Amber in Madrid

09.11.17 — Madrid

So today is a national holiday here in Madrid, and that meant that I managed to oversleep and miss a trip to the very north of the community of Madrid to go for a hike. Oops! But that at least means I have an hour to sit and update you all on the latest bit of gallivanting around the big city – this time with Amber!

As mentioned before, Amber booked flights and a hostel to spend almost a week here, and so on Thursday evening I left work and went to go and pick her up from the airport. It was lovely to see her again, but as we were both tired and pressed for time that evening, we shared a jug of sangria and headed off for a relatively early night.

On Friday though, and after a morning of exploring the west of the city including the Egyptian Temple, she came along to the office to say hello to everyone once again (last year she visited with Jess whilst I was an intern). Once more we had a spread of snacks or aperitivos laid out, and I finally got round to fulfilling Mario’s request for a round of coronation chicken sandwiches – they went down an absolute storm!

As we finish early on Friday at work, from there we headed down to the lake for a relaxed ice cream. During a wander around the lake we wound up taking a different path than usual, and stumbled upon an old viaduct, before heading deep into the city centre once more for some relaxed drinks in Malasaña and then Lavapiés. We covered a lot of ground and drank a lot of the local cocktail, tinto de verano!

Sunglasses, apparently, are even needed at night in Madrid.

On Saturday morning, and after a decent lie in, we met up down in the south of the city at the cultural centre called Matadero. We had a good look through a photography exhibition, sat down for some pintchos, pastries and coffee for breakfast, then explored an outdoor exhibition of design from around Spain and Latin America.

After this we crossed the river and had a snoop around the new Madrid Río 2 shopping centre, before heading back up northwards to continue or snack fest and check out views down Gran Vía, the main artery which runs through the centre of the city.

Once we got a little tired, we both headed our separate ways and had a proper Spanish siesta before reuniting in the city centre and heading down to the cute little are of La Latina, where we traversed a well known street which is buzzing with little bars and restaurants. There we began our evening drinking gin and tonics, eating an array of toasted bread with delicious toppings, and eventually taking the Metro up north to Chueca to continue our night on the town.

The contrasting colours of my local Metro stop

Up in the district of Chueca we visited more bars and eventually wound up in a club, meeting some friends along the way and dancing to all the latest reggaetón and Spanish hits. Here’s an example of some reggaetón if you fancy a taste!

Needless to say that the next day we didn’t rush out of bed, eventually meeting up just to leisurely wander around the city and eat and graze as usual. As the day wore on, we decided to pay an impromptu visit to the top of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, a building from which you can enjoy great pretty much 360° views over the city. The last time I went was over a year ago when my dad visited Madrid, but we decided to have a coffee and watch the sun as it began to set over the skyline.

Monday came around too fast and it was our last proper evening together, so after work we met up and went once again to chill out in the city. We had traditional Madrid food at an old-school bar in the centre, where I chowed down on a delicious plate of huevos rotos – which seems to be becoming my favourite right now.

After this we went once again to have a few glasses of tinto de verano, but I couldn’t stay out late as I’d to work on Tuesday morning. On Tuesday though we managed to meet up during my lunch break, and headed to have some food in a shopping centre near the office. From there we said our goodbyes, as that evening Amber was heading to the airport to catch her flight back home before I left work.

It was a pleasure having Bam around in the city with me, and I can only hope she enjoyed being here as much as I enjoyed just lazying around every evening eating and drinking the hours away. Usually I’d be a bit down once a friend leaves the city, but next weekend I’m off to see Kevin and visit the beautiful city of Oviedo once again. I’ll also be back in England for a week over Christmas, which will be lovely.

I just have to end this post with a quote from my grandma, who always reminds us when we’re a little down after something lovely finishes: “it’ll soon be Christmas, and we’ll have some nuts!”

It’s Just a Bunch of Hocus Pocus

01.11.17 — Madrid

After celebrating October with the cool installations of Luna de Octubre a week or so ago, it’s now time to bid goodbye to my first month of working in Madrid and that of course means spending Halloween here. To celebrate we all gathered at my friend Megan’s flat to watch the classic Halloween film “Hocus Pocus”, and I didn’t dress up because the night of Luna de Octubre I managed to get bitten on the face three times by a mosquito, so I decided that I looked scary enough with the big red spots adorning my cheeks.

