit up Amorino for some gelato before we caught our train to Madrid. Of course that cost us precious minutes that we made up for running for the metro, then running from the metro to our train. Get on the train, 2 minutes later it left. Holy crap, that was semi-intense. But everything turned out okay, got on the train and enjoyed the 3hr AVE high-speed train ride to Madrid – Super classy and comfortable, complete with a viewing of Star Trek dubbed in español!!! El Espock es la ostia!

So we get back to Madrid, and I didn’t think I would miss it so much after only a few days. The familiarity, the metro, castellano!! I couldn’t wait to adventure around show my ciudad to Katie.

Unfortunately, I also return to Madrid and the open arms of tests and tarea. No está guay tio. But these would’ve been minor annoyances if only I also was not enferma! I didn’t even know when or how it happened but I got a weird stomach flu thing and was feeling pretty crappy and even had a fever at one point. But alas I fought through it

Aside from her own wonderings which I tried my best to advise her through, we went to Retiro Park and the Botanical Gardens. Showed her around my school and my little neighborhood. And I WANTED to take her to Plaza de España to do some shopping, but that was before we were eating lunch and we realized that someone had picked up her bag. Yeah, we done got pickpocketed. So we spent the afternoon dealing with that, making a report, and get her calm.

I also still had class. And a concert to get to, and goddamn it we were gonna make it. At least ONE good thing had to happen while Katie was in Madrid

JAMIE CULLUM EN CONCIERTO
Well, it was enjoyable for me anyway. Despite the fact that we got lost, we found some Madrileños who were also look for La Riviera for the show and asked a guy for directions so we just followed those folks. We got there just in time, and the show was AWESOME!! Again, at least for me but that’s cuz I love Jamie Cullum soooo mucccch! Probably even more now. He’s got so much energy and so did the crowd. Since he’s got a pop, rock, jazz thing going on there are peeps of all ages who follow him. Really though, people in their 60s were there. Not sure it was quite their scene though.

Highlights definitely included when he did a cool improve beatbox version of Frontin’. Then there’s his name in and of itself JAMIE. Or JAIME (hai-meh), which they chanted endlessly at the end. I was bummed he didn’t do his cover of Umbrella, but more than satisfied with the unplugged Cry Me A River. He loves to lead his songs up to a crescendo, a climax. And apparently his concerts too. I love the song Mixtape but never thought it’d be such a crowd pleaser. Energy and vibe was so high throughout the room – the song is about a music lover totally enraptured in his own world of music, and that’s what we were there for tonight.

The show ended and he left us all wanting for more, much much more. For at least 5 minutes the crowd chanted intensely for him to do an encore. OTRA OTRA OTRA!!! Not to mention the infamous oh-LEY, ole ole oleeee, oleeeeeee,oleeeeeeeee!!! So COOL. I thought I’d have to wait until I was at a futbol game to hear that one.

I'd put up my own video for this, but uploading is being uncooperative right now.

We left for Sol to get some churros con chocolate, probably not the best thing for my stomach at the time, but who cares. It was Katie’s last night and I would force both of us to go out and do stuff if I had to….which I think I kinda did. We missed the metro, so we walked down Gran Via to my apartment, stayed up with her for while, then she left for her early morning train back to France where everything makes sense, at least for her.

Overall, missing wallet/passport, no cool shopping, no tapas for my buddy. And illness and examenes coming up for me. I have no idea what was up with this week. Bad timing, bad a lot of stuff. Most of all I regret not being able to show and impress Katie with the Spanish culture. But apparently the way she works with meal times and naps does not fit well with the Spanish schedule, which works perfectly for me. I love a lot of things about Spanish culture and want to show others what I love about it. I suppose in that way I was disappointed I couldn’t incite the same excitement for her.

Sorry my dear friend. Hopefully Italy and France will treat us much better and that your next trip to Spain (if ever) will be infinitely better.