This... Is... SPARTA!!!

Hola team! Just a quick li'l note to mark a milestone - today it is exactly 300 days since I left Canada! As is often the way of adventures, it feels both like so much has happened and also like nothing has changed. Wow! Paradoxical!

Someone (shout-out to Someone!) suggested that to celebrate the occasion, I should have a 300 party and make everyone watch Gerard Butler do sit-ups on-screen. (Get it? 300? Sparta? The title of this post? Yesss.). It occurred to me that, being Scottish, Gerard Butler spends bits of his time in areas of the world near to where I am now. I know this is true, because my friend works at Starbucks and served him once and I think it took about a week for her to be able to talk in full sentences again. So, in light of this information, this is an open invitation for Gerard Butler to come do sit-ups to celebrate my 300 days. Swing by whenever you can, Gerry! BYOB though, I can't afford to give free alcohol to every movie star who walks through my door.

I've been invited to Mickie's party?! Awww yisssssss

Kid-a-rooneys! I've been hand-writing some longer posts during break times at work, and I hope to be able to get some of them online next week.

Muchas smoochas!

Ol' Mickie's New Routine

Hullo hullo, me lovelies!

I am writing this post from a corner window seat at The Purple Pig Café. I've walked by this neat-looking little spot many times on my way to work. I've been meaning to come in for a while, but I've never had the opportunity. And by "never had the opportunity," I mean that up until now, I've spent 98% of my days off in my room and in my jammies. But I've been trying to do things a little bit differently since I've gotten back from my Christmas holiday. I suppose one could frame this shift as a New Year's resolution, but from my point of view, this autumn I had been living in a way that inhibited my happiness and the return from vacation was simply a convenient time to start things afresh. Regardless of how you choose to see it, the upshot is that I am nicely dressed, sipping on a latte and staring directly at a papier mâché purple pig's ass. 

The bum of yon pig is obscured in shadow as his head is gently lit by the early afternoon sun (a.k.a. "Chiar-oink-scuro")

A quick review of the Christmas vacation then: Very, very good. 

Just a little Snap art I did while waiting eight hours for my connecting flight in New Jersey

Of course, that's not all I have to say about Christmas (you know me better than that by now). It was, without question, the right decision to head home for the holiday. It just wouldn't have been the same to spend Christmas without all of the season's traditions like watching Scrooge while trimming the tree, Dad reading The Night Before Christmas, making reindeer food out of oatmeal and sparkles, poring over Where's Waldo-style search-and-find Santa placemats, and of course, spending half an hour chasing each other around the house in take-no-prisoners, parents vs. kids grudge match battle for Christmas supremacy. This year's weapon of choice was Nerf-style guns that shot these little round frisbee-disc thingies. I'm sure my parents are still finding some of the colourful li'l circles in odd spots in the house. 

The Twissmass Twee shines as Astro Boy watches on from the mantel 

My New Year's was fairly tame (probably because Marg was working that night, so she wasn't around to stir up trouble). The 'rents and I ate some finger foods, watched some comedy DVDs that I had brought home for them (Dylan Moran and Rob Brydon) and then when midnight hit, we lit a few sparklers, tooted some tooters and had a group hug. I was in bed by 12:15. It was brilliant. 

A small taste of the wisdom of Dylan Moran

I am still a little annoyed that there wasn't a New Year's concert broadcast for the Atlantic time zone this year. This won't mean anything to anyone who's not from the Canadian Maritimes. But, because we're on our own time zone there, we hit the new year an hour earlier than most of Canada (except for Newfoundland, which just does its own thing). Up until this year, Breakfast Television would film a live concert for the Maritimes featuring Atlantic musicians and hosts. But this year, nada. We searched and searched the TV Guide. The only options we could find were the ones in New York or Niagara Falls, which were both an hour behind us. It made me a little bit sad and a little bit angry. I hadn't realized that I had considered it to be a tradition to have our concert on in the background. And I feel that it was really rude to totally ignore a whole time zone, even if we are a pretty small one. I mean, come on guys. You ought to be nicer to the population who has experience of the future before the bulk of the country. Jumpin' Jaysus. 

Okay, back to the here and almost now. I didn't take on any overtime on my first week back to Scotland. Instead, I used the time to blitz clean my entire apartment and impose a little organization on my life. It felt good to have that all done. And now I have a colour-blocked wardrobe, a shiny new goal board and a very written-in agenda to show for it. Aww yiss, it do feel good. 