Megan cooked up some fresh pumpkin bread, staying true to the season, and it was absolutely delicious – I had never had it before! In the end we were all pretty tired so once the film was done we decided not to go out, but I have spent the past week or doing plenty of other things.

After work one day I went to go and see Randy, and we explored the new shopping centre called Madrid Río 2 which is near his house. It was lovely to see him again and the views from the food terrace turned out to be pretty nice, overlooking the lovely architecture of the Matadero.

The next day I had a journey to the south of the city to make, as I’d made an appointment to go and see Apple regarding my iPad which just decided to stop working completely and died a most spectacular death – I couldn’t even get my laptop to recognise it, much less get the actual thing to show any signs of life. Not expecting much except to be offered a discount off a new one, it turned out that when I bought it I bought insurance with Apple too, which according to them I still have a month left of. I must be the luckiest man alive – they’ve since replaced it with a brand new one at no cost. Get in!

Anyway, whilst down at the shopping centre and with a new iPad in hand, I went to relax a little by the food court which surrounds a pretty little lake. I spent a while taking in the atmosphere and doodling on the iPad, and for an hour or so I felt like I was on holiday as I basked in the sun by the water.

Speaking of lakes, this weekend just gone I decided to kick back and relax a little, heading to the huge park of Casa de Campo to relax by the huge lake there. It was sunny but cool when I left my flat, but it soon heated up and I had to retreat to the shade where I spent a good few hours just reading a book I brought along. It’s been a while since I took a good moment to get stuck into some reading for pleasure, and I’ll definitely be picking up books a bit more often now I’m not obliged to read them for any kind of studies. Who’d have ever thought that working life would have felt like freedom compared to studying? Wild!

After a while I got peckish, and so I grabbed the metro further into the city and decided to head to one of my favourite little haunts in an area called Malasaña, where I ordered the slap-up brunch menu and enjoyed a tonne of dishes including croissants, a selection of bread, a medley of dipping sauces, a mini tortilla with béchamel sauce, a coffee and plenty of fresh fruit juice. It was delicious!

On the Saturday I also thought I’d do my best to explore the area where I lived a bit more, prompted mainly by a huge craving for a dish called huevos rotos (which is like fried potatoes with runny fried eggs and pieces of Spanish ham on top) and a lack of motivation to actually cook anything for myself. I quickly searched for local places online and it recommended a small bar just a couple of streets away, so I headed down to eat a little bit of something and have a quick small beer (a caña).

Well five hours later and I was still there, as at the bar I got talking to a local called Eva and was then invited to join her brother and his girlfriend for more drinks, and in the end we wound up sat outside on the terrace telling stories and sharing experiences until the early hours! I had such a lovely time and it was a real laugh to meet everyone. We stayed out so late that the bar technically closed, but we were allowed to stay inside as the owner put out some incense and candles and we continued chattering until I stumbled back home at about 3am.

As far as work goes, everything is a good laugh as usual, with projects moving forward and plenty of exciting designs to be done. I had to nip out to the bank (again) as I’d forgotten my password and accidentally blocked my shiny new debit card (oops), but I am happy to share that I now finally hold a Spanish bank account and I have received my first paycheque – I feel like a real adult now.

Having to go to the bank again was annoying, but at least the view was nice.

In the office I also received a lovely little surprise this week as a mystery envelope appeared on my desk, but I recognised the handwriting straight away as my mum’s. Inside she’d put a little note and a little zip-lock bag of 10 decaf teabags alongside a 10€ note – all of which is sure to come in very handy, especially with Amber coming to visit tomorrow night! I am very, very excited to spent almost a week relaxing and showing her the city once more!

At home today I just met my new flatmate, Giorgia, who’s from Italy but has spent years working in Chile and so speaks perfect Spanish. We initially went out to explore the local neighbourhood with our landlord Abdel, but after that I had to nip into the city to run a few errands and so me and Giorgia spent a good few hours wandering around the centre, as it’s her first time in here in Madrid. As she’s here for at least one month, I said we’ll be sure to go exploring plenty more!

