Not Your Mom’s Madrid

If you’ve been to Madrid before, you’ve probably visited the royal palace, some beautiful plazas, and the many other great tourist attractions this city has to offer. Of the handful of European capitals that I’ve been to before, I would suggest that Madrid’s features are some of the most resplendent and memorable. But the world does not need another blog post about the obvious appeals of this Spanish city. Hence, I offer you here five other things to do when in Madrid.

The unique decor of Zombie Bar

1. Explore the “Brooklyn” of Madrid

It is well known, apparently, that Chueca is the hippest neighborhood in Brookl-I-mean-Madrid. And it is indeed funky, but it’s starting to turn chi-chi rather than chai-chai. However, it’s neighbor Malasaña has inherited that grungy, gentrifying vibe from Chueca. Part red light district, part old family businesses, this area is now interspersed with cute clothing boutiques, artisanal cocktail bars, and Instagram-worthy food-porn restaurants. By pure happenstance, our Airbnb was located here and we had a great time exploring the neighborhood and finding some good seats from which to people watch. Much like riding the L train as it goes from west Manhattan to Brooklyn, the outfits quickly digressed into overalls, mom jeans, and crop tops. You could lose hours wandering around here or drinking in Zombie Bar with the light-up Ronald McDonald head. You know, the usual.

Baos and dim sum at Toy Panda in Madrid

2. Ethnic Cuisine

Of course, Madrid offers excellent native cuisine from pigs ears to tapas classics gone gastronomized (i.e. liquified tortillas). Our favorite meals, though, were some ethnic influences brought in through the active trail of immigrants to this cosmopolitan city. We ate a three course Peruvian meal in Malasaña for only €10 at Ceviche Madrid, including a hearty portion of ceviche (obviously) and stone fruit jelly for dessert. For a more casual meal, we ate baos at Toy Panda not once, but twice within a five day span in a city with a gazillion fabulous restaurants. If that doesn’t tell you something about these amazing Chinese bun sandwiches, I don’t know what will! We loved everything we tried from the wasabi mayo tempura prawn bun to the Korean sriracha sauced crispy squid bun to the wide array of dim sum. Nothing in Toy Panda’s dishes could be faulted, each bite was perfect. Except for the last bite, because it made me sad.

You never know what you might see…

3. The Lesser-Known Collections

Madrid is famous for its art museums, namely El Prado and La Reina Sofia. Most people burn out after one or two art museums per vacation, but People of The World, don’t give up! Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza has a fantastic collection including works from Caravaggio to Dali to Renoir to name just a few. Arranged with the oldest pieces on the top floor so that patrons are obliged to work their way down to the modern exhibitions on the lower floors, this museum offers a great morning activity and is easily located on the same stretch of road as many other major Madrid museums. Best of all, there were so few people there, even during tourist season. No one with a big head to block out Cezanne, yes!

A Dixieland band jamming in La Latina

4. Sunday Street Party

We were fortunate to be in Madrid for a Sunday morning, which allowed us to go down to La Latina, way past Plaza Mayor, to the Il Rastro market. The market itself was overcrowded and offered the same standard issue stalls selling “hemp pants actually probably possibly made in or near Nepal”, but there were street performers all over that kept the crowds upbeat and moving. Hands down, the best musicians we saw were right at the top of the market and they were killing it with Dixieland standards. Situated in a mercifully shady courtyard, this group of artists were jamming out with huge smiles on their faces as small children danced clumsily in front of the “stage”. Next time, I will skip the market and just bring a picnic chair to watch the street acts at their best, just as the locals were doing.

Sunset on the Gran Via

5. Rooftop Bar Market

Mercado San Anton is still a little off the beaten tourist path, but it won’t stay this way for long. Situated on a quiet street in the “Brooklyn” part of town, this market is comprised of three upper levels that are pristine and visually appealing to anyone with a tongue. The first story houses about twenty or so food vendors selling fresh produce, perfect pastries, and a wide variety of charcuterie. The next level up offers more prepared foods, a small art gallery, and a colorful bar with a secluded open air balcony. The top floor is an open-air bar with a wide skyline view of the neighborhood that dazzles during sunset. In short, there is something for everyone here. So everyone should go. Except don’t, this is Madrid’s best kept secret.