Brief side note - I just watched a city truck drive by on and sprinkle salt all over the road. This makes no sense to me as there is no snow or ice anywhere and, as far as I know, none expected to come in the near future. Either someone is being a little over-cautious or they're trying to get local animals to come and lick the road clean. Hard to say. 

This past week I've been back to work as usual, but with a little change to my routine - I've been getting up earlier in order to go to the gym before work in the morning. This has a few benefits: first of all, it turns out that if you work out before you're actually awake, you don't really feel the pain; second, it means that I sleep like a baby when I get home from the trains in the evening; and third, the shower pressure at the gym is a squillion times better than what we have in our flat, so I'm pretty sure that I'm actually cleaner now than I have been for most of the year. I've certainly been able to rinse more conditioner out of my hair at the gym, so it now takes a whole day before it gets stringy, gross and unappealing (instead of the 2 hours' worth of mileage I was getting out of it before). 

But of course, being who I am, I can't just let a good thing be. Just as I have gotten myself into a solid routine, I am about to yank myself right back out of it. A week from today I will be heading back to Ireland for another visit. You may be thinking, 'but Mickie, you've already been to Ireland at least thrice; should you not explore a different part of this great big world?' Well team, time to lay down a little truth. I've been holding something back from you for a while. Or rather, I've been holding it back from those of you who only get news of me from my blog (the rest of you already have most of the details about this, so you can skip this section if you'd like).  The reason that I keep going back to Ireland is that I know someone there. A man. A man-guy. Who is, I suppose, for all intents and purposes currently my man-guy. I mean, I didn't purchase him, so I can't really legally claim possession. But I think you know what I'm getting at. His name is John and he is good. He is Irish. He is a chef so he cooks things. That is a good thing about him. I met him last year when I was on holiday in Ireland. Then I stalked saw him this year when I was on holiday in Ireland again. Then he came to see me in Edinburgh, and so on and so forth. So, it seems that my turn to make the effort has come around once more. Ryanair conveniently put on a good flight deal for a week when I just happened to have six days off in a row. I'll be making the hop over the Irish Sea to Dublin (where he resides) next Monday. Then, after a day watching TV quiz shows and drinking homemade beer with him and his roommates, the two of us will pop down to Cork for a couple of days. In my past visits to Ireland, he and I have gone to every tourist site in Dublin short of the Leprechaun Museum (which he refuses to see out of principle), so to make sure that our conversation doesn't run dry, we realized that we ought to go see other things in other places. Cork is charming and he likes to make fun of the way the people there talk, so it should be a good time. He doesn't know it yet, but I'm gonna make him go to the Cork Butter Museum, which is, as the saying goes, the happiest place on Earth. Disney stole that phrase. Butter had it first. 

Okay, I'm hungry now so I'm gonna stop writing and go eat sumfin'.

Ciao!
(Get it?? Ciao? It sounds like chow! And I'm hungry! Hahahahahahahaha!)

Okay, but really, bye for now.

Missive: Christmas Bliss for this Miss

Greetings and salutations, woefully ignored readers! My deepest and humblest apologies for haven forsaken you for so, so long. The past two months have been a time of highs and lows, activity and sloth, trips away, hotel stays, meeting new people and visits from old friends. Let's jump in, shall we?

Let's go all the way back to the start of October. I did a very grown-up thing: I, Mickie, daughter of Bernice, heir to the Hickman "feed-em-all" dynasty, cooked Thanksgiving Dinner. All by myself. And not a tiny one either. Throwing all caution to the wind, I invited [all of my] 4 friends over to my flat and promised to treat them all to a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving isn't celebrated over in these parts, so it was to be a brand new experience for all of them. Preparing the whole thing was a new experience for me too - I had helped Ma with the stuffing and pie before but the turkey had never been left to my charge and I had certainly never been responsible for coordinating and timing the whole shebang. But I am thrilled to say that with a little help from Google - and A LOT of advice texts from Ma - I managed to pull the whole thing off rather successfully (if I do say so myself). I overcooked the broccoli a wee bit and my gravy was a little thin, but considering that my goal for the night was to not give anyone food poisoning, I consider those errors to be forgiveable. Besides, each of my guests was kind enough to bring a bottle of wine, so by the end of the evening, I don't believe anyone was really focused on minute details like those.

Shouldn't be too much work...

