Corsets and Absinthe

It had been a while since I have been Goth clubbing. Despite the fact I think sometimes Goths should smile more often and be less serious about life, I love a lot of things about the Goth culture. I adore the music, the literature and the clothes. I am a proud owner of four stunning corsets. Unfortunately seeing as it is 2008 and not 1908 wearing a corset on a daily basis is not only bloody uncomfortable but will get strange looks from people especially in my job.

However one of my favourite things about Goth clubs is that I look perfectly normal wearing a corset there. Another thing I love is the music and also there are some very amusing and interesting characters you would only meet in the Goth club (like the guy alone at the bar wearing listening to his iPod and looking like a professional in misery).

A few months ago, I managed to convince some friends to go clubbing with me there. I met some really cool people who also were in the search for clubbing buddies to the dark side of the Madrid club scene. After months of saying we were going make plans to go again (but travel, life and work got in the way) we decided por fin to go again.

A main question on anyone's lips on a Madrid night out is "Which bar to start in?. Considering this was not going to be the average night out in Malasaña or in Sol we had to think of an appropriate bar to start feeling our inner Goth. There are some good places around and about but they were either to far or we didn't know them. Drinking red wine in my bedroom while listening to Sisters of Mercy or VNV nation seemed a bit cliché and less fun to me and it is what I always end up doing. However my friend introduced me to the weonderful, charmingly bohemian Café Manuela in the district of Malasaña and conveniently close to the club.



It is a fancy looking place, but it does not feel expensive nor pretentious. It is decorated as if it were a bar from 19th Century Montmartre. What was even better was that they served absinthe - three different types of absinthe. Sounds cliché too but I personally don't care - I love Absinthe!



However a lot of places when you ask for absinthe have no idea what to do with it and give you "chupitos" or if they know what to do with it, there still isn't very much of it. My friends sensibly elected the 50% one, I on the other hand went for the 70% because I usually drink that (a tiny bit watered down a LOT).

The bartender took out three large tumblers full of ice and filled them to the brim with absinthe, the colours turning milky as the absinthe interacted with the ice. I stood there mesmerised and in shock was the bar tender filled my glass with a dark green and very flammable drink (I know that form experience when I introduced my hand to some absinthe and a lighter). We were given a glass of water to accompany it too, and along with some sugar. We sat back down and started to drink. We three looked rather out of place all gothed up (well we suited the place more - I guess the others were looking out of place really) as we sipped on milky concoctions of different shades of green. The absinthe was very good, but very strong. After making my way down on half of the glass I already felt I would have trouble walking down the stairs to the bathroom. On finishing the tumbler I swore to myself not to drink anymore alcohol that night or I would simply die!

We proceeded towards Gran Via to the Gothic club Dark Hole. This is the only goth club in Madrid I have been to, and I must say its pretty good! I personally really liked the music which was a combination of 80's batcave and synthpop and then moving on towards EBM as the night reaches it's peak. Nearly everyone is dressed in black in there but there are still a couple of people in t-shirt and jeans. I had a fabulous time dancing most of the night on the stage with enough absinthe in my blood to erase my inhibitions and enough redbull to keep me dancing for hours like a monkey on speed. A club recommended for anyone in to 80s music, alternative dance music, into the goth culture or for a night out clubbing with a difference. I love this club and it's my autumn's resolution to go there more often following café Manuela and my tumbler of Absinthe - but I will elect the 50% one next time.

The Flavour of Madrid...

I abhore supermarkets with a passion. I find them so clinical, depressing and not to mention expensive! The vegetables go off in a couple of days and are usually fairly tasteless. They maybe convenient, but I try to avoid the supermarket whenever I can.

A friend of mine introduced me a couple of months ago to the market hall - I large hall filled with different stalls selling everything from fresh vegetables to game. You could pretty much buy everything you want fresh here and at half the price, and do it in a way that is not only a sensory experience but interesting and with an atmosphere full of character and Madrileño charm.

I live on the south side of town, just off La Latina. But "El Mercado de Maravillas", which translates charmingly as "The Market of Marvels", sounds like something out of 1001 nights is the best in Madrid and the cheapest. I have been to other food markets but this one is my favourite. I even take the #3 bus all the way from Puerta Toledo to Cuatro Caminos every saturday morning to shop at this wonderful place. The bus journey itself can be a pleasure as it passes through the centre of Madrid and you get a free tourist trail thrown in! Within half an hour I arrive at this Market of Marvels and am ready to do my shopping.




Although there are many bars to tempt you to a nice caña with a bit of Paella or preserved peppers before you engage in doing your weekly shop. For about 1.80€ you can get a nice little beer with a small pincho of Paella to give you that energy to shop. Now doesn't that sound like so much more fun than going to the supermarket?

My first port of call is the vegetable stall at the back of the market. This is owned by latinos and caters to the latin community of the area. There are an incredibly wide range of delicious and fresh vegetables at very low prices! I come away with kilos of delicious fruit and veg of all colours for under 15€!! You can get a kilo of artichokes for 1.50€, fresh ripe tomatoes, chilis, tender avocados that melt in the mouth, shiny red apples, juicy and sweet oranges to make your own juice with, basil that is so aromatic you can smell it a mile off.



