Month: April 2016

The Madrid Male

~ mjparman ~ Leave a comment

Wow.
Pretty men everywhere.
Like, really just everywhere.
A few pretty little anecdotes for you, to contemplate while you wait to see the goodness for yourself.

Once, standing outside of the Chueca club called Garbo (lowkey, often not very full, decent bar) I was smoking and chatting as I often did in front of bars at 4 in the morning. Nothing was out of the usual. Garbage men in their big truck were coming up the street, grabbing garbage cans as they worked their way towards us. Again, nothing unusual.
And then as the garbage truck pulled in front of me and my best friend we both fell completely silent.
Whatever vapid trash you talk in front of a club at 4 am with your lifelong best friend, it cut out. Because descending from the back of the garbage truck was honestly one of the most beautiful men either of us had ever seen.
In the US, think of what your average local garbage man looks like. Yeah? Ok. An average local man, i.e. he’s not warming up anybody’s dreams late at night. This guy, probably about our age, was golden and fit and had wild dark green eyes and was probably very aware of how handsome he was because when he caught us gawking (open-mouthed on my part) at him, he just smirked. Revealing a perfect picket fence of teeth, of course. And he was a garbage man, not a super model. Like this is normal in Madrid.

Another example of a guy in a laborious job being wild handsome: at my local metro stop, there were a few engineers, I guess you’d call them? Like, the guys who kept the literal stories of escalators running (some stations are as deep as 4 stories underground, so a lot of escalators, really).
I appreciated these guys mucho, because days the escalators weren’t running were pretty horrendous because I hate stairs after step, like, 25.
One day I’m just curiously glancing over at what these guys are working on on one of the power panels for the escalators and the engineer who turns around has slicked-to-one-side hair like a raven’s wing, slightly wavy from the sweat of wrenching something loose inside the power panel. Skin a bit shiny from it, the color of a roasted almond, and warm, inviting chocolate eyes. I think I tripped on my own foot just looking at him. He laughed a little bit at that, while making eye contact. I let out a strangled noise I have not made before nor since. I know guys in labour jobs in the US can be handsome, but on the whole– or stereotypically– that is not the general thought. I think of overweight poorly socially adjusted men doing both of these jobs– which is biased and rude of me, but true to my thoughts. Then, here I am in Madrid, and two of the best looking men I saw in five months were a garbage man and an escalator technician. Okay.

Gorgeous men really are just everywhere.
Once I saw two super fit, quite well dressed men, who were both walking arm-in-arm with their girlfriends kiss each other on the mouth as they said goodbye. It was like I had stumbled on to the indecent part of the internet, but NO, I was just trying to get to Kilometro 0 to meet some friends. The cultural differences in physical comfort just make the pretty men prettier.

On any given morning commute on the metro, someone so beautiful it makes your chest ache and your mouth water could step onto the train.
One such morning, a day I had class early so I caught the rush and the trains were packed so full some people couldn’t fit on at the stops, I was standing in front of two older ladies and a boy with green eyes like fresh herbs stepped into the car to stand across from me. There were probably eight bodies wedged between us but I kept sneaking glances at him. His hair was buzzed short on the sides and left long on top, as is the current trend. He was in a stripped shirt and a brown jacket.
After a few stops of trying to decide if it was worth it to say something to him, the train halts at a station, but instead of coming to a smooth stop, it jerked. Then I relaxed… only for it to jerk again and my balance get thrown off. And I was thrown into the lap of the older Madrileña behind me.
Immediately I exploded into a river of apologies, none of which she was having, and to make it worse I was using very formal South American forms of apology– outing myself as a foreigner, just adding insult to her injury. ALSO as I went to stand, I stepped on her foot in the crowded train car. Ugh.
Finally, I stood fully- a little dazed mind you- and there was the green eyed boy looking right at me from across the train car, pressing his lips together trying to keep a laugh in.
I widened my eyes at him and shook my head, made a “yikes” face, and we both let out silent laughs. He got off at the next stop. I never talked to him. I looked for him every morning the rest of my time in Madrid. Nothing.

And that’s not even the half of it.
Madrid is just teaming with super hot young men. It’s great. Beautiful art. The beautiful game. Beautiful men and women. A win win win.

A Note to the Beauty Junkie

~ mjparman ~ 1 Comment

Stock up while you still can.
You’re about to enter No Man’s Land.

Access to makeup and beauty products is different in Spain.
High end makeup and hair care is still just that in Spain, high end. So if you go looking for Moroccan oil hair products or premium brand face powder you will surely be shelling out for it.
These leads me to believe in a round-a-bout way all Spanish girls have some secret cultural tricks to looking so flawless all the time, but I never got to learn those. I hope to yet.

