Madrid Cont'd

The tapas in Madrid was great, the first night we went to some neighborhood on the cusp of becoming hip (in that universal cycle of ethnic/cheap which draws the artists and the young, broke, and hip which draws the boutiques and before you know it there's a gap and an urban outfitters then a Whole Foods and it's too expensive for most people, this neighborhood is in the young/hip/broke stage) and had fishy (as in we ate fish) tapas at a place hazy with smoke with worn decor and cracked stone flooring and looked like it hadn't been redecorated since 1940. It was great, lots of different people there and cheap beer and a relaxed atmosphere. Then we wandered down the street and ate round 2 at a new place that felt like less of an institution, more of a business to tempt the young and hip (if not completely broke). The food was good there, but I was still suffering from bummer-tummy and couldn't eat or drink much (which sucked. Nick had to cajole me to eat some more of the steak that we ordered, "one more bite Emily, just eat one more bite" "No!" "Pleeeeease!").
We went to the Prado the next day and were there for EIGHT hours. We even ate there and went back for more. There was a fantastic Goya exhibit on his work during some war (I have no concept of history) that we saw. It was so good that it took 2.5 hours to go through but felt like 30 minutes. I really like Goya. The exhibit was especially welcome because the rest of the museum is dedicated to Glorious Things. Every goddamned painting there is of Apollo/Saturn/Venus/Helen/God/Virgin/Jesus and their Glory. Every Single One. Four hours or whatever it was of the glorification of godly things made my eyes go cross-eyed. So I would wander from room to room and sit on a bench and wait for Nick to catch up. The Goya exhibit was more about the barbaric things that people do in the name of Glory, and how terrible it is. Prints of bodies hanging from trees after a war, or bulls and people fighting each other, and that famous one of the guy begging for mercy in front of a firing line (he's reaching out to them, there are other people around him, it's night... you'd recognize it if you saw it) and poor people dying in horrible insane asylums etc. There are splendid rooms in the Prado completely dedicated to Goya in the permanent collection, too.
Tapas that night was the place across the street from the hostel and was really good, things like deep-fried green tomatoes with cheese and fig jam, and a sizzling platter of meat (this was more Spanish-like) which were really really good, if a little expensive. We tried to go out to gay bars that night but ended up getting a drink at one place that offered mojitos for cheap(-er) and then going to a gay bar called "Ricks" which referenced Rick's Cafe Americain in "Casablanca" and the bar was covered in pictures of Humphrey Bogart and the pillars holding up the roof had fake "Moroccan" coverings. The joint was just beginning to jump and other women were showing up (I was the only one there initially) when we left at 3. On a week night.
I wouldn't have left that early but my tummy was being a jerk again (there's a theme of bummer-tum throughout this whole visit). Nick and I talked to these 3 dudes who had all moved there from Colombia that we were sitting next to for the time that we were there. One of them couldn't speak much English, so he would stand up and lean over the table saying "WAIT WAIT WAIT!"
and we'd look at him expectantly and he'd say:
"Always Coca-Cola!" or "Happy New Year!"
The last day of the trip we went to the El Retiro park and had a picnic lunch there and ate bread and manchego and chorizo. We tried to go to some book fair, but it was closed. We also went to the National Archaeology Museum which will be great when they finish building it, in 10 years. It was really well presented and they had some interesting stuff.
That night we went to a tapas place called "El Tigre" and ate cheap and greasy tapas with our solar-plexuses pressed uncomfortably into the bar and fighting the crush of 20-somethings scrambling for beers and food. If I ever go back to Madrid I will go there again. Nick saw some kid that he recognized from PHS there and we laughed about how the party-tour through Europe was such a middle-class/Piedmont thing to do during your summer vacations in college. You're supposed to come back and say things like "dude, I was so wasted during that whole trip that all I remember is having a good time!" and then their audience in response has to intone something along the lines of "yeah!" or "YEah boyeeeeee!"