You want some cheese? Next door there is a fine cheesery selling all sorts of different Iberian Cheeses, Manchego, Queso de Cabra (Goats cheese), cured old cheeses in olive oil, Queso Fresco, Blue Cheeses the lot.

There are stalls of Butchers selling you every part of the animal from beef to even game so fresh it has not been skinned or plucked yet. There are fish mongers with a choice of every type of marine crustacian and fish so shiny and fresh.

After the veggie stall I head to the counter for my delicious marinated olives and roasted peppers. I come away with kilos of legumes and beans, nuts, dried fruits and Valencian rice to make paella or risotto with. The olives are simply to die for! They have every type, size, colour in wonderful marinades. A simple and delicious luxury to have later on your long saturday lunch with some crusty bread, artichokes, and a glass of good Rioja.

You can buy incredible loose tea with all sorts of tempting smells and flavours. Fresh baguettes and breads of different grains, shapes and sizes. Everything! This market is just a sensual delight of colours, smells, tastes and people. It is wonderful to pick out your food and to interact with a real human. Having them recognise you and chat with you after the many weeks of your weekly loyalty. Its truly marvelous and fun! Then to go home and cook wonderful and tasty meals for the week with such sublime ingredients.

Ditch the supermarket and tv dinners! Go to the market and buy and eat some real food!

A sunday morning on the Paseo del Prado

It was a lovely sunday morning this weekend and I decided I was in the mood for some art that morning. I had wanted to go to the Reina Sofia, but it was closed due to the day of "los reyes", so walked a bit further up the Paseo del Prado to the Thyssen-Bornemissza art gallery - one of the big three in the Madrid's artistic repetoir.



Out of the three galleries this is my personal favourite. It has a vast collection spanning a 700 years time frame up to and including 20th Century art. It also caters to the art lovers of Monet, Van Gogh, Gaugauin and all the major art movements of the 19th Century which the other two galleries do not have. If you have only time in Madrid to visit only one gallery, and are not too specific on what art you are interested in looking at then go to this one - it has the largest variety and you will not be dissapointed in the collection. I didn't do the whole gallery this sunday as I have been to this museum about 3-4 times, but you do need a whole day really or at least most of the afternoon to see the entire collection. I mainly stuck to the first and ground floor where the 19th-20th century art is located.
Here you will find your fauvists, impressionists, romanticists, post-impressionists, expressionists, surrealists, cubists - you name it! Certainly proves to be interesting if you want to learn some art history as the art is catogorised by it's genre, and also provides a good cultural education as well as an aesthetic stimulation.

After my time in the gallery I was feeling oh so pretentious and wanted a coffee to follow suite. Not satisfied with the idea of going to the Starbucks next door, even with its chai soy lattes and its view of the Neptune fountain. I wanted grand, yet antique and flakey. Somewhere with character and history, a truely bohemian place to take my cup of black coffee. Where else better than the famous Café Gijón, ten minutes walking distance situated on the Paseo de Recoletos.



It's a deliciously wonderful old world place, built at the end of the 19th century and has been home and inspiration to the Spanish literati and artistic community in the 20th century; as well as being a historical iconic figure in Madrid cafe life. The place has a decaying grandeur atmosphere to it with its threadbare velvet seats and its chipped gold leaf framed mirrors. It smells musty, and has the ambience of an antique shop. The coffee was nice, but over priced but I supposed it is the price to pay when you are sitting in the seat where the Mata Hari or one of the Spanish literary giants may have sat herself so its excusable. The service is fast, but cold and impersonal - but fast service in Spain is a rarity so think of this as bonus. I guess in hindsight I would probably pay the same in Starbucks for a coffee or just shy of it so maybe not such a bad trade off then. Plus you cant get atmosphere in Starbuck no matter how nice a place it is situated in. I would go back there, and I would recommend going if you are a person who values atmosphere, ambience and history. It's a peaceful place away from the frantic bars of the more familiar Madrid and is a good locale to go to drink a coffee, discuss philosophy with your bohemian friends, write your journal or a novel or read one.

Huertas and All that Jazz

Its been a while since I have updated this journal, but it has been a while since I have been in Madrid for a long period of time. I have been running up and down the country doing courses and I have not had such an opportunity to get out and about. Last night after some great falafels me and a friend of mine went to Calle Huertas to take some great cocktails and its a place where I enjoy to go out sometimes.

Huertas is close to Sol and the bottom C/ Huertas comes up from the paseo del Prado through the old part of the city. It has a very bohemian feel to the area and I love it. Its full of bars and some tapas places with different themes, calibre and people. It buzzes as much during the day as at night. You can take a beer and a tapa in one of the little squares off the street in the hot Spanish sun or you can go out for a nice quiet night or party hard there.