That’s the funny thing about traveling, isn’t it? There’s usually a reason places are visited by droves of visitors — because it is historically significant or offers a unique sighting of something that cannot be experienced elsewhere. But when something becomes a must-see, it is promptly ruined by the foot traffic, the rules, and the 25,000 photos of the exact same doorway posted to Facebook. See this recent article from The Guardian on UNESCO heritage designations ruining places. Seriously, we are one hundred percent guilty of this.

We often say to each other, “Wow, it would be so cool to have visited this place 200 years ago, there’d be no one here! It would actually be a novel experience. Our friends and family wouldn’t believe what we’d seen. Souvenirs would actually be treasured. It would be so fascinating!” However, if that were the case — that we tried to travel 200 years ago, we’d be pretty much out of luck between the prohibitive cost of travel and the basic resource of time it would have required. So really, I can’t complain that Madrid has been trampled over by a million gagillion people. The resources that make it possible for everyone else to enjoy Madrid are the same resources that I benefit from. And I’m glad I went.

-Sophie

Bilbao: You Couldn’t Basque for Anything More

Bilbao

The first thing we noticed in the bright and shiny modern Bilbao airport, apart from nicely-dressed passengers deplaning there alongside us, was the first language that appeared on the signage. “That’s not Spanish,” I said to Sophie, “Too many Xs”. My research about Bilbao, insensitively consisting of Googling “Bilbao?” had suggested that Euskadi was a language we would encounter, but I hadn’t realized that we would encounter it to this extent. My first reaction was disappointment, I had thoroughly enjoyed practicing my Spanish in Sevilla and was afraid I wouldn’t have a chance to in Bilbao. Turns out that fear was unfounded. Everyone in Bilbao speaks Spanish, but the will to bring back the Euskadi language, which was much damaged by its prohibition during the Franco years, is strong. As our Airbnb host explained, the language is being encouraged so that the cultural roots of the Basque people can be celebrated. “In twenty years or so,” he told us,”the kids who are learning it in school now will grow up and there will be many more speakers.”

The Basque people, like the Galicians and Catalonians, are constantly seeking independence because of their cultural and linguistic differences

The language itself is very interesting, belonging to its own linguistic group separate from any other language. After a long period of cultural repression, disdain seems to have given way to a profound cultural pride, such energy that is exhibited in all its glory in events like Aste Nagusia (the celebration in Bilbao of the Assumption of Mary). From an outside perspective, the festival might appear to be a drinking competition, but with some insight our understanding of the festival was expanded to a drinking competition that is broken into local chapters and groups called cuadrillas.

Folk band marching through the Casco Viejo

It was an excellent circumstance under which to visit the city, because I think we were given a window into the soul of the city, its excesses, its identity politics, and its local pride exhibited. Bilbao was an industrial capital, before its spirit rose like a phoenix from rusted factories to become a cultural capital, site of the modern art exhibiting Guggenheim museum, and a number of other modernist experiments in architecture and cultural expression. The confluence of the modern and ancient cities doesn’t create the clash you might expect, instead it provides just the right mix of both to provide a visitor with the convenience of modern comfort and all the mystery of old world Europe.

People watch a folk dance as part of the Aste Nagusia festival in the Plaza Nueva

The Casco Viejo, the old neighborhood, was where we stayed and it is overflowing with character. It was the epicenter of the Aste Nagusia festival with folk dancing taking place in the Plaza Nueva five minutes away and traditional pipe bands marching down the street at odd intervals. The only truly uncomfortable part of the festival was the hour long fireworks show that commenced every night at 10:30 and literally rattled the windows of our accommodation. The endurance of the festival-goers was inspiring, some of them coming home from the festivities at 6 or 7 am just as we were having our morning coffee.

The Casco Viejo is the old town in Bilbao. Great place to eat and wander aimlessly

 

‘Pinxtos’

In Bilbao, the food is also a part of the culture that has been positively affected by the cultural revolution. “Pinxtos” as they are called, are the answer to the rest of Iberia’s tapas, it means a “pinch” though the portions are usually more generous. Like clockwork every night the denizens of Bilbao swarm into the pinxtos bars and consume an outrageous amount of decadently rich, gout-inducing bites of tempura-fried and bread-laden goodness. If there’s any modern art worth seeing (read: tasting) in Bilbao, it’s these little delights. My shortlist of candidates for a tasting was pulled from a number of sources and they did not disappoint, with few exceptions.