ANYWAY

There is a MAC counter in the Corte Ingles in Plaza Del Sol and a free standing one somewhere on Fuencarral, however you need to be prepared to pay serious mark-up because of the currency difference.

There are Sephoras, but they don’t carry Smashbox, so No, you cannot get your Photo Booth Primer that was for cheapz in Duty Free on your international flight, but you decided not to buy and wait till you landed HAH.
Also, if you are incredibly fair like I am, they generally don’t stock the lightest shade you’re familiar with that any company makes, sorry.
So what I’m saying is: if you love it, take enough of it to last the whole time you’re gone, or be prepared to pay premium to replace it.
A lot of simple brands that we take for granted in the US of A are a given a bit more regard abroad, just because they’re imports. So, like, even still rather cheap Maybelline is slightly more just based on import fees.
I didn’t find any Spanish drug store brands whose makeup I loved, but I also kind of despise drug store make up (wee-ooh-wee-ooh bougie alert). I did find a drug store body wash I am super in love with still, however, and am happily rationing out what I have left of the bottle here in Texas. The brand is Le Marseilles and it is a lavender body wash I picked up for a few euro– highly recommend, from Corte Ingles (really you should avoid shopping there, it is super Americanized, but sometimes its just a comfort).

Trinh23birthday
Do you see my split ends???? (I’m the curly haired one)

SO, you need:

  • A whole stay’s worth of deodorant (only liquid deoderant is widely sold, and it’s awful. I know a place that sells the American style stuff, but you’ll have to wrestle it out of me).
  • If you have very particular skin or hair needs, the stuff for it. I have wildly dry hair at home, but it was even worse in Madrid because its so dry there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if smog levels factored in, too. I had to cut 5 inches off my hair when I got home to rid the damage done by not properly preparing to tend to my hair while there. My point: good conditioner, quality face moisturizer, coconut oil (its ahrd to find and expensive in the city), exfoliator, etc.
  • The foundation/concealer/powder that matches you best if you’re either quite light or dark, it will be a fool’s errand trying to find it (or pay for it) in Madrid.

GoLDeN lining, there is a LUSH on Fuencarral. If you aren’t familiar with the body & hair care brand LUSH, it is time to get familiar!!! And you’re paying as much or similar in Spain as you will in the US, which I appreciate.

Have fun, stay fabulous, enjoy Madrid.
Also, drink water. Really. The tap water in Madrid is delicious. Its the bet tap water I have ever had in my life. I insist it tastes like Fiji, the expensive bottled water brand.

 

El Mercado de San Miguel

~ mjparman ~ Leave a comment

What you need to eat when you go to El Mercado de San Miguel a mecca of tapas in Madrid.

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Its touristy, but the kind of tourist attraction locals still go to, so you know its good. Probably my fave bigger tapas market in the city, but I hear a lot of dissenting opinions. My explanations of where the stands are is going to be… awful, but this is how my mind works, so maybe my directions will gel with your though processes, too.

I’d suggest getting the octopus on crackers. The stand it’s at is adjacent from a place that has its own mini kitchen, very near the main entrance door of the market. Next door to the octopi on cracker THAT TASTES LIKE SWEET FISH BUTTER is a wine place. I hope you can find that, it is so worth it.
Seriously, the octopus tastes like butter, but with a slightly fish taste. Think of what salmon tastes like, and think butter with that flavor. It is incredibly soft in texture and the cracker its on is also very soft and melts in your mouth. This is one of the yummiest things I ate in Spain.

There are little sausages that have a name related to flutes (which I of course can’t recall now, see here: walkingontravels.com), they come in a black paper cone. The stall that sells them is near to the main door on the long side of the structure. These are one of the most expensive things I got at the mercado, so if you’re on a tight budget, maybe skip these.

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One place only sells paella, it’s just down a bit from the place that sells the sausage in black paper cones. It is facing the glass walls of the mercado. The counter’s backdrop, if you can call it that– the wall behind the counter– is red and has info about what region each of the paellas it sells are from. I HIGHLY recommend the black paella. It’s made with squid ink, and if I remember correctly, is native to Valencia. The taste is strongly salty, but with an almost lime-like after taste. I had many bowls of this over the time of my stay in Madrid.

ALSO, the place with their own mini kitchen (adjacent from the octopus place) sells great Patatas Bravas for when you’ve had a rough day. Patatas Bravas reminds me of a spicier version of fries and ketchup my mom would home make me when I was a kid, so they were a good stand in as some sort of comfort food. After one especially grueling grammar test I chowed down on a plate with a friend and drank copious amounts of yummy vermut, which you should also get a glass or two of.

The Mercado de San Miguel is also where I met two really hilarious British guys who were in Madrid for a few hours on their way to Texas, so sometimes speaking English in public in Spain isn’t such a bad thing!!