Month: May 2016

The Time I Drove

~ mjparman ~ Leave a comment

So, one of the, like, five times I missed something from home while abroad it was driving. Where I live in the US I commute back and forth to work 30 minutes everyday, and I miss public transportation (namely the metro) All The Time.
However, in Spain I just sort of craved getting behind the wheel sometimes. Some nights waiting for my line to come just took to long, or I wanted to dart somewhere real quick without seeing anyone, or just turn up the music real high and go exploring.

So, in February on a spontaneous trip to the Shangri La that is the island of Mallorca, my roommate Emma and I rented a Fiat 500 from the most casual rental place along the beach in the Arenal part of the island, and I got to live the fantasy of being a Fiat owner for a day. That’s a dream my friend, and I got to live it.

Now, if you had Emma tell about this day (namely, my driving) it would probably be a lot less rosy than my version, but stay with me here.
We took that sweet baby car and drove it up into the mountains through some of the twistiest roads I have ever driven on. I drove faster than my counterpart may have been comfortable with. ::Coughs:: It was like the most beautiful parts of New Mexico and Colorado, but warm and beyond the mountains– not plains but blue, a wild blue, the sea.
(If you want to see the wild blue https://www.instagram.com/p/zODwIxHIlG/?taken-by=neverneutral)

09 Terraced olive tree fields
In Mallorca, along the thin line of highway, they have terraced fields full of bright colored flowers, olive trees, and many of the villages on the highway up to this big look out point have citrus trees filling their back yards, all of which were in bloom… in February.

The scent filtering in through the air vents, a feeling not unlike lust starting to make my brain swim. Before I left to study abroad, so many people told me I’d fall in love in Spain, and I did– again and again, with Spain itself.

Driving through the itty bitty little ancient streets of Sóller, that were never intended for the unfathomable automobile, weaving through residentials peeking into tiny back yards so full of citrus trees it was like something made up in a writer’s fever dream.

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Getting stuck in a circle of one-way streets when all we needed was the high way, and then driving down a TERRIFYING glorified foot path of a street with a 40 foot drop to one side into a swiftly moving creek, up a steep incline: it was great.I took a picture of that teency road just in case we lived, to prove I had done it. Survive Sóller 2015 √

(the foot path here)

We took the big, major highway home: much straighter and punctuated by a very hot toll booth worker. I’ll take it.

We’ll have to do a recap of my whole trip to Mallorca sometime, it was pretty magical. I would say my best vacation ever.

Eat, drink, be Madrid

~ mjparman ~ 1 Comment

The kebab place near my friend Oda’s old apartment is this BOMB shwarma place. Hands down my favourite we came across, and we ate at A LOT of kebab places (you’ll notice pretty quickly they’re everywhere). This place was my group’s favourite because their spicy sauce was ACTUALLY spicy. For me and my fellow Texan in the group this was, taste-wise, a little trip home!! Woooo. However, we can’t for the life of us remember the name, but its in Malasaña! On one of the streets off Fuencarral. If you find the little shop that is literally just a room with vending machines (selling some pretty questionable items) it’s up the street, on the same side of the street as that little place. (I know my directions on this blog are bullshit, I’m sorry I am not even trying to make them better.)

El Infinito a coffee place a short jaunt from the Anton Martin metro stop, a rather local place where they don’t really give a damn if you’re served in a timely or convenient manner whatsoever, especially if they sense you’re American. Really, that’s the glory of it. They have a little section of books that you can take one/leave one, which isn’t revolutionary but I like very much. Their Irish coffee is stout and delicious.

La Bicicleta was a regular haunt for my friends and I in Madrid. We got coffee here all the time, occasionally a glass of wine, and studied, OR on a night where we were out a little early for Madrid, we’d have mojitos here. The staff deals with a lot of ex pats because its in the really trendy Malasaña neighbourhood, so they’re nice enough, wink.
Somewhere in the very close vicinity is a bodega that sells American style deodorant, which got a lot of business one tipsy evening from a group of very enthused Americans abroad.

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**My favourite bar in the city closed, so here is the part of this post where I ask you all to mourn with me**

Also, there seems to be a lot of trivia nights held as a sort of intercambio opportunity in bars across the city. This is brilliant, and I love it. If you are in town for a while, or want to rub elbows with locals while beating the shit out of them with your stupidly unnecessary knowledge of international currency, its fun.
I’d say go for a bar in La Latina, but that’s just because I’m partial to that neighbourhood and it seemed like some very interesting expats frequented the bars there.