Bad Education

Calle Fuencarral, that notorious, seedy, Almodovar-esque street I was telling you about
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Decrepit, filthy Madrid streets I walk down to find my hostel at 12:30 am. I'm having no luck, none of the shops have numbers on them. There's a proliferation of hostels in the street so I pop in and ask the owner for directions. He tells me he doesn't know and slams the door in my face. Outside it starts to rain so I stumble around trying to get the cover on my bag. It ends up all covered in slush. There are congregations of people of everywhere- standing around talking, smoking, drinking, many moving in groups down the street. All young and at the start of a night of partying no doubt. This is the Madrid nightlife I had heard about. No fun for me, I resume my search and walk past a group of prostitutes, all dolled up and much too much makeup on. I ask them and they direct me in children's Spanish. I realise later the street of my hostel is the street frequented by prositutes, gays and transvestites. It feels as if the cast of the latest Almodovar film stepped out of the set. I find my hostel and stumble in. This is Madrid. My one week stay doesn't create any breakthroughs, no real bond of affection created such as the ones developed for other cities visited. The people, for a start. On the whole a bad breed of people, badly educated. Must be something in the water, as they say. They eat no real food. Only jamon everywhere. Ham. Jamon for breakfast and supper. Museo del Jamon which houses hundreds of dangling legs of ham. In an important discovery I find a few places which have great paella, a rice based dish originating from Valencia.

"Saturno", one of Goya's brilliant Black Paintings
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Not to dwell on the negatives. Why on earth have I stayed here a week, you ask? Madrid's sole redeeming feature, her shining diamonds, three world-class museums: El Prado, Reina Sofia, Thyssen. Oh the beauty, the treasures contained there.

At the Prado you will waltz gracefully past the Caravaggios and Peter Paul Rubens and stroll past the Dutch and Flemish masters to the showcases of Diego Velazquez and Francisco Goya, the two Spanish giants. Twice I've called in to see Goya's Black Paintings, a series he did at the end of his life, on the walls of his home, deaf and embittered with life. They are incredibly vivid, monstrous and astounding pieces. At the Reina Sofia everybody comes to see Picasso's Guernica. Brilliantly graphic and shocking depiction of the Nationalist bombing of the Basque town during the Civil War. There's many more Picassos as well as Miro, Magritte, Dali and more Spanish modernists and surrealists. At Museo Thyssen there's French Impressionists and American Expressionists, and a German by the name of Kirchner who astounds me.

And then, it's finished. My last night in Madrid, I wander the streets, coffee in hand, but it's not Paris so it's not built for strolling. It's a pulsating, vibrating, neon-flashing, hedonistic metropolis. Frantic crowds rush from place to place and bar to bar. As I walk into a store to get another coffee I recognise someone. She is the friend of the one of the American girls I met in Paris, I recognise her from a picture the girls had shown me. We sit and start to chat. Marvel at the amazing odds, in a city so big, to find someone you don't actually know and start to talk with them. Fated to serendipidity and destinied to happen. Renee and Jeannine from California, here studying in Madrid. It's Friday night, party night in Madrid. So we do as the Romans do, heading off into the bitterly cold night to find a place they say is good. It's 1am and we head in. After a few hours the dancefloor is empty so we head to the club next door. The floor is packed to the brim with mad, raving party-goers. We stay there till dawn when the entire place marches out, into the new day. From other clubs more people emerge like vampires from the crypt. We say our goodbyes and I head back to the hostal for a few hours sleep. At noon I have a bus to catch. Travels in Spain have just begun.