Fishy bites at El Globo

El Globo: Good

El Globo is like a frenetic food auction. The experience trumps the food, though the food is certainly good. Despite the crowd, there is ample space at the tiny bars to stand and wolf down your tapas. Figuring out what to order is the challenge. Long rows of various delectable meats, cheeses, and seafood creations are lined along both bars. This establishment is a good place to practice shouting your Spanish, they don’t appear to understand English which made it an enjoyable challenge trying to describe obscure foods, many of which have completely different names than the ones we’ve learned. The best dishes here have something pickled on them, which seems to be their emphasis.

An exotic mix of pinxtos

Panko: Good

Panko is, as the name suggests, a celebration of bread and more succinctly, things fried in breadcrumbs. Their selection of wines and pinxtos added variety to our evening, and the prices are very reasonable. The mushroom croqueta was delicious and like all of their pinxtos, atop a piece of bread.

The pinxtos selection at El Huevo Frito

El Huevo Frito: El Mejor (the best)

Easily the best place we ate in all of our time in Spain. Each exquisite bite was adorned with a quail egg, so imagine that with a perfect bit of roasted duck and a raspberry compote on top of a toasty nibble of bread. In hindsight, we could have eaten here every night. I told the woman who helped us that it was our favorite place in the city we had eaten and she beamed at us proudly. Judging by the crowd, the locals like this place as well.

Bar Charly: Disappointment

This bar was too hipster for us even to enter. The cool kids were there and we got nervous and left. The food looked fine, but the prices were too high compared with the rest of the places and shit was just getting too artisenal. This was in Plaza Nueva, which was as beautiful as it was difficult to find.

Gure Toki: Not for us

If Bar Charly had all the hipsters, this place had the yuppies. While the food was too experimental for us to even include in our pinxtos tour, I have to give them an A for aesthetics, the liquid nitrogen-infused tuna eyeball on gluten-free toast looked incredible (pun intended!).

Victor Montes: Just ok

Traditional, uncomplicated pinxtos in Plaza Nueva. While the food can’t be technically faulted, the ambiance as stuffy and the staff was rude, like so rude they threw our change on the ground.

Life Beyond Food

Enough with the food, Bilbao has much more to offer. For an enchanting walk, look no further than a stroll that begins in the Casco Viejo and terminates by the Guggenheim. Wind around through a few of the ancient streets and eventually you’ll arrive at the river with your choice of bridge. I recommend the super modern footbridge that will surely remind you of the Millenium Bridge in London.

Outside the Guggenheim, a dog was covered in flowers

The city is incredibly pedestrian friendly and simple to navigate. Along the walk you’ll witness an incredible variety of architecture, from the very old to the very hideous former council flats now chic apartments to the just-put-up-yesterday corporate high rise.

View from the river side of the Guggenheim Museum

For a quick jaunt outside the city, take public transport out to the coast Bidezabal. A lovely walk is only 30 minutes from the city and Bilbao’s public transport is disturbingly clean and quiet. The coast is beautiful (once you escape the industrial side of the mouth of the river) and you can enjoy watching paragliders tempt fate above the rocky cliffs.

A sportsman parasailing on the beautiful Basque coast near an abandoned bunker

Pamplona

Beyond Bilbao, we spent some time in Pamplona and took a day trip to ritzy San Sebastian. We (sensibly) visited Pamplona after the San Fermin running of the bulls to appreciate the feel of a small, calm city. Our Airbnb apartment was five stories up a rickety building with a few hundred years of history. The windows overlooked the cobbled streets of the bulls run and the smell of dark chocolate garrotes wafted up from the ground floor bakery, Pastelería Beatriz Pamplona.

View of the cathedral in Pamplona

While this city isn’t overflowing with activities for tourists, we kept ourselves occupied by listening to live flamenco during the Flamenco on Fire festival and by ambling around the ornate cathedral with a trippy museum display basically spelling out humanity’s doom. Our hostess provided us with a long list of restaurant and tapas bar recommendations which we sampled. One of the most interesting bites we had was sea urchin chowder served in it’s spiny shell.

