Oh, what a stroopwaffle can do...

Thursday...
I worked all day, so I sent Allison around the city with a map filled with red x's, landmark names, and "Donde estas..." written on the top. The first time that I experienced being in a city and not understanding a word of what anyone was saying was in France...when I carried around a little one euro book around and awkwardly tried to pronounce the many lettered words. Anyways, I give her kudos. I was very relieved when we texted back and forth to meet up later at the Alonso Martinez metro and she appeared, unscathed and with a camera full of pictures. We got a cup of coffee as a pick-me-up, and then rode back to good ol' Batan for some food, shopping, and relaxion. While I was home I talked about cheap concerts that are going on as part of the October festival here, and so we decided to see the musical entertainment of the night-- Gustav.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=365720139
She's pretty ridiculous. I would check her out.

Gustav--basically a super cute woman from Vienna mixing music, rythms, and sound effects on her laptop while singing with a powerful voice about what I'm informed of it very dark political topics (I don't speak Dutch yet...). I would say a little bit Rilo Kiley + Regina Specktor like?

Do to a wrong turn we ended up with nearly running into her and we said our congrats and thank-yous for her intense performance. Then we proceeded to our night out, which meant the "la latina" barrio--an eccletic neighborhood filled with some of the cutest and most unique bars and restaurants Madrid has to offer...complete with a young crowd) with the Americans. We wandered from place to place looking for a glass of wine less than 3 euros, and finally decided just to suck it up, wander into the nearest shop still open, grab wine, and sit in the plaza with the spaniards. I love this tradition of "botellon," or drinking openly in public. And the bars didn't seem to mind, as they were still packed inside and outside with customers. I still haven't gotten over how so many restaurants and bars stay open here; there are tons. In the plaza we were approached by english-speaking Quique with his Abercromie shirt who made a comment relating Obame to Kobe. Having a great time but wary of the last metro, Allison and I sprinted to catch the last metro, which leaves its starting point at 1:30. We got through the first switch but missed the second. I had heard of the night bus from Ricardo so I decided to ask another bus driver where to go...We followed his advice and ended up in shady surrounding without a clue how to get back. Luckily, after hailing a taxi we were back, safe.