The traditional bucket-thaw method used by our ancestors

That's 20 lbs of tasty

Gud Fud

Nature's steamed, roasted, mashed and jellied bounty

Dainty desserts

Courtney, Rachel, Allan and Michael - my brave guinea pigs

Finally at the grown-ups' table!

The bulk of my November was occupied by my training for my new job. In September, I was notified that I had been hired to work as a customer service agent for one of the UK's major train companies. My role officially falls under the category of "on-board catering." Basically, I'm one of the peeps who strolls through the train coaches and offers the passengers tea, coffee and snacks (free for first class, for a small fee if you travel standard like a noob). The classroom training - although full of a lot of corporate "Rah rah! Motivation!" stuff - was actually quite enjoyable. It took place in York (England), which is one of the most charming towns I have yet to come across. It's like a living, Medieval, Gothic-y Christmas card. Brilliant. Best of all, the train company put me up in a hotel during the training, so I got to have a mini-holiday in the off hours. I used my free time to explore York a little bit and to take advantage of the hotel's 24-hour pizza service a lot.

Living in style at the Hampton Inn York

York Minster Cathedral poking its head up to say "Good morning Mickie! Go learn about trains!"

The following two weeks were occupied with the second stage of my training: job shadowing on a real-life, moving, passenger-filled train! I was anxious the first day, but it didn't take too long to get used to the rhythm of the journey. And I didn't even injure anyone, which I had considered an eventuality. I have since officially graduated to the status of full [probationary] employee. This doesn't exempt me from the possibility of injuring anyone, but if I'm lucky, I'll frequently get put on tea- and coffee-making duty, meaning that the only person I could scald, bruise or lacerate (what, you've never cut yourself brewing tea?) would be myself.

I've been thoroughly enjoying the train job so far. The days are about ten and a half hours long, but they fly by. Or chug by, to be accurate. Every day we leave Edinburgh at 11:00, get into London at 14:21 (yes, exactly) and then head back to Ed-Rock at 16:00 (approximately). Everything said and done, I'm usually home on my couch watching Rachel's Netflix by 21:45. It's very surreal to have my lunch break in London every day. In North America, we grow up with this idea of London being this faraway, almost imaginary place in a country that many people only ever dream of visiting. And now suddenly I'm popping down there a couple of days a week and poking around the local shops or grabbing [incredibly addictive] tofu curry from Wasabi in King's Cross Station (I do this more than I should). It's a wiggidy wack world, y'all.

Despite the turkey and the trains, this Autumn hasn't been my happiest time. Although it's nowhere near as cold here as in Ottawa, it is very dark. Yes, Ottawa winter days are short. But it feels like here the daylight hours are virtually non-existent. Maybe I'm right about this or maybe it's just that I'm still trying to get accustomed to this place and I just need something to blame for feeling down. Either way, I've had a really difficult time finding my get up and go lately. I haven't really been able to bring myself to exercise or sightsee or do much of anything other than work and sleep. My hope is that a daytime job will get me back on a healthier sleep schedule than I've had with bar work and I'll be able to make a move back towards my normal self.

Back to happy things! Although I have just spent the previous paragraph whining about the winter blues, I have to admit that Edinburgh does the holiday season pretty darn fabulously. You want lights? You got 'em! Giant Ferris wheel? No problemo! Christmas tree maze, German market, hot apple toddys, two outdoor skating rinks, soft pretzels!!! We've got it all! Really, I wish that you all could be here to see it because it is spectacular. It would look even better with a light dusting of snow, but no sign of that yet. The temperature hasn't even dropped to zero yet, so it looks like Christmas is gonna be brown and rocky here.

Browsing for baubles

Sparkly shinies in Princes St. Gardens

         

       THE CAROUSEL IS A BAR. REPEAT - THE CAROUSEL IS A BAR!

