hallo-gato

Halloween Alleycat.  I wasn’t going to ride, but caved to peer-pressure(!).  It was fun – we made a pentagon, as you can see on the map, or at this route-map (okay, so you can’t see the pentagram on the route map, but I was curious about the distance).  Here’s the material and the winners.  The clues are for a quiz that if you couldn’t answer you dropped a place, what’s the answer???? It’s super obvious, except that I always confuse him with Freddy Kreuger.

Bicicritica

This month’s bicicritica (remember, that’s critical mass here) was themed ‘elegante’ to celebrate 4 years of critical mass and growth from 4 riders to over a thousand!! It was, however quit chilly and most people didn’t dress up much.  Shelby and I went together in suits from the free store, here we are in the elevator.Putting both bikes in the tiny elevator at the same time was Shelby’s brilliant idea, and although we all fit fine, we got busted by the buidling manager at the bottom.  Now, this is a man who lives to serve the building and so I got it.  And then again yesterday I got it really bad, in front of some of the other tenants.  It is apparently not enough to say that you understand not to do something again, it is necessary to receive a lecture about how 2 bikes is 2 many.  Good news is the other folks who passed by clearly thought he was going overboard as well.  Sigh.

So the critical mass was pretty fun – and, there are two notables, besides the dressed up folks, here they are:  

yup, this is where I’ve gotten to puppies and small children…

more interestingly, I’ve been playing with the video option on my digital camera lately and am in the process of making clips of biking around town and of this critical mass, so look for updates on that!

Oh yeah, and here’s me at my elegant best

…there was a party at this squat, Malaya, that is just opening their free bike workshop with awesome lentils and hummus (and beer – all the squats have bars and coffee!)  In the photo next to me is the lovely Vanesa.

on the way in

today I noticed that on the almost last stretch of my commute to school I have this sweet mountain view.  I was quite tired and cold this morning so it was nice timing.  Also notice the bus barely resisting the urge to drive down the middle of the road.

rain rain rain

 So today was pretty miserable. Nasty, rainy, cold.  When I left this morning it was just blustery (blustery is a word other people use right? I mean, I said it in class and got ridiculed – kids these days) Then it just got cold and nasty. Umbrellas. Umbrella vendors. Then I talked to Shelby and we went to the Krishna’s (the Hare Krishna’s) for lunch.  No, I did not do any chanting, but I ate a ton of delicious, including a baked apple that tasted pretty much exactly like fall.  Imagine how nice it was to go in from the cold nasty and take off your shoes and sit on a little orange cushion on the floor and eat a vegetarian feast.    

Then I went wandering since I had the afternoon off.  I decided that I might as well start checking out all the sights that I ride past in my commute to school.  First on the list was the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de La Almudena 

(for no particular reason besides proximity when I thought of this).  This is the cathedral right next door to the Palacio Nacional.  So the story on the Cathedral, as far as I can tell, is that it was started in the late 1800s and worked on for a while.  Then, when the Civil War happened, everything stopped for a bit.  It wasn’t until 1953ish that anyone started working on it again and it took until 1993 for it to be finished and dedicated by the pope.  It really took be by surprise however, because form the outside it looks quite average – predictable style, made to match the national palace next door, you know.  So I expected that it would be the norm inside as well.  But, instead it’s quite modern in style.  The

 stained glass has several different (mostly ugly) styles.  Here a few pictures, this Jesus is so kind of Russian avante-garde, which actually seems like an interesting style choice for a church.  Then the rest of it looks like Austin Powers somehow exploded all over some Islamic latticework.  The paintings around the altar are nice, but there are a lot of clashing styles going on.  I did like this 

window, mostly because of the way her hands are in the next section over.

Outside I found this:I mean, it’s clear they think they are show the world how cool and hip and fun and wacky they are, but c’mon, adults on small scooters with four wheels each is just confusing.  But, the view was nice. Plus you can see my sweet ride in there at the bottom!

this past week

Since it’s been a while, a quick recap.

Last weekend I spent a lot of time at Hell in South, the bike fest put on by the fixed gear kids here.  It was a lot of fun – I rode in two alley cats on that crazy bike that I have. Also rode in a velodrome for the first time.  That shit is pretty crazy, but fun.  And, considering that the velodrome we went to is 400m a lap it’s very tiring.  Then, there was a metal show that was pretty good – lots of hair and head banging and other theatrics – generally the expected.  But! one the way home I got poured on.  Sunday there was some more bike stuff, some hill races which I did not participate in and then homework and general week preparation.  Nowhere is open in Madrid on Sunday (almost nowhere that is).  This means two things. (1) Places that are open tend to be owned by people who are not from Spain and there is a lot of the “Yes, they’re open, but they shoudln’t be” attitude about it. (I’m not sure why it really would matter so much but…) And (2) I can’t do my normal grocery-shop-on-Sunday-afternoon thing.  But, slowly, slowly I’m learning.