While we had a nice, relaxing time in Pamplona, it may be the sort of place you only visit for a night or two if you don’t have any concrete plans. During the off season, the tourist attractions are minimal and the hours kept by shop keepers are limited. Nevertheless, if you want to experience a bit of Navarra’s culture, Pamplona is gorgeous and friendly.

A collection of creepy religious artifacts in the Pamplona Cathedral

San Sebastian

San Sebastian, notorious for it’s upper class appeal, was a treat to visit (but assuredly too expensive to live in). We took an ALSA bus early one morning from Bilbao and arrived into San Sebastian before all of the billionaires recovered from their caviar-induced hangovers. We found coffee and pastries at a friendly cafe near the river and made our way over to the oldest part of the city near the beach.

“Regatta gala” at the harbor in San Sebastian

There is an excellent walk we took up to the castle and statue of Jesus set high up on a hill overlooking the town. Along the way there are excellent vantage points to spot swaths of yachts and the mountains in the distance. To cool off, we waded into the surf down along the shore and were amazed with how clear and refreshing (but not cold) the water was. If we didn’t have another bus ride later in the day, we surely would have thrown ourselves into the calm water for a few sunny hours.

 

 

We’ll definitely be dreaming of this beach in January. Ah, the but the dream had to end, so we hopped on a train to Madrid and bid goodbye to the North of Spain.

-Brian & Sophie

Brave or Stupid? How to Quit Your Life to Travel For 6 Months

“If [we] can make it there, [we’ll] make it anywhere!”

Applying Sinatra logic to our lives, we’re going to make a brand new start of it, outside New York. But before we get to re-establishing a career- and rent-centric life, we’re going to travel around the world a little bit while we can. At least, that’s the plan!

The Decision

Since leaving the UK almost three years ago, when our Masters degrees (and visas) were drawing to a close, we agreed that the top experience we both next wanted out of life was another chance to live (and work) abroad. While we received job offers to teach English in China, our visas were repeatedly denied. So, in a fit of dysphoria and looming poverty, we moved to New York where we knew we could find employment while considering our next move.

Through networking and research, we quickly deduced that finding employment that interested us in foreign locations would be significantly more difficult than our once-idealistic selves had assumed. So we made a decision; if we can’t guarantee ourselves career opportunities abroad, then we can at least guarantee ourselves travel opportunities abroad. Hence, the saving had begun!

When our lease renewal agreement arrived for our signatures in February, we took a look at our cumulative savings — composed of packed lunches, non-luxury gym memberships, and ghastly Megabus tickets — and decided that, yes, we can do this. √ No, we will not renew our lease for June 2017 – June 2018.

The Plan

In order to maximize the contents of our bank accounts, which are by no means grand since we we’ve been paying rent in Manhattan from 24 months, we’ve had to plan our travel very precisely. We’ve also had to schedule around a few weddings of loved ones, move-out dates, and monsoon season. Now that we’ve completed making our arrangements through December, we can get to the fun travel planning part and relax with a couple more weeks of eating out of our parents’ fridges.

Our mini world tour itinerary…

Journey 1: Europe & Morocco

First stop at the end of July, we’ll jet off to Great Britain for a whirlwind reunion of our favorite people and places in London. From there, we’ll get to appreciate the wonder of British train transportation as we head north to a small village along Hadrian’s Wall called Haltwhistle. We stayed at the lovely Twice Brewed Inn there in 2014 and we’re making a return visit to walk the countryside and relax in the cozy pub interior. More importantly, we’re hoping to run into Ol’ Melvin, the local inebriated taxi driver who takes you on a roller coaster ride from the train station, careening around steep drop offs and sheep. Such fun!

Then it’s up to Edinburgh for a friend’s birthday, a hen party, and then just a bit further up the coast to St Andrews for a wedding. Following this much anticipated matrimonial shindig, we’re headed for a month of relaxation and accelerated touring in Portugal and Spain. Actually, it’s better characterized as a month of tapas consuming and accelerated Spanish learning (we hope). Before we get our Spanish game on, we’ll spend a few days in Porto, visit the Douro River Valley, and be super on trend in Lisbon (according to BuzzFeed’s “Where should you and your mom and your girlfriend and your aunt holiday this summer?” quiz).