And now for the happiest thing of all! The stars have aligned and they have bestowed upon me the very best of Christmas presents: as the song goes, I'll be home for Christmas!!! YAAAYYYYY!!! Through some creative scheduling (and possibly a bit of dark magic), the rostering lady at my work - the benevolent and talented Liz - has managed to adjust my schedule so that I have a little over a week off, right at the crucial, yuletidey moment. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the financial means to visit my beloved Ottawa companions this time around. It goes without saying that I really wish I could see you all. However, Ma has staked her claim on the bulk of my time. I'll be lucky if I get a chance to see my Dad and sister through her lovingly constrictive bear hugs. So that means it's straight from Edinburgh to NB for me! Well, not exactly straight there...... Since I got my tickets so last-minute, it's a bit of a roundabout route that I'll be taking to get home. On Monday, I leave Edinburgh just after 10h00 (UK time), from which I fly into scenic Newark, New Jersey (woot!). I have a relaxed 8 hour and 20 minute layover there before I board my two-hour flight to Montréal. Once there, I get to wait an easy 10 and a half hours (overnight) to board my plane to Saint John. Forty five minutes in the air will finally bring me to Gate 1 (out of 1) in YSJ where my mother will no doubt have shoved aside staff, children and feeble old ladies in order to be closest to the door to greet me. I am so looking forward to being home. I've done my shopping. I've got my Santa hat. But what I really need in order to feel Christmasy is to be cuddled in front of the fireplace with my family. And eggnog. Apparently they don't "do" eggnog here. Fools.

Lots of love and warm holiday wishes to all of you! I promise [to try] to write again soon!

P.S. I still haven't forgotten that I was chronicling my and Margaret's exploits on our Euro-trip in May. Expect another instalment soon......

My Heart is in Ottawa

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Addendum: The Kindness of Strangers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A day after I put up the flag and signs in my window, this appeared directly across the street:

Thank you, neighbour and friend. 

A Gallery of Events I Vaguely Remember

Hullo all!

I know that this is quite late in coming, but I just loaded my Canada Day pictures from my phone onto DJ Compy Comp and through this medium I humbly present them for your viewing pleasure.

Of course, there's nothing quite like being in Ottawa for a Canada Day deck-drinking, park-wandering, techno-street-dancing, fireworky extravaganza. But I feel that I did pretty well with the resources that I had over here. I rallied my troops - 2 Canucks (including myself), 4 English peeps and the obligatory Aussie - and we decked ourselves out in our red and white (courtesy of Primark). Then I set to work doing some mad face paint - I did pretty well with the maple leaves if I do say so myself.

The English girls all look slightly unsure about this whole thing...

I MEK ART

I painted dat. Gud werk, Me. 

Danny prepares to suit up . The words "True North" painted on the back of the tee not only describe Canada, but were a suitable epithet for Danny himself, who we sourced from the Northerly bit of England.

I am the Canadavangelist our country deserves.

After 3 or 4 drinks each (with service starting at 10:30 a.m.) we headed out to Sainsbury's to pick up some goods for a BBQ and then climbed the Salisbury Crags in the middle of town to get a panoramic view of the city on that gorgeous, sunny July 1st. By chance, on that very day Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was having a garden party at Holyrood Palace, which was situated just below our picnic spot. We all waved and I held up my big ol' flag proudly to let it billow in her general direction. We were too far away to see her face, but I could sense her noble nod of approval and fistpump of Commonwealthly solidarity.

Stompin' on the Salisbury Crags

A view down to the waterfront bit of the city known as Leith

An Aussie by the BBQ and a Canuck keeping things cool

Hulloooo Ebindurgh!

Drinking in public parks is acceptable here. Thank you, Scotland!

If there is one thing I am NOT, it is obnoxious.

EYE see you, Danny!

You still here, Ebindurgh?

Always the clever planner, I had thought to bring along my plastic baggie of 300 or so Canada Flag pins (remember the ones that freaked out the security guys at my biometric screening way back when?). We then spent a lovely couple of hours chowing down on sausages (dressed with maple syrup, natch) and handing out flag pins to all passers-by. Most of them were very lovely and indulged our [my] inebriated enthusiasm.

A side note on the cooking of the sausages - We had picked up a disposable BBQ at the grocery store, but it had never occurred to us that grilling generally requires implements such as tongs or spatulae. Fortunately for us, we had adopted the Aussie into our crew. If there's one nationality you want on hand during a barbecuing emergency, it is Australian. He MacGyvered up a system using only a comb and a hair clip to deliver our sausages perfectly cooked in all their porky, syrupy glory. Can you imagine, most of the crew were shocked to learn that you could put maple syrup on sausages?! My response: "duh." It's a classic sweet+salty. Always a winning combo.

After our meal, we did a quick stop back at the bar where I had just started working. My recollections become a little hazy at this point, but I do remember meeting someone who looked freakishly like an old roommate of mine. I also definitely found a cosy corner of bathroom stall to curl up in for a little bit. There were some people back home who needed texting.

