Feliz Navidad!

Pictures! :
1. Me and crazy Madrileno named Perrico
2. In my delirium I took quite an artistic photo of McDonalds decor
3. "Gracias" says the Madrid Airport McDonalds. The terminal is actually really modern in design. I likey.
4. Again, in my delirium at about 4am I took pictures of myself in a photobooth.

So because of this laptop ordeal I spent Christmas Eve at the Madrid Airport. It was actually not as bad as you would think, and I realized that if you´re not with people you love on Christmas, the best place to be is at the airport because like you, everyone else there just wants to forget that it´s Christmas. I met a guy who is living at the airport. Yes, actually living there. He´s Czech and the and a half months ago he was spending the night at the Madrid Airport and when he woke up all of his stuff was gone, including his passport. I guess he´s in trouble with the law in the Czech Republic, so the consulate isn´t being too helpful and they pretty much said that he can´t go back until he gets a new passport, which will be in 6 months. So he´s still got quite a bit of time to go. He wasn´t lying either, since I met all his airport employee friends who feed him McDonalds and let him use the employee showers. It´s crazy, I thought these things only happen in movies. Think Tom Hanks in The Terminal.

I slept for a total of maybe 2 hours that night, and then decided to go into the city while I waited for my flight, which was at 6pm the next day (25th). I took the metro to the center of town and went to Plaza Mayor to get something to eat. There was a market there and I sat down with my calamari bocadillo to peoplewatch. This guy comes up to me and he has just bought a ridiculously large wig, huge purple sunglasses and a yellow boa and was trying them on while talking to me. We kept talking and he invites me to go to a bar and get a drink. This all sounds really weird and creepy, but he actually wasn´t. He was just sorta crazy and really really funny. So we go into one of the bars that are lining the plaza (he´s wearing his ridiculous get-up at this point) and he buys me beer and instantly makes friends with this other guy. The two of them were probably the funniest Spanish people I´ve met here. They were both a little over 30 and while they kept telling me dirty jokes, neither one was actually hitting on me, which just made the whole thing that much more enjoyable. After like 4 of these beers each (they were sorta small) we go out and he starts asking these two Spanish girls if they smoke marijuana cause that was their next plan of action. These girls are twins and they´re 18, but they come along with us and we sit down right there, in full sight, next to this huge plaza, and they take out papers and weed and start smoking. No one got stoned or anything, but it made for nice conversation. So after this, they go and get yet more beer and then it´s 3pm and I have to get back to the airport, so these two gentlemen walk me to the Metro station, we exchange email addresses and I´m off. It was probably the most random afternoon I´ve ever had in my life, and once I get to someplace with wifi, I´ll post pictures of these guys. I´ll say this again, no matter how weird and I guess unsafe the whole thing sounds, I was using my best common sense, staying in a crowd, etc, until I realized that these guys aren´t after anything, they´re just very random and crazy. Before I left he did ask me to be his girlfriend, but that was more of a joke than anything else. It was the best farewell that I could have bid to Madrid.

!Madrid, te quiero!