Click here to read the previous post, Adjusting to Life in Spain: How I Meet New People (Wine Tasting)
I continue going to my weekly language exchange meetup to practice my Spanish as well as meet new people, and after the last meeting, I exchange phone numbers with a really friendly woman who was there to practice her English. We go for coffee later in the week and wind up chatting for about four hours. I hardly notice the time as we talk about all sorts of things, silly and serious, in Spanish and in English.
We connect so well that, upon mentioning my birthday – which happens to be the following week – she says that if I have no other plans (knowing that I’m new to Spain and have no family or friends, save one who lives outside of Madrid, here), she’d be delighted to celebrate it with me. I’m moved by her kindness and delighted to spend more time with her.
The next Wednesday, as I’m getting ready to go meet my new friend C, the intercom buzzes and two minutes later a delivery guy holds out a bouquet of flowers for me – sent by my mom in Canada! What a beautiful way to start my birthday!
Then I head out to meet C at her metro stop where we commence the birthday adventure! In response to a question from her earlier, I had texted her a list of some places I’d been wanting to check out, so on that refreshingly cool afternoon, we head to the first place.
Sushi in Madrid
After three months in Spain, I finally start to crave food other than typical Spanish fare. It hasn’t occurred to me before this to look for international cuisine because, to be honest, when I think of Spain, I don’t immediately think: chow mein. Or souvlaki. Or cheeseburgers. So when I started hankering for sushi, the first thing I did was ask a couple madrileños for recommendations.
And that led C and I to hit up Musashi for sushi. It’s an unassuming little place on a narrow street filled with Spanish restaurants and cafés, and although the inside is quite lovely, we sit at an outdoor table.
Source: Musashi
I learn that it was opened in 1991 and was one of the first Japanese restaurants in Spain. Well, they must be doing something right to survive for 33 years!
We order several dishes to share, including California Roll and gyoza, my two go-tos that will tell me if the rest of the restaurant’s food is good (if they can’t do simple, basic fare well, how well are they going to make something more complex?):
To start the birthday celebration off, we also order sake, a drink that C has never had. After a few sips, she says that it’s fine, but she wouldn’t order it again. I can understand. I’m no sake expert (and thus didn’t order anything specific), but I prefer a sweeter sake.
The dishes we have are good to pretty good, but not eyes-roll-up-to-the-heavens-above great. However, everything is still good enough that the whole experience is absolutely enjoyable. Great conversation over food and drink, excellent atmosphere, new experience. The only strange thing for me is to be eating Japanese food while all the conversations around us are in Spanish.
This is a place I’d definitely go back to, and I save it in my Maps.
La Venencia – er, Casa Alberto for Drinks
Next stop, La Venencia for a sherry. Yes, the Hemingway sherry bar that I learned about at a wine tasting last week. We stroll the 1.5 km (just under a mile) through cobblestone streets and past beautiful buildings, including the Basílica Pontificia de San Miguel (Pontifical Basilica of Saint Michael), which takes us about 20 minutes.
C is surprised that I can find my way without a map, but I admit that this ability only clicked in about a week ago. Prior to that I could hardly find my way two blocks over, what with all the narrow, winding streets lined with centuries’ old buildings, but then one day landmarks just suddenly looked familiar. I’d be on the brink of pulling out my phone when I’d see something (a building, a sign) and exclaim, “Oh! I know that!”
La Venencia is described as “wood casks & dusty bottles in a tavern from the 1930s, serving 5 types of sherry with rustic tapas.” And, like so many places in the historical el centro, it is tucked away on a, yes, narrow, winding street:
After the sherry wine tasting I attended where I learned of this place, I’m excited to try some more sherries (that hopefully I’ll like this time). But, alas, it won’t be today because La Venencia is closed.
“But it says it’s open on Maps!” I say out loud. I should know better than to trust technology.
This is a place I’ll definitely come back to – when it’s open – and I save it in my Maps.
No matter. On our way over here we’d passed Casa Alberto, a “historic bar & eatery opened in 1827, with classic tapas, seafood & meat, plus house-made vermouth.” The tavern is built on the previous site of Miguel de Cervantes’ home, and there is a bronze plaque on the ground right out front from the city of Madrid stating that the business is over 100 years old (in three more years, it will be 200 years old!!). It’s also painted a very conspicuous red, which signaled to folks back in the day, many of whom could not read, that this was an establishment that sold alcohol.
C gives me a look. “You sound like a guide, but you just moved here!”
True, but that’s not surprising. Both of us have lived in places other than our home towns, and the first thing you do when you’re new to a city is learn all about it. It’s when you’ve lived in one place for a long time that you tend to forget to keep exploring it.
We sit at the bar right next to the open door and each order a vermut de grifa (vermouth on tap), which is not your typical American-type dry vermouth that martinis are made with. The vermouth here is sweet and drunk on its own with ice cubes and often a slice of orange. I find this vermut pretty darn good; C says it’s not bad but she’s had better. I believe her – she’s lived here a lot longer than my mere three months!