A couple of my favourite haunts was introduced to me by a good friend I met in Germany who is a Madrileña herself. She introduced me to a wonderful bar called "La Trocha" near the bottom part of calle Huertas. It is a small, cosy bar which specialises in the glorious Brazilian cocktail "caipirinha". For those of you who do not know what this is let me introduce you to the way this place makes this delicious cocktail (and sold at the bargain price of 5€). They take fresh lemons and limes and crush them up in a class with a wooden pestle kind of thing, squeezing all the juice out of the fruit. They then add lots of ice, some sugar and top it off with a generous dose of Cachaça (a wonderful sweet Brazilian liqour). They are strong and give you a lot - so take care with the quantities! But it is so sweet and tangy to drink you can hardly taste the strong alcohol. The bar is nice with sofas around, they have a mix of Jazz and Brazilian music playing in the background so a good place to start before heading off to the Populart Café.



Populart is a jazz bar just up the street from La Trocha. It has live music every night from 11pm and is free to enter. The music is usually top notch and is mainly Jazz and Blues of all types. For more information check the website for the program and how to find it: http://www.populart.es/. There is always something going on with exception for christmas and new year more or less. It does get really crowded so if you want a seat or a place at the bar go early. This place practically spills out the door on busy nights. For any lover of live music must check this place out as they standard of the bands are superb.

Bar Districts

One thing Madrid is famous for is its bars and nightlife. A night out for cañas y tapas is a typical Madrileña experience. But in Madrid there are so many areas to choose from and so many bars to pick! I thought it would be a fun idea to summerise the bar districts in Madrid and some places worth seeing.

Sol:

This is the very centre of Madrid, the mile 0 for Spain. But apart from being very central there are a lot of old winding side streets with tonnes of great bars for cañas y tapas. Its easy to get lost in the windy old streets behind sol, but there is plenty to choose from. A favourite street of mine is Calle de Cadiz which contains many good tapas places, which are fairly cheap and also tend to give a decent tapa with your caña/cerveza (Spanish beer, small and refreshing). A tapa is something you get in all the bars. Its basically a small snack which is given if you take wine or beer to prevent you from getting drunk. Bad bars just give crisps or olives, but the good ones give you canapès, empanadillas (little pasties with tuna and tomato inside), a little Iberian selection of cheese and ham etc.

If you want tacky and touristy but cheap - check out the "Cañas y Tapas" bar next to Plaza Mayor, it serves pretty much all your standard tapas, in different sized portions, so you can buy a lot of small dishes to try a variety or a big one to satisfy your appetite (or your group's appetite!). You have to sit/stand at the bar, but this is very Spanish style, the bar itself has a nice authentic feel to it.

La Latina

La Latina is in the old part of the city. Full of charm and character; just walk down from Plaza Mayor and you are pretty much there. Its an interesting mix of classy bars, traditional cervezarias and hippy places. La Latina is very trendy, but also very chill. Its not a place to do rowdy pubcrawls, but more like going out for a beer and chilling with friends. I like this area a lot, especially the fact its 15 minutes walk from my house!

Lavapiès

I could call this the downmarket version of La Latina, but that is not entirely true. Lavapiès has a more down to earth and ethnic feel than its trendy neighbour. Its full of very casual student type hippy bars, as well as the traditional bars as well. Its very vibrant as its full of all sorts of interesting characters and bohemians. It has a high immigrant population so its also a good place to get some ethnic food! The places in Lavapiès are cheap and nice. Good if you are a broke student.

Chueca/Tribunal/Alonso Martinez

I am going to lump all these 3 into the same catagory as they are all very close to each other and I don't know where one ends and the other begins. If you go north of the Gran Vía you will come to these neighbourhoods.

Chueca is the gay district, and is also really trendy to go to. Full of crazy clubs and bars its a great place to go and just party on down. Everyone is so liberal there its great! Asides from hardcore party clubs and swinging bars, there are also some nice chilled out elegant bars with comfy couches and chandeliers.

Right next to Chueca is Tribunal and Alonso Martinez. This too is full of a lot bars, and mainly the type catered to students. They are grungy, cheap and great fun. You can order a mini mojito (take care! Mini means a litre) and sit on a beer drum instead of on chairs with the urban decoration of graffiti adds to the ambiance. You can get lost in a drunken oblivion amongst the bars and pubs there, hang out with other grungy students/young people who are on the street drinking cheap beer out of plastic cups. If you want a messy pubcrawl where your brain feels raped afterwards - this is your area!

However saying that near Alonso Martinez there is a very nice chilled out bar called Aereia (I am not 100% sure on the spelling) where you can get great cocktails, ethnic food, slob out on a futon and listen to chilled out music. Nice place to go to unwind in the evening, and also functions as a restaurant during the day.

Bilbao

Go a bit further north from Tribunal you come to Bilbao. Not the city, but the district. This too is also a very nice area to explore tapas and some bars. Its a good place to start the night off with some beer and tapas and then venture into the nearby areas of Tribunal/Chueca.

Huertas

Just off the Paseo del Prado is calle de Huertas. This street leads up to the area near Sol/Plaza Mayor and is also a good place to go at night, particularly if you are looking for live music. The Café Populart is a good venue if you like Jazz because every night from 11pm onwards there is live music there from different artists and bands of jazz, blues etc. Its free entry, but it gets really packed some nights! Especially on weekends. If you like your cocktails I highly recommend La Trocha just a few meters down the street where they serve the best caipirinhas!