You'll have to excuse me, I'm not at my best...

... I've been gone for a month, I've been drunk since I left!

After about half an hour's worth of porcelain rejuvenation, I rallied my gang (and myself) and we set out again for a pub called The Globe. It was here that Scotland's largest Canada Party was being held. It was wonderful! There were loads of groups just like ours - four or five mildly confused locals being led by a boisterous Canadian plastered with maple leaves. What fun! Plus, the bar made a point of having Canadian snacks and drinks on hand, so I had a Caesar (!Tasty!) and I bought a round of Moosehead* (!!! Yes! They actually had Moosehead!!!) for my buds!

Thanks for the invite, The Globe! You had me at "Clamato"!

*For those not in the know, Moosehead is a thoroughly okay beer brewed in Saint John, New Brunswick, which just happens to be the city where I grew up. In fact, my family's first house was only 2 streets away from the brewery. That yeasty smell still takes me back to my childhood. Combined with the fumes from the pulp mill and the decomposing fish of the harbour, it creates a fragrance that brings up waves of nostalgia. It's really a wonder they don't bottle Eau de Saint Jean as a perfume.

Eyyyyyyy....! Guyyyss....! I found Mooz Hedddd...! This is form... This is from my house... guysss... Eyyyyy...

To round off the night, I took a wander to a different bar. For the next month and a bit, I didn't know its name or really where it was. All I could remember was that it was basically a series of underground tunnels and caves and that there was a guy deejaying alongside video clips from Dragon Ball Z. I did a funky dance for a crew of goths and they all applauded. I liked it there. After weeks' worth of investigating, I came to discover that the place is called Banshee Labyrinth and it was actually only 3 doors down from The Globe. Still, it felt like an adventure at the time.

I think that was just about everything that I got up to on my Canada Day. Anyone else have stories to share? How about tales of the shenanigans of Quinze Août? Drop me a line!

Until next time, protegez vos foyers et vos droits!

Trip Review 3: Madcap Madrid Vol. 1; or, The Time Things Went Wrong

Alright, back to the business of reporting upon the European voyage shared by Marg and I. You'd thought that I had forgotten about that, hadn't you? Well, you're a dope.

When we last saw our heroes, they were making preparations to travel from Barcelona to Madrid. Before the toot toot train ride could begin, plans for the arrival in Madrid needed to be ascertained. As the likelihood of having wifi on a train in Spain (which actually did pass mainly through a plain) was slim, I thought it would be wise to look up the deets while we had computer access in Barcelona. I printed off confirmation sheets, a metro guide and the address of our hostel, "360 Madrid Centro." As an afterthought, I decided to fire off an email to the hostel to make sure that there would be someone there to greet us that evening - not all hostels have 24-hour reception and we weren't getting in until about 11:00 pm. Well, let me tell you boy, it's a gosh damn lucky thing I did! After grabbing a quick tapas lunch, I did one last email check before heading out to the train station and lo; what lay in my inbox but an email from Francisco. 

         Francisco concernedly asked me "¿No has recibido mi correo anterior?" 
 No, Francisco, I did not receive the email that you sent me a while ago. 
         "¡Que lástima!" 
 Why is that a shame, Francisco? What seems to be the problem? 
         "Es que el hostal 360 Centro no existe más." 
 I beg your pardon? 
         "El hostal no existe." 
 I find that hard to believe, Francisco. 
         "Es verdadero. No hay hostal." 
 I see. So, Francisco, what do you propose that I do when I arrive in Madrid? Strange as this may seem,  when, two months ago, I booked beds in a hostel for Madrid, I had made the [apparently wildly erroneous]  assumption that my hostel existed. 
         "Ahhh. No." 
 Hmm. 
         "Vale, tenemos un otro hostal en Madrid, más o menos cerca del centro." 
 The other hostel you own is close-ish to the centre? Okay, fair enough. Hostel beggars can't be hostel  choosers, I suppose. Sign us up, we'll be there! Oh, by the way, how late is your reception open?   
         "..."   
 Francisco?  
         "......"   
 Well, we have to go a-choo-choo-ing now, so answer when you can, okay? That's alright Marg, I'm sure  this won't end up being a problem later on......

