Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest pretty much tops them all as of this point.  Friday night I arrived and met up with all of the Dena homies.  From the moment we left the train stop by our Hostel in Downtown Munich, it was easy to see that Oktoberfest was already in full force. 

The streets were littered with the wreckage of hundreds of drunken people wandering the streets chanting, stumbling and puking. Actually, at first I had a bit of an aversion to the spectacle, but after we found a bar my first few steins settled any inhibitions that I may have had. 

You join the level of the mob around you, and no longer are you surrounded by a madhouse, you're an inmate. The next two days we dedicated to the beer tents, and as for that I think the photos can describe better than me. Our hostel was a loud, smelly, mess, which seemed find in the midst of all the action. I was lost after the tents day one by myself, wandering aimlessly through the streets of Munich. Somehow people in my group found me.  

The weekend as a whole can only be described as an experience that it will take a year for me to recover from.. well there's always 2009.

Porto: Graff Installment

In addition to the wine, the food, the booze and the debauchery, Porto seems to have a number of good artists coming up in full force around the city. Here are some of the cooler pictures I got while I was there.

Porto, Portugal

This past weekend I travelled to Porto, Portugal; the birthplace and home to Port Wine.  Its a beautiful city divided by a river and Filled with Wineries.  There are legitimately street signs that point you in the direction of different wineries, all of which offer free tours and tastings, which we capitalized on promptly. 

 Our Hostel was amazing (Hostel Andarilho), we had a 10 person bedroom to ourselves (we fortunately had a group of ten so no worries about random roomates) and the whole place was decorated with a very cool, modern decor. It also had a courtyard attached to it, which provided the perfect setting for beer pong before we went out at night. 

Everything in Portugal is much cheaper than in Madrid, for example we bought a 24 pack of beer, a fifth of smirnoff, and some food and water and our total was 18 euro. I think Europe as a whole wants me to be drunk all the time, because its easier and cheaper to find a bar or somewhere to buy drinks than it is to find food and water.  From beer pong with foreigners to booze cruises on the river and from moroccan restaurants to thai food, Porto was a blur well worth remembering.

Valle de los Caídos

This place is sick. After a tour of this palace in El Escorial and a leisurely lunch with at least a couple pitchers of sangria, we got back on the bus where I promptly passed out.  However, some period of time later I awoke to the amazing sight and views of El Valle de los Caídos.  That cross is massive and perched on the top of the mountain, with four of the largest sculptures of people I've ever seen on the corners of its base. Those arches in the back lead into an unbelievably large vaulted cathedral built inside the mountain with a enormous Dome in the middle right under the cross.  Its called Valle De Los Caídos because it was built by the people who were conquered and the prisoners after the Spanish Civil war.

Graff Art: Installment #1

An idea I just thought of. I have been overwhelmed with the amount of graffiti and street art here in Madrid, and I've just decided after taking these to photos to dedicate a little string of posts from time to time featuring some of these artists.  The one on top features a poster tag with a guy sliding a fixed gear, officially my first sighting of fixed gear culture here.(thanks for the pic noelle) And the second one goes out to my buddy Conor, how you like them hands son?

El Noche en Blanco

To mark the transition from the vacationing months of summer back into the everyday grind of Fall and winter, Spain has a festival called La Noche en Blanco.  Basically its a city-wide celebration where most restaurants and bars stay open until 7 o'clock in the morning and there are various concerts and art installations happening all over the city. The streets and public spaces, like Puerta Del Sol and Plaza Mayor, were flooded with people and the air was crisp and full with the sounds of the drunken masses. We started our night at our friends', Jeb and Ben's, apartment and then joined the mob in the streets to find an art exhibit we'd heard about. The exhibit was called "Mar De Luces" or a Sea of Lights which was a quick stroll away through the throngs of party-goers.  With the alcohol settling in quite nicely, we made our way back to Puerta Del Sol, making a quick pit stop at Burger King, and headed to the bar Dubliner's to watch the USC vs Ohio St. game.  After a couple more beers and an Irish Car Bomb or two, the remainder of our night became a hilarious whirlwind of churros con chocolate, grown men in clown wigs and all sorts ridiculous tomfoolery.  Hilarity ensued. got home around 7 am once the trains started to run again.

SIGHTED: Fixie in Puerta Del Sol

We had just finished a gigantic meal at this Mexican Restaurant which we scoured Madrid to find (mexican food is not easy to come by here) and as we walked back to the metro in Puerto Del Sol, along cruises a guy on an all red fixed gear, just cruising through traffic. I did my best to restrain my desire to tackle him off his bike, half for want of contact with the Madrid fixie community and half out of impulse to take his bike and ride it to my heart's content. I settled with simply watching him cruise up the street, and took a photo with his bike later when I saw it parked by the metro...

Public Transportation Blows

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge proponent of public transportation for its environmental benefits and conservation of dwindling fuel sources, and Madrid has an excellent system, thats pretty quick and convenient to get around, with buses and metros. But give me a fuckin car any day. I just want to jump in my car, with whoever i want and go directly to my destination with my tracks playing and air-conditioning when I want. Its really not that bad here, but when its crowded you have people bumping you and rubbing against you from all sides, random sweaty people ripping ass and coughing all over you, and if thats not bad enough you're paranoid about whether these people plastered against your sides are gonna snag your wallet or my precious iphone.  However, back on the positive side, its nice knowing you can always order one more round of shots, or another pitcher of sangria at lunch, or while I'm out, cause someone else is always my D.D.

The Sky is Falling

There's been some crazy weather here lately.  What was a hot, sunny day became the most torrential hail storm I've ever seen; immediately filling the streets with ice and and then flooding the streets with rivers of ice filled water.  It was constant pouring of hail the size of marbles, we're talking just shy of golf balls at times. Cars were getting pounded, car alarms set off, lightning in the skies of Madrid. It all amounted to a pretty interesting evening.

B-days, Beer Pong, and bad decisions..

Monday rolls around and so does our first week of class; thankfully Tues. would be a spanish holiday and school was cancelled. With no class the next day and many birthdays amongst students here, it seemed not only appropriate, but completely necessary that we all head out to bar near campus monday night to celebrate our first day back in the salt mines. Our first night at maloney's proved it would not be our last. A small bar, packed with kids from multiple programs here in Madrid, that offers daily specials like 3 euro pitchers on wed. or 10euro all you can drink tuesdays, quickly won our affection. O yeah, and it helps that they have a table for beer pong, flip cup, and quarters...

When beer's cheaper than water what do you expect?

We arrive four days prior to the beginning of the program, and the time blows by like smoke from a whiskey fire... quite literally. Then it was time for orientation and for us to move from our sweet hotel into our Señora's house, which could have seemed like a bummer if our señora's house wasn't SO nice, or the circumstances of our orientation weren't so good. The entire program, around 30 SMU students and near 60 USD students, were put into a single dormitory in the amazingly historic, and bar-filled, city of TOLEDO. Our obligations were slight, with a few tours of local cathedrals and a couple informational classes, but nothing a good pregame at the pub couldn't liven up...with that many college students compiled in one dormitory for the inception of the program, it seemed the quaint town of Toledo could have been Cabo itself...

Three airports, Two missed flights, and 27 hours later...

I finally arrived in Madrid.  The hotel mario is sick and well located near Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor.  Evan and I, alone, commence drinking and aimlessly walking bar to bar... We even got solicited by a friendly hooker or two, but after brief negotiations no settlements were reached.