UU Rave!

Guys guys guys, Brian's here! After crazy travel delays and nearly 48 hours that sound like an episode or two of the Amazing Race, he has arrived, in the flesh. I picked him up last night from the airport after a little adventure of my own...

So before the program started, NYU sent us numerous packets of information including which airlines fly into which terminals at Madrid-Barajas airport. Brian's flight confirmation that he sent me didn't list a terminal, so I looked it up on my info from August, because I'm OCD and keep that stuff, even though I'm here now and don't need to be told how to arrive. It said that Aeroflot (which I can't say without giggling a little) flew into terminal 4. So, off I go on my merry way of three metro trains, including riding the 8 from one end to the other, to terminal 4 of the airport (which is two metro stops past T1-T2-T3).

At this point it is 10:30 and Brian's plane should have landed 5 minutes ago. However. I consult the arrivals boards and see no Aeroflot (giggle) flights listed anywhere. After 20 minutes of searching, I find an information desk upstairs at departures and ask (in horrific Spanish, as it's now almost 11pm and I'm really confused) where Aeroflot is. Terminal 1! Wooo!

So I get on a free shuttle bus and one almost-15-minute bus ride later arrive somewhere in departures of terminal 1. 5 minutes later I figure out how to get down to arrivals to see that Brian's flight is arriving at 11:30, an hour later than scheduled, but now all of 15 minutes away.

Of course by the time Brian and I actually reunite (after he calls me via the Spanish cell phone of someone he met on the plane), it is 11:51, and the 11:50 airport express bus has just left, and the next one doesn't leave until something like 3 am. So we walk through half the airport back to the metro and take our three trains home. We had a nice time catching up though and actually ended up talking for another couple hours until past 3 am at home.

Today we had quite the Spanish day - I had class in the afternoon (Brian got up a little after 11, just before I left), during which time Brian explored Retiro park. Upon my return we went to lunch just down the street at a great place called Los Rotos where we tried two different dishes and then had muerte por chocolate - death by chocolate - cake for dessert. So delicious.

We then hauled ourselves back up my stairs and spent the afternoon planning the rest of our week and watching a ridiculous show on telemundo called Aurora. From what I gathered everyone was related and also in love with someone who loved someone else.

Tonight we went to live jazz at Cafe Central just up the street, where I had been once before. We heard "el cantante de jazz de España," the jazz singer of Spain, but he sang 95% of his songs in English and I deduced by about halfway through the night that they all spoke perfect English and sounded American. All their songs also started with 1,2,3,4 not uno, dos, tres, cuatro. He was really charismatic and a great showman though, and Brian and I both thoroughly enjoyed the evening. My favorite part was when he for some reason sang "I Am What I Am," which, as far as I know, is only a song from La Cage Aux Folles, which, for those of you who don't know, is based on the same play as the movie The Birdcage (starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, and Hank Azaria). So here I am sitting in a cafe in Madrid and a pseudo-Spaniard is singing a Broadway song normally sung by a man in drag about being okay with being a drag queen and everyone else should be okay with it too. I had a great time.

After the jazz show we went to San Gines for the most famous chocolate con churros in Madrid and happened to meet two people from... Chicago. Seriously. Park Ridge and Forest Park. (Between Brian being from Oak Park/River Forest and me being from Park Forest... I think we got all the major words of Chicago suburb names covered.) We had a nice chat with them, found out about a great place to get mojitos (which happens to be... under my building), and recommended a few places to them for the rest of their visit, which is through Thursday. What a crazy coincidence. TINY world. Travel safe, Augie and Diane!

So, it's now almost 1:30 and I have to leave for class in about 7 hours so I should sleep. Updates on the rest of this week (and my enjoyable weekend) soon, but we have some packed days coming up! ¡Arrrrrriba! (That's really just an irrelevant Spanish exclamation.)