The above photo was taken by Giorgia, who also runs a blog (check it out here if you know any Italian!) and works in communication, so I’m sure we’ll be having plenty of chats over a bottle of wine or heading out into the city to try the sangría in every bar we can find our way into…

Anyway, I’ll be back next week at some point to update you all on the mischief that me and Amber get up to over the next few days. Hopefully the sun will hold out and defy the cloudy forecast, but whatever happens we’ll be sure to make the absolute most of her time in Madrid!

Until then, and in reference to the title of this blog post, why not watch this clip of the iconic Bette Midler’s main musical number from the Halloween classic Hocus Pocus… You will not be disappointed…

Luna de Octubre

26.10.17 — Madrid

With my week as busy as ever, I totally missed my self-imposed deadline of Wednesday to get this blog post out, but never mind for here we go. As I mentioned in my last post looking back at last week, on Saturday night I headed out with a couple of friends to explore the festivities named Luna de Octubre. This event brought together a set of nocturnal installations, all of which used light in some form to great effect – as you can imagine I was on cloud nine with the array of lights which had been installed around the city!

The first installation we stumbled upon was one of the infamous fountains of Madrid, which had been turned off, lit up and filled with empty plastic bottles. It did make quite the statement, and I was happy to hear a nearby parent explaining to their child that it was a warning, and that reducing and recycling is important. There might just be hope for the future after all!

We continued to walk down the huge avenue of the Paseo del Prado, which had been completely shut off to cars, an event almost unheard of as it’s one of the biggest roads in the city. Further down we came across a really cool installation projected onto the main facade of the Museo del Prado, the biggest of Madrid’s three huge art museums.

Not only was it a great work of video mapping, they had also made it 3D, and so we donned our glasses and gawked at the spectacle. Naturally I can’t show you guys the 3D effects, but the fuzzy shot I managed to take on my phone should give you a little bit of a feel to what it was like…

After handing our 3D glasses to another group of spectators, we then headed further down the road and stumbled upon another really cool dynamic light installation. This consisted of a grid of light up stick men figures in various poses, which flashed in sequence to a musical backdrop in order to recreate a bunch of movie and dance routines.

The illusion worked really well, and I partially enjoyed that we were allowed to walk through the figures. Being able to immerse myself in the installation like this was something I’ve never been able to do so much before, as usually in England artworks are sealed off, but here we spent a good amount of time jiving along amongst the stick men – I even took a selfie to prove it…

Is this here because it's essential to the blog post or just because I look cute?

Further on past the Prado we wandered by a few huge pyramids of colour changing light, before heading down to the end of the Paseo del Prado and then up towards the famous archway of Puerta de Alcalá. Here they had installed three huge custom built screens into each of the archways, showing all kinds of cool slightly psychedelic videos.

From there we wound up stumbling on the final installation which was definitely my favourite, purely because of how silly and extra it was. It consisted of a huge industrial cement mixer which had been covered in mirrors, creating in effect a huge mirror ball. It was suitably accompanied by a medley of dance music, and for a few minutes we joined in the impromptu rave in the middle of the street. I loved it.

I don’t know what else to tell you about this last one – just that something like this could only happen in Madrid! Let’s see what the coming weekend brings, but for now I have just finished watching the Bake Off and should get some sleep in before an early start tomorrow – a busy Friday looms!

Abandoned Bread & Other Nonsense

22.10.17 — Madrid

As today is Sunday and my third week working here comes to an end, it’s time for me to swing by and update everyone on the latest nonsense that’s been going on during the week. Naturally we kick things off at the office, where we’ve been having fun with a special mat which is used by Japanese children as they learn to draw the complicated strokes and forms of the Japanese alphabets.

My little mascot the Beefeater has been watching over me in the office as we work away on our many projects. I brought him with me as a gift that Amber got me when we met up before I left! Speaking of Amber, she’ll be here in less than two weeks, so I’m busy working on the 5th version of the Madrid Guide I made for visitors when I was last here!