Learning a New Language Sidebar
We’ve been speaking mostly Spanish so far, but at this point my brain is sputtering like a car engine about to stall, so we switch to English. I tell her about the movie Arrival (with Amy Adams, not to be confused with The Arrival with Charlie Sheen) in which language…. Ok, after struggling for ten minutes about how to succinctly explain this, I’m just going to let someone else do it for me.
From Screenrant (bolding mine):
Source: Screenrant
When C’s eyes glaze over, I cut myself off and say, “My point is, this is how I feel being immersed in Spain learning to speak Spanish. My brain is being rewired and, quite frankly, sometimes the growth spurts hurt.”
For example, for me, a native English speaker, to say “I gave it to him” in Spanish (“Se lo di a él”), I have to think hard in order to form a sentence in the correct order:
Or:
Oxford Drama Club
Club de teatro de Oxford
Anyway, vermut finished (not to mention the conversation, thanks to me), we head out to another place I’ve been wanting to check out.
This is a place I’d definitely go back to, and I save it in my Maps.
Decadente for Dessert
Just four blocks from Casa Alberto is a dessert place.
This slice of neighborhood, called Barrio de las Letras (Literary Quarter) is choc full o’ fantastic eating and drinking establishments. It was the place to live back in the day (as far back as the 16th century): From Lope de Vega and Miguel de Cervantes, to Federico García Lorca and Ernest Hemingway, many writers lived (and drank) in this area of Madrid. There is the Teatro Español, the Plaza de Santa Ana, and more bistros and bars than you can shake an alcoholic at.
I highly recommend this book, A Guide to Madrid’s Literary District/Guía del Barrio de las Letras de Madrid by Felicity Hughes, conveniently written in Spanish on the left page and English on the right page:
Anyway, I rarely get dessert when I go out, but for my birthday I’m thinking a piece of cake seems like a mighty fine idea. And Decadente comes highly recommended. It is described as a “sophisticated late-night restaurant presenting creative meals & desserts, plus cocktails.”
Once again, though the inside of Decadente looks fantastic…
Source: Google
C and I opt to sit at an outdoor table and watch the world go by….
Outdoor seating at Decadente where you can people watch…
We order a slice of tarta de cremosa de chocolate (creamy chocolate cake) and a slice of tarta de queso (cheesecake), and as soon as the waitress has set the plates down on our table, C pulls a candle and a lighter out of her purse!
She lights the candle, which is a question mark, since she doesn’t know how old I am.
“Make a birthday wish!” she grins.
And I can’t help but think that I’m already living my birthday wish. Well, at least one of them. So I close my eyes and make more wishes, now that I know they come true.
We split the chocolate cake and the cheesecake, then sit back and chat with a couple of iced carajillos (iced Baileys coffee). With each new stage of tonight’s adventure, we get to know the city better as well as each other.
And, by the way, there’s a half naked guy in the empty coffee shop across the narrow street who does not go unnoticed.
This is a place I’d definitely go back to (Decadente, not the coffee shop), and I save it in my Maps.
La Coquette Blues Bar
I haven’t been to see live music in Spain yet, and not even in Los Angeles for quite some time, so I am happy when two different people recommend this place to me. Neither C nor I are necessarily blues fans, but we are music and, more importantly, try-something-new fans, so off we go.
By the way, at the end of the night I realize that we’ve walked about 9km (5.5 miles) as we strolled from one place to the next, or just wandered through the beautiful streets getting lost in our conversation.
La Coquette Blues Bar is a tiny place that looks like someone converted their brick-walled wine cellar into a bar, purely for the love of music.
It’s definitely cozy and, from what all these regular person reviewers are saying, it features well-known blues musicians from Spain and around the world.
Source: Facebook
This venue doesn’t even have a website, just a Facebook profile (and a lot of Yelp and Google reviews) which describes itself thusly: “Founded in 1982, dedicated solely and exclusively to BLUES music and its different styles, on whose stage renowned musicians of different nationalities passed and continue to pass.” (That’s the English translation. I’m assuming they mean “passed through,” not “died.”)
C and I arrive after the band has already gone on, so the bar is crowded and the only seats we can find are in a little annex. Can’t see much, but the sound is excellent and the music is fantastic.
As we groove to the music, we continue to chat in Spanish and English, and I don’t know whether it’s the late hour, the multiple drinks, or the connection with a new friend, but we get the giggles and can’t stop laughing, no matter who turns around to stare at us.
This is a place I’d definitely go back to, and I save it in my Maps.
And if I could, I’d also save C to my Maps, because I’ll definitely hang out with her again. She’s kind and generous and smart and funny, and is patient with my imperfect Spanish.
So for my first birthday in Spain and in a city where I don’t didn’t know anyone, this has been one of the best nights in a very long time.
CLICK HERE TO READ the next post, ADJUSTING TO LIFE IN SPAIN: A Trip to La Adrada
Note: All photos taken or created (using DALL-E) by Selena Templeton, unless otherwise noted.
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