Laser Tag kicks ass November 25, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Personal , 1 comment so farI went to Shadowlands last night for my sister’s birthday party. At Shadowlands, you can play Laser Tag against your friendswhile simultaneously being destroyed by eight year olds who are way better than you’ll ever be. The best part is that the arena is filled with with fog so that you can see your laser as it zips across the arena to sear your opponents’ unprotected retina (goggles are for pussies). I want to go back!
Your thoughts?Report from Madrid: Day 5 November 24, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Personal, Photos , 1 comment so farNovember 10: No city has exploited my love of street food as successfully as Madrid. After watching an impressive street performance,
I was hungry so I had some roasted corn on the cob. No butter, just lots of salt. I’ve never had corn on the cob that way before, but it was delicious. Almost worth the $3 I paid for it.
I ate a $2 waffle cone. No ice cream, just the cone. It was good.
Also among today’s purchases: Nutella pie, toffee, orujo (a Spanish liquer), horchata, chocolate covered everything, and Turron, a popular almond-based Spanish candy that was surprisingly hard to track down.
Pre-dinner meal was at El Tigre, a popular Spanish tapas bar. In Spain, when you order a drink, you get tapas, which is Spanish for free food. And at El Tigre in particular, you get a lot of free food. I love this city.
Dinner was at a Japanese restaurant where we ordered four desserts between three people. The black sesame flan was good, as was the red bean ice cream, but yesterday’s dessert just set a really high bar.
Tonight found us at the street market for a third time where I assisted a bronze statue and examined vats of olives before discovering my new favorite snack in the entire world: roasted candied sunflower seeds. I can’t even put into words how much more delicious these nuts were than every other roasted nut product I’ve ever eaten.
This has been a productive trip. Before arriving in Madrid, I was under the impression that I didn’t like calamari, roasted chestnuts, or sunflower seeds. Turns out I was wrong on all counts.
I took the subway home and felt sorry for anyone who gets violated from behind by a large blue rectangle.
Happy Thanksgiving! It’s good to be home. November 22, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Personal , 2 commentsIt’s great to be back in the US with my family. Today will be spent with them, doing nothing but eating and sleeping. Oh, and laundry. My pants made it from Seattle through Munich, Madrid, Marrakesh, London, Paris, and back to Washington, D.C. without a wash - it’s time. On a related note, three weeks appears to be the maximum amount of time for rewearing my jeans, as that’s when then waistband becomes too stretched out for them to stay up anymore. On an unrelated note, I had coffee with chicory in Paris. Nestle makes instant coffee with chicory, apparently it’s still popular in Europe.
Your thoughts?Report from Madrid: Day 4 November 21, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Personal, Photos , 1 comment so farNovember 9: Today in the Plaza Mayor, I met a wineglass virtuoso. Seriously, he was playing Tchaikovsky. It was impressive.
Sarah bought me a stick to chew on. It tasted a little bit like licorice, but mostly like stick. Woody.
We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant with swings at the bar. No barstools at all, just really, really wobbly swings. Yet another brilliant idea that would never fly in the US.
I saw a woman in a glass cage (still not sure whether it was art or advertising),
a park at night,
There’s one restaurant in Madrid that’s so good and so cheap that you have to arrive 30 minutes before it opens to get a seat. Dinner was delicious, but the desserts were mindblowing. We ordered three for two of us, and the slice of chocolate ice cream covered by crème brulee swimming in a sea of rich chocolate sauce was beyond compare.
And on the way home we passed a market where herbalists insist they can cure whatever ails you.
Report from Madrid: Day 3 November 20, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Personal, Photos , add a commentNovember 8: Woke up late this morning, giving me just enough time to get to a local nunnery to buy cookies. Apparently their nuns aren’t allowed to even see men, so I had to use a turntable, enabling the nun and I to complete our transaction without ever laying eyes on each other.
The one glitch appeared due to my poor Spanish, so after several failed attempts to explain the different products and their prices, the nun just put everything she had on the turntable, I took what I wanted, put a 20 euro note down and rotated the turntable back, hoping I’d get change.
In Madrid, it is popular to have a big statue on top of your building.
Calle Fuencarral is the center of trendy fashion in Madrid, but I wasn’t impressed. I did see the New Rock store, though.
But all I ended up getting was a free HIV test. It was an interesting experience, interpreting the results with me speaking broken Spanish and my tester speaking broken English.
I continued to be impressed by European’s comfort level with sex. This display of inflatable sex toys is from the front window of a Diesel clothing store. You can just make out the inflatable sheep behind the old lady walking by.
On the way to dinner I passed the Museo de Jamon (Museum of Ham), a chain of stores selling meat as far as the eye can see.
I saw street musicians, rocking out on their panpipes.
At the Cava de Guitarra, our dinner stop, there’s always a guitar and a stool sitting by one of the walls than anyone can pick up and play. One guy did while we were there. I’ve never wanted to play guitar so badly.
In Madrid, tiny convenience stores are called Chinos because they’re all staffed by Asian immigrants. At night, the shopkeepers come out and sell snacks on the street to drunken, hungry bargoers.
Today finished off nicely with wandering the city until 5am. Plenty of time for playing in plastic,
barhopping with friends,
and of course, churros and chocolate. The chocolate dipping sauce is the consistency of hot, melted chocolate. Such an improvement over the American cinnamon and sugar version.