I was also given another gift by the guys at work during the week, in the form of my very own set of business cards. I am very happy with them as I am quite a fan of the dark blue and every designer cannot resist a good bit of spot foiling…

I’ve got my own business cards, so I feel like a real adult now.

After work last Wednesday I headed over to visit Heidi’s new flat, and brought along some ingredients and the cake tins I had brought over (little luxuries, eh?) and we attempted to create a Victoria Sponge. I say attempted as we didn’t have a whisk, any kind of measuring equipment, or even a proper mixing bowl, so everything was roughly thrown together in a big pan and stirred with a fork until I thought it looked kind of okay…

Once the mixture was done it was time to put it in the oven, at which point we discovered that the wear on the knobs meant that we couldn’t see exactly what temperature it was at – great! Roughly estimating the 180° mark, we eventually put it in and hoped for the best. All seemed to be going well and we were getting a good rise on it, until I realised the oven was on the wrong setting and we had to change it, meaning the air escaped and the cake collapsed quite spectacularly. Damn!

We cooked it through though and eventually had something resembling a cake put together. We cut it up and tried a little, and in the end it actually tasted quite nice, albeit a little too sweet for my exacting sponge cake standards. Maybe next time things will go better!

It was by no means a wasted evening however, as we also took time to catch up over a glass of wine and admire the lovely views from the rooftop terrace just above their fourth floor apartment.

As ever the next day it was back to Príncipe Pío and to work for me, however on the Thursday we had leaving drinks as one of my colleagues celebrated her last day, and gin and tonic at one’s desk is never something to moan about…

Seemingly within a blink of an eye it’s now the weekend again, and yesterday I met back up with Heidi and Loredana to have some food in Lavapiés before heading out to a rather special event, called “Luna de Octubre“ or “The October Moon”. This is a huge festival of nocturnal light installations which takes over the city once a year, very much like previous Light Night events which I have attended whilst at university in Leeds. In fact, my very first blog post ever was reporting back on the very first Light Night I attended back in 2013 during my first year of uni! Wild.

Anyway, back to current events, I have plenty of photos and videos to share of Luna de Octubre so I shall have to let those wait until later on in the week when I have a bit more time to organise them all. For now though, enjoy another photo from Heidi’s flat, this time during the evening when a gorgeous pastel sky set over the city. I swear I could spend hours on end watching the city from that place!

In other news this weekend, I just got back from the Apple Store where I was worried about my unresponsive iPad, and where they confirmed that it is indeed completely dead. Turns out, however, that when I bought it I took out insurance and so I am basking in the relief that once they get some more in stock it will be replaced at no cost. Phew!

Whilst the iPad is out of action, I have been increasingly doodling with actual pens and paper, and after my little bit of typography last week I thought I’d try another style this week. These lettering doodles may end up filling the whole black paper section of my notebook – maybe I’ll have to eventually upload it here to my website as a little personal project!

I’ll share more progress on this doodle as I finish it off – I’ve since added some nice blue highlights and a couple of illustrations of the sickly sweet Blackpool Rock I used to eat as a child. For those who don’t know, the so-called “rock” is actually a stick of flavoured hard boiled sweet which is usually twisted to create a spiral pattern along it’s side, which inspired the twisty lines of the typography above.

Anyway, as I round off this post you might be wondering why it is called “Abandoned Bread & Other Nonsense”, and I shall indeed explain. Last Sunday evening and after writing my previous blog post I went for a wander in the local park, and what should I discover along the way but a lone baguette perched atop a bollard down a quiet street in my neighbourhood. As a huge fan of bread, and given the quality of the stuff here, I was absolutely distraught that it had been left forgotten and forlorn. I leave you with a picture of it – I am not joking when I say I have been thinking about that wasted loaf of bread all week…

A lone loaf sits atop a bollard, forlorn and forgotten.

