Back at home in Madrid, the festivities continued. Pat and I barely had time to unpack our clothes, wash them and hang them out to dry (because evidently no one believes in dryers here, so your clothes are nice and hard, almost standing up on their own), before we went to the airport to greet Ilanit. She was coming in from Italy to spend the weekend with us. Luckily for Pat, Iberia had managed to find her bags, so we were able to pick them up at the same time.
We headed back to the apartment, got ready, and then went out to the Salsa Simposium. The first night of shows was pretty good, and we even got to see my friend Sandro perform with his partner. Thursday night's show ended with a magnificent performance by Pablo and Diana from Madrid. Wow!!!
Social dancing was fun that night, but difficult because all the dancers decided to choose the slanted section of the building to dance in. So most of the night was spent bumping into people because it was so difficult to stay in one place due to the angle of the dance floor. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun. Sandro brought us back home around 6am. Our feet were exhausted.
The next day, we woke up around 2pm and headed on foot towards the downtown area of Madrid. We walked along Alcalá down towards Puerta de Alcalá, through Plaza Cibelles and Banco de España, and then down to Puerta de Sol, the heart of Madrid. We ate at my favorite café called Faborit, had their delicious "chocolate a la taza", and then headed to the shops.
Around 7pm we started to make our way back home when we ran into a Good Friday procession in the streets of Madrid! I had been wanting to see something ceremonial for the Semana Santa week/weekend, and lo an behold, we bumped right into it. We perched ourselves up on the window ledges above the crowd for the next hour as we watched the people walking by. There were bands, men and women wearing tall, pointy purple hoods with only their eyes showing (not sure what this garb represents exactly), people walking barefoot, people walking barefoot with their ankles chained together, a man holding a wooden cross, and then the final part was a glorious gold ornamental carriage that was carried through the procession. It was beautiful, and we had a bird's eye view!
We rushed home to get ready because we were having all my friends Patry, Rober, and Sandro over for dinner. We made gnocchi, potatoes, and salad, while my friends brought little sandwiches and pasta dishes as appetizers. It was an interesting assortment of food, but all delicious. After dinner we headed to the simposium again to watch the most incredible shows, beginning with a tango group that recreated Moulin Rouge. It was so beautiful we all had goosebumps. We saw Tropical Gem, Latin Black, Maykel Fonts and many other incredible performers from all over Europe. After the shows we danced our hearts out. So many talented dancers, so little time! Before we knew it, the lights were on and it was 6am. Time to jump in the cab to head home.
The next day we woke up around noon, showered, and headed to the other main part of Madrid called Gran Vía, where the popular shopping street Fuencarral is. We all did a little shopping, and then went back home, got ready, and then went out to Villaverde Alto, where we had tapas at Patry and Rober's new condo. Rober had made tortilla de patata, esparragos, empanadas, salad, slices of bread with camember cheese, walnuts, and caramel on top, slices of tomato with mozzarella, and more. It was so impressive! After the meal, he made crepes and we got to choose our topping of chocolate, toffee, or whipped cream. Of course, we all chose all of them, although the toffee was the best. After that we made our way to the congress again where we saw many of the same performers with their 2nd (and better) act, and then did our best to social dance, but we were all so tired. After the dancing we went to the famous Chocolatería San Gines to have the typical afterhours snack of chocolate con churros. Delicious! Of course the chocolate doesn't beat the chocolate at Faborit, but it's still pretty good.
We got home at 7am, the girls packed their bags, and then left for the airport by 9am. I slept until about 3:30pm, and woke up only because I knew I had to because Sunday night's performance at the congress was extra special. It was a 2-hour performance by Frankie Martinez and his dance company. He is a salsa legend! But before I got there, I decided to do a little laundry. I was talking on the phone when all of a sudden I heard water splashing in the kitchen. I went in there and there was a swimming pool of water all over the floor from the washing machine! I don't know what happened because I had just done laundry a few days earlier without any trouble. Let me tell u how funny this was. If someone could have filmed this, it would've ended up on America's Funniest Home Videos. Water splashing out, me rushing to find towels in th house, slipping on the floor, dropping the mop, picking it back up, dropping i again, wringing out the towels in the sink only to throw them on the floor again drying to absorb the water! I finally got it to stop, and then when I opened the washing machine door to try to get the clothes out, out came another flood of water! Hahahahaha! I repeated the same process again, and then used a bowl to scoop up the rest of the water from the washer and dump it into the sink. After that I took my clothes to the shower and hosed them down to get all the soap out, wrung them out, and then hung them to dry. What a mess!!!
So by the time I got to the congress, I was exhuasted and my fingers were prunes! :)
Frankie's performance was incredible. He is so talented. Amazing footwork, body movement, and body isolation. 2-hours of dancing with a few intermissions so they could change their outfits. I stayed to dance a little bit. The dancing was much better Sunday night that Saturday because there were fewer people and more room to dance.
Now it's Monday, and I am trying to fight off a cold and body exhaustion before heading to Sweden this weekend for the Salsa Congress there.
To see my pics, click on Collections and look for Madrid. Enjoy!
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