El choo choo de España

Considering the issue dealt with, the sis and I departed aboard the speedy speedy Spain Train. After pulling her book of crosswords out of her purse, Marg promptly fell asleep. I attempted to join her in dreamland (we were still fighting the remnants of jet lag) but I failed to succeed to snooze, so I half-assedly watched the movie being shown on the baby screen at an 80° angle above my head. I didn't bother with the sound. It was about a tidal wave and looked kind of stressful, so I felt like the image was probably enough for me. A few uneventful hours later, we pulled into the station. We walked down the little tunnel that herds the passengers from the train to the station proper. Upon popping out into the main lobby we noticed with mild delight that the metro was connected directly to the train station. "Our new hostel is 2 blocks away from a metro station, Marg!" "Getting there is gonna be sooo easy, Mick!"

Noobs. 

What Marg and I did not realize is that Madrid has two urban rail systems: the Metro; and the cercanías - the commuter train system. The Metro was not, in fact, connected directly to the train station; the cercanías were. Being unaware of the difference, sis and I had I heck of a time figuring out how we were meant to get to our destination. In the end, we chose the blue line C1 because some of the stops listed on its map looked kinda similar to our Metro instructions from Maps O'Google. The platform for C1 was essentially in the bowels of the Earth. The corridor leading down to it was a uniform shade of tobacco-stain brown and was possessing of all of the flickering lights and disembodied dripping sounds that characterize abandoned schools or mental asylums in horror movies. Metro and commuter rail cars are rarely known to be places of great luxury. But we had apparently grown accustomed to the shiny, metallilc, fluorescent cleanliness of the Barcelona Metro. Apparently that was not the right vibe for the Madrid cercanías. Rather, the atmosphere of the preceding corridor carried on seamlessly in the train car itself. For the next 20 minutes or so our backdrop continued to be brown and flickering. The soundtrack, however, had changed from mysterious drips to a cryptic ratting and the moist mouth-breathing of the unblinking man across the aisle. Cool.

For reasons I cannot recall, Marg and I picked a particular stop at which to alight. I can only assume that we thought it was the stop for our hostel. It was not. It was a stop for the Metro that would take us to our hostel. Ahh. That made more sense, then. Good, well at least we were on the right track. And for those wondering, the Madrid Metro is far shinier and more fluorescent than the cercanías. We descended even further beneath the Earth's crust to find the right line. After 10-minutes' dithering about which direction to take, we hopped aboard the blue line L1. To our great relief after only about a seven-minute ride, we heard the rich alto train voice call out "Estacíon Bilbao." That's us!

Five up escalators later, we burst forth into the sweet, misty Spanish evening air. A quick consultation of the map told us that our hostel should be just three blocks to our left. We turned left. We walked three blocks. We walked four blocks. We walked six blocks. We crossed the street, turned around and walked three, four, six blocks back to the Metro. "Oh, Hostal Madrid Malasañaaaaa! Where aaaarre yooouuuu???" Definitely the right Metro station. Definitely the right street. How are we missing this? Had we been informed of the closure of the wrong hostel? We decided to give the street one more try. Only by closely inspecting every door along the road did we notice the coaster-sized "360 Madrid" sticker on the inside of one of the door frames. Verrrry sneeeaky, hostel. The keypad beside the door said to buzz number 3. We buzzed. We waited. We buzzed again. More waiting. Another buzz, perhaps? Nope. Nada. It seems that 360 Madrid does not in fact have 24-hour reception. Ah.

Let's just quickly take stock of this moment. Ravenous, jet-lagged sisters. Increasingly heavy backpacks. An eight-hour travel day. Midnight in a backstreet of an unknown city. Nowhere to sleep for the night. No friends or contacts in town. Only a mild grasp of the local language. No shops open for food. And then - I shit you not, dear friends - it begins to rain. 


This is the moment when my years of training my resourcefulness as a Girl Guide finally paid off. I turned to Marg and said "Follow me!" We walked two blocks back towards the Metro until we came upon what many eyes less trained than mine would have looked right past: a huge, neon sign proclaiming "Hotel rooms, €70/night." Good eye, Mickie!

The front desk clerk, sweet, blessed Ilie, instantly noticed our aura of shabby distress and took it upon himself to see to it that we were well-settled that night. He gave us as many discounts as he could and told us that not only was room service 24-hours but that he would make our food himself (that was probably because he was the only person working at night, but still, it was nice of him all the same). And, later, as Marg and I settled into our fluffy hotel bed with our caesar salad, pasta and pizza and turned on Spanish Art Attack on the Spanish Disney Channel, we experienced, for the first time in our lives, true luxury. It turns out that everything going wrong can sometimes be just right. 