Lazy Sundays, Crazy Mondays

15.10.17 — Madrid

This weekend hails the end of my second week here out in Madrid, and as you’d expect I’ve been using my time to explore and see what I can see. We begin things last Sunday, where me and Heidi headed into the city and have some coffee. Heidi had plenty of reading to do for her masters course so I took a book along with me to just draw and watch the world go by. Here’s the beginnings of a little typographic doodle I managed to rustle up…

In further procrastination, I had heard that world famous architect Norman Foster had an exhibition on in the city centre, so we headed to the Fundación Telefonica and took a look at Futuros Comunes, an exhibition dedicated to exploring the infamous buildings designed by Foster + Partners. The coolest exhibit for me was a scale model of what the new Apple campus, Apple Park, will look like.

Unfortunately Heidi had to head off, and so I didn’t get a chance to take as much time as I would have liked to look around, but I’ll be sure to return and bring more photos and updates from the exhibition soon.

Later that evening I found myself down at the Matadero, visiting the design centre who were running a poster series themed around the phrase “Madrid: La Cuidad Ligera” or “Madrid: The Light City”. This was open to interpretation so there were posters with all kinds of concepts, however my favourite one just read: “mi cuidad es ligera cuando saltamos todos al mismo tiempo”, translating to “my city is light when we all jump at the same time”. Genius.

A reminder of how to move around the Matadero

I was thankful for this helpful reminder of just how to use my legs.

Sundays soon turn into Mondays, but that didn’t bother me so much however as I was looking forward to getting stuck back into the design projects at work. There my desk is starting to become overrun with post-it notes, I think I should work out a better system for keeping track of all the new vocabulary – it’s starting to feel like college Spanish lessons all over again!

At the studio a busy couple of days soon ensued, and so on Tuesday night I did a spot of therapeutic cooking after work, creating a huge batch of the cinnamon-flavoured Spanish treat torrijas for everyone to enjoy in the office the next day.

With last Thursday being a national holiday as the Spanish celebrate the “Day of being Spanish” on the 12th October, we went out for some celebratory drinks on Wednesday night after work. We all headed a few streets down from the office where one of the restaurants has an outdoor terrace with a beach bar area, and so we all clinked glasses and chatted for hours over the sand.

I feel like everyone just uses any excuse to sit outside and drink gin.

Having stayed out on Wednesday night to the early hours of the morning singing karaoke and meeting tonnes of new people, my Thursday off was spent dozing around in bed and doing some housework in my flat, however things perked up on Friday as it was time for an aperitivo at work on the terrace as we bid goodbye to a couple of the team.

A few beers and hugs later it was the weekend once more, and I spent Friday night in the city watching the sun set over the lake at Retiro – a gorgeous sight.

This weekend has been a little less busy than last weekend, however I did manage to head out yesterday with my friend to try the burgers at a place I have been meaning to visit since I first came to the city – Goiko Grill. I ordered one with fried breaded Monterrey Jack cheese, mushrooms, bacon, smoked bacon mayonnaise and lettuce. The portion size was huge and the burger was to die for – I’ll definitely be back again soon!

Today is another calmer day as I’ve just whipped up some pisto, a Spanish dish of vegetables flavoured with paprika in a tomato sauce, and I’ve to get some washing done and try to dry my shoes. That doesn’t mean that it’s not an exciting day though, as I’ve now got two exciting events coming up very soon in my diary!

First up is that my friend Amber is coming to visit me in less than three weeks to spend a very long weekend relaxing in the city! It’ll be lovely to have her again after she visited last time, and I can’t wait to have a good catch up and do what we usually did back in England – sit around with a glass of wine and put the world to rights until the bar closes.

The next little trip I’ll be going on is back up to the north of Spain to see Kevin once again in the beautiful city of Oviedo! Me and Kevin met whilst he was studying Erasmus at Leeds University, and last time I went to Oviedo just a few months ago I had an absolute blast. It’s only a Friday evening until a Sunday evening, but I know that with Kevin’s plans we’ll squeeze so much in to the two full days that it’ll feel like a two week summer holiday all over again!

Anyway, I can hear my pisto sizzling away in the kitchen and it’ll soon be time to head up on to the roof of my block to hang my washing out to dry, so I must dash off. If you need me, I’ll probably be sat on the roof next to my washing, looking over the city and sipping on a can of Mahou from the corner shop. ¡Salud!