Then I spent all week doing this. Some sort of nasty put out for the whole week.  I only missed one day to school/work, but only today have a really felt better.  I did everything – drank lakes of water, slept during all of my free time, went to the pharmacy where the woman rather perfunctorily gave me some giant white allergy pills.  They helped with the drainage and headaches, but turned me into a total zombie. (I was looking for a picture of a good zombie or sleepwalker to put here, and a ran into these zombie walks that they have places! People really go all out, here’s someone flickr about it – but I guess if you really love zombies there only one way to really prove it?)

So the worst fall out from being ill has been that yesterday morning I was trying to go out and buy a few groceries and somehow managed to loose my wallet within two blocks of my house. Yeah, I have no idea.  I mean I understand that these things happen, but seriously, within 2 blocks has to be some kind of record.  So I made these little signs (soundtrack: Pinhead Gunpowder!) and put them up just in case one of the large population of elderly folks that live around here or some other kind person happened to have gotten it.  All the cards are cancelled, blah blah, but it was quite distressing – the only thing I have now to prove who I am at all is my passport, which I really don’t like to carry around – obviously sometimes I loose things.

Sigh.

The good news is that I made some great bread yesterday and then Shelby and I made awesome pizza. My roommate, Xavi, like it so much he kept saying ‘Sweet Jesus baby’ in an effort describe his feelings (for some reason that order feels correct to him instead of Sweet Baby Jesus, I blame the Irish guy, my other roommate, Bryan for all of this).  So that was great – terrific pizza, decent 2 euro wine, a little delicious chocolate bar for dessert – what more could you want?

Then we stepped out for a bit to this short film fest at La Boca del Lobo, which was actually kind of a bust. Thing is we saw 4 or five of the three hundred or so shorts that will be projected over ten days.  But it was hot and there were no chairs so we left.

Alley Gato

So let’s see.  Me and my bike are getting a long fairly predictably.  By that I mean that since it’s a salvaged bike it works about 75% of the time.  The rest of the time it does really annoying shit – the chain falls off, it jumps gears, the wheel starts wobbling out of nowhere, or the chain breaks completely.  What all that means is that I’m looking to build a new bike.  Since I’ve yet to jump on the fixed gear bandwagon, and it’s really just getting rolling (yarf) here, timing seems good.  I want to build the thing with a flip-flop hub so I’ve got options.  To start assembling the things I need I asked on the forum the fixie kids here have about where to find a frame.  (It seems like in general second-hand stuff isn’t all that acessible in Spain, I think people just keep things. Forever.)  So, via that I met this kid, Coco, that told me about the Alley Cat on Saturday. He also gave me the opportunity to buy this frame that he ahd managed to bend on his first day riding it (which I did not take him up on, but thanks, anyway).  Also, the process of meeting up with him got me more lost that I’ve yet been in Madrid.  Pretty ridiculous. 

Long story short, I went to the race on Saturday.  I did not ride (just imagine, an alley cat in a city you barely know after dark on a bike that can’t hold it’s chain for more than 20 minutes).  But I did hang out and meet the kids and take some photos.  There are a few more here.  Supposedly I’m also helping them screenprint shirts for the up coming Hell in South event in two weeks.

Saturday ride…

There an endless number of bike-lane promoting rides to go on here.  I went to this one because it was through the north-west part of Madrid, where I haven’t really spent much time.  While it was kind of interesting, most of the newer parts of Madrid have a really similar feel to them.  Plus, we were totally ‘escorted’ by the police and at several points were made to wait over in the parking lane for long periods of time – I assumed this was to let all the traffic pass, which seem a little self defeating. Oh well.  One this that is super cool about the rides like this here are the kids. 

 There are always lots of kids, both on their own bikes and on the backs of their folks’.

The search goes on…and on…and on…

It’s not that I don’t have a house.  The issue is that the room that I have currently is very small, which would be workable, but it doesn’t have a WINDOW.  You may think, as I did, that one can adjust to things, that as long as it’s temporary it doesn’t really matter, that maybe this is part of why we have electricity or even that

Entrance, Calle del Olivar, 8

that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  If you were me and you though those things about living in a windowless room, you would be wrong.  It is far more disorienting than you may think.  Call me a weenie, I’m ready to move out.  I’ve been in there for almost 2 weeks now and even though there is a light switch right directly over the bed I still have this brief moment of frantic waving and groping trying to find it.  The bed doesn’t move, but sill I have to think about how I’m laying in order to find the wall.