In Spain, we’re planning to spend time in Seville for the architecture, Bilbao for the pintxos, San Sebastian for the beaches, Pamplona for the non-bull running history, and Madrid for the culture. And to make this trip more affordable, given the relative strength of the Euro to the US dollar, we’re renting Airbnbs in every city. Not only are these cheaper than most centrally located hotels, but many of them include kitchen access allowing us to eat-in frequently and do laundry on the premises, so we don’t lose precious vacation hours at the laundromat learning the proper Spanish etiquette for washing machine piracy.

In early September, we’ll get to travel to Morocco for a week, thanks to some wicked cheap Ryanair flights from Madrid to Fes. Of course, we may change our tune when Ryanair tells us that our heads are oversized and we’ll have to pay extra to check them in the storage hold…Either way, we’re excited to ramble this walled city and journey on to Casablanca where we fully intend to visit Rick’s Cafe and make lame movie references the whole time. We’ll fly back to London for a few more days of familiar faces and places before this leg of our trip concludes.

Journey 2: Asia

We’ll fly back to the States to switch our bags of lovely wedding attire and sophisticated Euro-wear for our embarrassing matching backpacks full of forgettable t-shirts and Deet for Asia, then set off for Japan. We’ll spend several days in Tokyo before heading over to Kochi to visit Brian’s brother and then roll on to Osaka with day trips planned to Kobe and Kyoto.

Next, we’ll blow our budget on just a few days in luxe Hong Kong to soak in the madness (and food!) there. Heading to Vietnam, we’ll make stops in Hanoi, the less touristy northern portion of Halong Bay, Da Nang, and then on to Ho Chi Minh City, where we’ll tour the Mekong Delta, hopefully steeped in all the culture and natural beauty that we have longed to see (before it is dammed by CERTAIN neighbors upstream — the area’s biodiversity clock is ticking, people).

From there, it’s a jaunt to Laos, and the UNESCO heritage site of Luang Prabang, home of stunning jungles and Buddhist temples. We’re really not sure what to expect in Laos and are excited not to do a lot of research in preparation, but rather to just soak the place in. Our only plan is to avoid any unexploded ordnances. Basically just trying to make our travel insurance worth it.

Next up: Cambodia, specifically Siem Reap, for the ancient labyrinth of Angkor Wat. We’re not sure if three and half days will be sufficient to appreciate the capital of the former Khmer kingdom, but years of New York power walking has trained us well. Provided no one gets Dengue fever, we’ll be heading back to India at this point in our trip.

On the recommendation of a few friends, we’re visiting the backwaters and rolling tea plantations of Kerala, on the southwest tip of India. Sophie is especially excited about the food here, and that at our subsequent destination, Chennai, as south Indian cuisine is meant to be spectacular. Prepare thyselves for much food porn. After the south, we’ll go explore the colonial relics in Kolkata before heading to Bagdogra to join a tour of Darjeeling and Sikkim, the former Buddhist mountain kingdom that was annexed by India in 1959.

In Darjeeling, we’ll get to tour a tea plantation or two and enjoy the ambience of this hill station, and then drive to Gangtok, the capitol of Sikkim. We’ll try to catch a glimpse of the world’s third largest peak at Tiger Hill and soak in this area with its geographical and cultural similarities to Tibet, that is, before it was crushed, censored, and deflowered by authoritarianism.

While we plan to backpack throughout this trip, we’ve started purchasing additional checked bags for flights starting in India because, having seen the multitude of colors and creations in Indian markets before, we know we’ll crack and start shopping at this point in our journey.

Leaving India, our next stop will be Bangkok for a brief visit, as this city is a major hub for cheap flights across Asia. While here, we really want to get massages and we really don’t want to get into a Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason situation. Our last destination before catching our return flight out of Tokyo will be Seoul, assuming it is still standing by November. We’re sure we’ll have a great time here on the basis that the hotels we looked at all have really fun and adorable names like Monkey Love Heart Hotel and Kissy Friendship B&B. This is sound logic, right?

