TMi

It was our last day to get out and see Madrid. So what had to happen? {Shoes and wet pavement.} A pollen nastied wind kick up all of the histamines of the city and threw them in my face; all up in my mucus membranes. As soon as we left the hotel, I was miserable. I should have been excited, but all of Madrid went up my nose and I was horrified at the thought of getting sick outside my usual realms. I did that once in Derby, England and I swear my sinuses (even my ears) have not been right ever since. To this day, I curse that place for my succumbing to illness during that long, chilled night waiting for the stupid East Midland train . So this vile Spanish wind was bringing a storm front with it. After weeks of sun and hot weather, it finally rained. A passing shower, really. We hung around outside eating lunch to let ourselves get get caught in it. When it got too heavy, we did the city thing and stood under the nearest welcoming over hang until the clouds thinned. This kind...

{They so like masses.} Then I was reminded about this thing that most American's don't know about called futbol... I didn't want to quit my Spain reveries before mentioning the futbol. While we were in Madrid, not only was there a prominent saintly festival, there was a championship futbol game that Real Madrid just happened to win. In the words of my Human, 'the whole city was exploding.' Team colors were suddenly everywhere. The police were ready for rioting and had a plan to keep all the drunken revellers funnelled, channeled and corralled. It was a madhouse, but you could navigate it without being overborne with people finding some way to make noise. After nightfall some asshats managed to set off a couple of m80s en Barrio de Las Letras where the streets are narrowest... Does anyone understand wave mechanics? the physics of sound? .. guh. La policia came quick for them. AND. Just to make this time more surreal, we gathered that there was s...

{ i would expect this in brooklyn, but in madrid? } { i love people sized streets! this is not an alley. } { this is obviously the elf embassy building. } { light and shadow and a sign that says chocolate. }

In the Slaughter House Lovis Corinth   1893   So if you go outside of Madrid proper, down some fancy named  calles (streets), you will end up at the river. And at the place of slaughter and selling of flesh.  El matadero . It isn't a very old place, by European standards, but it really resonated in a familiar way with me. I grew up in New England where similar architecture was built at about the same time: late 1800s-early 1900s. Webster was a factory town of textiles. Though textile printing is far from livestock processing, it felt kinda 'homey' in an exotic Spanish way. It was amazing in its simplicity and aesthetic and... the place was huge. It wasn't just one building. That would be a slaughterhouse, singular. This was a complex! There were many buildings. Each with it's own purpose. I could not believe the amount of space designated for the sole purpose the trade of flesh, dead and possibly otherwise. My time there was spent in the library qui...

Since I have lost a lot of sleep this week (for no good reason) and am feeling completely useless, I think I should do another random travel blog entry. If there are errors it is because I cannot focus either my brain or my eyes. It is a given. You go to almost anywhere in a European city you will be hit over the head with art. And as an apparently art starved American I can't help but notice I am being smashed with the sight of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and.. by magic.. (Thanks Tolkien for slipping in there.) { lighting  array - best installation art ever? } I loved the Thyssen . As a person it felt good to be in there and I think if I were a painting I would be ecstatic to hang on those walls. It felt like there was a lot of love for art in that place. And the walls were painted in peach tones! This, to me, was awesome. The whole place was a peach- with art!  Coming from the land of white boxes, white rooms, white galleries the colour really sai...

{on the bridge} The name San Ysidro brings no goods feeling to most borderland Mexicans. This spot on the globe is one of the most tedious crossing points of the US and Mexico; especially on foot. When in the capital of Spain, however, the patron saint- San Isidro brings picnics in the park, holy donuts (known more as exquisitas rosquillas) , carnations, and the appearance of really great fashion. And not just for one little day, but for almost a week! In the best of weather, we made our way on foot across town, down through the Toledo gate and traversed the bridge to the saintly park/ cemetery where all of Madrid was outside the safety of the city proper having a picnic on any scrap of grass left open. They were raffling off ham legs, children were flying through the air on amusement park rides, elegant police horses trotted through the scene, balloons bunched almost as thickly as the crowds of people... All these things enticed me to shudder, speedily shutter click click...

No one looks forward to having bad dreams. They are an uncomfortable business that can sour your whole day. It isn't expected that a soft bed in a pleasant hotel room in sunny Spain turns out out to be the gateway to the dark, chaotic subconscious. But there I was, on vacation, for my birthday, and having terrible dreams.   Negatives  aside, they can be as much of a learning tool as anything else, if you pay attention to them.  And I didn't find it so very queer to be having them- given my circumstances. I have come to the age where I am supposed to have built up something: a career, a business, a family- something. I feel I have nothing and am steadily, stubbornly moving forward making absolutely no headway. My brain is grappling with the obscure 'path' I am on and the lack of common markers that are found in most people's lives. So of course the very moment I "get away from it all' the demons appear. I finally got the space enough to deal with them. I ...

"The Bitter Well" Tears of remembrance and longing from a young Toledo  woman for her lost lover have made the waters of this well bitter.