 

But enough about that.  I am still looking for a house.  I go and see houses almost everyday, or at least every other day…and there is frequently something strange.  There are many places that have been ill-advisedly divided and subdivided to create more rooms, places where there are no windows, places where they don’t want me for being a student, places where there are unspecified numbers of others living in

Hall, Calle del Olivar, 8

 rooms whose doors don’t open, children who tell me not to open the fridge, people who ask absolutely no questions about me at all…there’s a little of everything.  This is just some venting, but after three-plus weeks I’m tired!

Really, I would like to stay where I am, the guys that live here, Chema and Alvaro are super great and the location is pretty unbeatable.  The neighborhood is Lavapies/Tirso de Molina and it’s very diverse.  There are people from all different parts of the world doing all manner of things.  There are a lot of artsy things, divey bars, radical bookstore, etc.  Also we are really close to the center of the city and only about 15 minutes from the Retiro.  In other words, its a winner, other than the fact that it’s a cave.

But, no worries, it’ll happen given enough time…

La Noche en Blanco

Every year for some number of years now Madrid has this big street party that lasts until 6 a.m.  There are a large variety of arts things that happen, concerts, and installations of all kinds at a whole bunch of venues around the center of the city.  It was last Saturday.  If you read the previous post, you already know, I was tired.  But the Noche en Blanco cannot be denied.  Plans were made to meet up at Shelby’s, which is a shared apartment with up to 10 people.  It seems little wild, but also really interesting.  Some people are there for one months, others for six or more and there are folks from everywhere.  So Shelby’s there.  He made some food, we drank some booze, some Brazilians, an Argentine and a Canadian showed up, there was much loudness and then Morgan and Oriana showed up.  More eating, drinking (booze, juice, coca-cola, lemon soda and coffee, in any combo or not) and then we set off, into the night.

Mostly we saw other people.  Tens of thousands of them.  We were trying to head towards the Puerto de Alcala to be illuminated by giant lights, but we were waylaid by a giant crowd waiting to see a tightrope walker.  It is pretty incredible to be on the main streets of Madrid in the middle of the night with so many people.  They shut the city down for this night.  It’s pretty amazing when it’s happening to see no traffic except of foot and bike and stroller and rollerblade, but then when you see those same spaces occupied by bazillions of cars its even wilder.  Then, the tightrope walked chickened out because of the wind and we 4 were scattered in the crowd.

 

We were eventually reunited, but in the end I went home only really having seen some inflated tubes stuck to the side of a building and some light up kisses projected on another.

El Retiro

On Friday night I went to a birthday party in this occupied lot a few blocks down from my house.  I am still no sure whose birthday it was, but it was nice.  The space is really pleasant – it’s behind this wall with sheets of metal on top to make it taller, but then you get inside and there are trees and it’s quieter and it almost works like a portal.  Anyhow, from there we rode bikes to Vallecas.  This is about a 40-minute ride and we didn’t even leave the party until about midnight.  Then, of course, we got lost.  But in the end it was fun – big outdoor stage and 2 bands.  The first we saw was a ska group from Argentina.  Just to vacillate a little more on the saxophone topic, it didn’t mind it in this case.  They were fun, and then a group played from here.  Names you ask? I have no idea.  In the fashion of the Madrileno, I didn’t make it to bed until at least 5:30.

So.  Needless to say, I wasn’t in shape to do very much on Saturday.  I decided that going to the park sounded nice and set off towards Madrid’s famous Parque El Buen Retiro.  As someone in class said, it’s kind of like the Central Park of Madrid.  Very nice and tidy.  There is also a botanical gardens there that is supposed to be super great, but I haven’t made it yet.  So I went and sat around and read and drew and watched 

people and without really choosing to I listened to this guy next to me huff and whoosh his way through a calisthenics routine.  There were a lot of people playing with their poi (I just want to add that while I was looking for a photo of this I came across a website called “feraltech”. for serious.) And, they were taking it really seriously – it was as though I was in the ‘private poi lessons’ sections of the park.

Then I left.

Then I accidentally walked past this nice used book market.  While there were only a few stalls open on Saturday, there are a lot and the variety and quality of the books seemed pretty good.  

But most exciting was this:Which, I guess, is so that when your 5 year old gets to work and there’s no where to put their bike they can fold it and put it under their desk. Right?