Journey 3: The Wild West

To combat our post adventure, homeless, unemployed blues, Brian’s mom graciously gave us her timeshare credit which we’re using to rent a condo in St. George, Utah with some friends just after Thanksgiving. We’re anxious to appreciate many national parks in the area before Zinke personally destroys them, such as Zion, Bears Ears, and the Grand Canyon. To cut down on costs, as we’ll still have no income at this point, we’re planning on driving from the St Louis area and camping along the way. On the other hand, we might have a wealth of redeemable points at Hotels.com by then for when Sophie realizes that camping involves bugs.

The Future

Then, dear friends, depending on how many samosas we bought, we will attempt moving to Argentina, making the necessary stops in Colombia and Chile along the way, to get a sense that we’re making the right choice in relocating to South America.

But before all this, we had to do the absolute worst thing known to mankind. Move.

The Move

It’s surprisingly humbling to pack up everything you own. Will our entire studio fit into a small minivan? Maybe. Let’s throw some more personal belongings away. Now does it fit? Maybe taking a picture will help us determine. Nope, still not sure. Then, you ask yourself two things:

1. Why my stuff so blurry? Maybe I should invest in clearer stuff. Or glasses.
2. Why is 50% of what I own cleaning supplies when my place isn’t even that clean?

After selling your furniture (which isn’t even actually yours to begin with) to Old Ron the kindly, but hard bargaining upstairs neighbor (who cannot speak a sentence that contains less than sixty words, two anecdotes about meeting an important West African leader, and an exhortation on the busyness of New York City) and to Geronium, the ‘smashing!’ upper-west-sider, fake-British grad student pursuing studies in ‘non-binary theoretical feminist-literature studies’ studies, and discarding the free Italian books from your apartment basement (The Lover of Armando and The Lover of Armando’s Lover’s Cousin) — let’s be honest I wasn’t going to read them–then it’s finally time to consider packing your stuff for real. Woah, that was an Old Ron style sentence. Now you understand our pain.

Unfortunately, one in our pair has a terrible aversion to packing and moving. So, we’re going to follow a simple plan.

Step One: Throw away everything you don’t like (or donate it to a scam called ‘Goodwill’).

Step Two: Wrap everything you do like in old clothes, then change your mind about whether you like it and then just jam everything in a box or bag forcefully.

Step Three: Ask yourself one simple question. Do you really need that? The answer is always ‘No’.

Finally, when the hysterical partner is on the brink of a meltdown, take stock of the situation. It’s been two plus years now in New York. That means over two years of chaos, noise, lack of affordable housing and (accessible) groceries (#fooddesert). To keep us looking forward, we’ve composed the below list of things we will absolutely not miss.

1. The noise. Especially in our neighborhood: sirens, 3am domestic disputes about someone’s hair, gunshots, low-flying aircraft, outrageously loud music enhanced by the brick amphitheater that is our street, 3am disputes about the noise of neighbors’ domestic disputes, children shrieking gleefully at midnight on a school night, etc.

2. The cost. We don’t just mean the drain on your pocketbook. The constant emotional strain of worrying, “Will this be the addled, semi-homeless person that finally stabs me?” Not to mention the tax burden, Good God. Where else in the world can one pay 45% tax so that those in the adjacent public housing units can get the latest iPhone? Similarly, you can’t help but notice the lack of other services that persist… but hey… as Tituss so eloquently remarks:

3. The ‘tude. The attitude of New Yorkers is pretty appalling, but since we’ve never met someone actually from New York in New York, hard to say what the attitude really is. Nevertheless, all the transplants are pretty ‘busy’ and will step over (or right on) dying old ladies to get on the subway. They will also walk directly into you while looking at their phone and scoff because you didn’t get out of their way. Sidewalk walking in New York is an aggressive, competitive affair that is likely to raise your blood pressure and persuade even the most ardent pacifist to carry some kind of blunt object for bludgeoning.

All in all, this trip and life shake-up are pretty badly needed for us both and we’re hoping this is one of the better decisions we’ve ever made. Regardless, the flight’s booked so — brave or stupid — here we go!

-Sophie & Brian

P.S. Mucho gracias giphy.com for providing gifs for our internal monologues.