                                                       ¡La Margarita está muy cosy!

The next day, all rested and perky, we popped our bags over to the hostel (which, by this point, was actually open) and set out to explore the city. As it turns out, Madrid is gorgeous! I highly recommend it. All of the buildings are beautiful and old-timey and everything is painted in nice warm colours (or so I remember it, anyway). Once you're not an exhausted, babbling moron, the Metro is actually quite easy to navigate. And best of all, the people of Madrid are wonderful. During our time there, Marg and I had many wonderful conversations with shopkeepers and servers and bus drivers, etc. To be fair, I did a lot of the talking because Marg doesn't speak much Spanish (although she can understand it pretty well, so she followed most of the conversation). Sorry for being a talk hog, marg! 

We met three particularly memorable characters in MadCity. Claudio was a very sweet Italian-Columbian server who brought Marg and I our sammiches when we accidentally sat ourselves in the MIP (that's Moderately Important Persons) section of a café. He then took it upon himself to be our personal travel guide to the city - he wrote out a list of all of the best places to visit and gave us directions to each of them. Plus the sandwiches were delicious. ¡Gracias Claudio!

At a tourist shop where we popped in to get some bus tour tickets (and mini sangrias) the hilarious Martín (if that is his real name) kept us entertained for a good half hour. The affable Argentinian had a perpetual pearly smile and a wildly contagious laugh. Chatting with him was as entertaining as a whole day's worth of sightseeing! ¡Gracias Martín!

And finally at a nice little café-restaurant that was decorated to look like my future [grown-up] apartment we met a friendly young Andalusian named Luís. With his charmingly broken English and my charmingly broken Spanish we managed to cobble together a good-sized conversation about our homelands, our travels and the lovely city in which we found ourselves (again Marg, sorry for being a chatterbox). Later on in our travels, Marg and I ended up having a bit of an evening out with a motley assemblage of characters including Luís and one of his colleagues. But that is a tale for Madcap Madrid Vol. 2...

Aside from the aforementioned activities and chitter chatter, on this first pass through Madrid, we managed to squeeze in a couple more activities. One was a nice little hop-on hop-off bus tour. It was once again the kind with the soothing commentary and pleasant local-flavoured muzak, so essentially it was a city-circling snooze cruise. Aside from the restful benefits, it's also a lovely way to get a sense of the city when your eyes are open. 

The other was a visit to the Prado Museum, a vast and glorious gallery of classic masterpieces. Cherubs, well-hipped ladies and ascending Jesi (that the plural of Jesus, duh) abounded. There was also the occasional dog with a frilly collar and a handful of ancient Greek muses being chased by mischievous fawns. 

Museo del Prado

The famous "Las Meninas" by Diego Velázquez in the Prado Museum

The museum was one of those places that you would need a year of your life to properly explore. We spent about two hours at it. It was stunning, and well worth the visit, but by the end we were certainly all cultured out. The only thing that could be done to restore our youthful, exploratory vigour was to consume obnoxious quantities of ham. And with the help of El Museo de Jamón, that is exactly what we did. 

JAMÓN JAMÓN JAMÓN

After only a brief two days, the time came for us hop on a plane bound for verdant Éire - like us, Ma and Pa were making their roundabout way to Dublin and it was about time for a family reunion. 

Loathe to leave this enchanting town, but knowing we were soon to return and eager to continue our adventure, we navigated our way [this time with ease] by Metro to el aeropuerto. ¡Hasta luego, Madrid!

New Flatmate!

Everyone! I would like to introduce you to my new friend and cohabitant Tate!

He's bright, he's green and he makes my room smell waaaayyyy better than any "Mountain in a Can" that Febreeze has ever released. Plus, he's very quiet, which goes along ideally with my not being very quiet - he's a great listener.

He's also actually moved a few times on his own. This concerned me at first, but after a brief chat I learned that he's actually just developing enough sentience to give me a hug. And possibly become the Supreme Overlord of Humanity. But one thing at a time. Huggles first.

Bonus points to anyone who can correctly guess which type of greenery Tate is!

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Final note of the day: Just want to extend some felicitations to the Birthday Boy! Good work existing for another full year, you certainly did it sufficiently!

If you're not a Birthday Boy, that note is not for you. Sorry, chumps.