Case study 1: A few weeks ago myself and Yas ended up getting our hands on two free tickets to Des Bishop's Madrid gig. We were waiting outside the door and a guy just handed them to us and told us that he had two spare! It was a brilliant gig and we ended up meeting him afterwards and inviting him to the James Joyce for breakfast and to watch the Irish match too!
Sound chap!
Speaking of free tickets... Case study 2: On my last night in the Irish bar I started talking to a guy from America who turned out to be the Special FX engineer for nothing other than Cirque du Soleil who had just arrived in Madrid for their new show. After a bit of a chat, he offered me two tickets in exchange for a pint.
Job done.
Best pint swap I've ever made... But more about that in a moment.
I just had the loveliest few days with the lovely Miss Blue Ruin who popped over for a little visit. A few pub crawls with free tapas, some wonderful veggie food, the odd bit of karaoke, Goya, museums, some beautiful vintage dresses and a trip to the Cirque. Miss Ruin, I had forgotten how much I missed you! Thanks for such a great few days! xxx
Anyway... Back to Cirque! We popped out to El Lago to walk to the Madrid Arena where we were greeted by what looked like whordes (I'm not being politically incorrect- there is a d!) of apocalyptic zombies. Turned out they were the ladies of the night who frequently haunt the area.
We got to the Arena and were dying for a drink and a bite for eat. We headed to the bar and were told that they weren't serving food or drinks... Strange...
We distracted ourselves from our growling tummies by realising how amazing our seats were... The 11th row from the front- almost in the centre. Feckin class.
The show was absolutely breathtaking. It had everything that you would expect from Cirque and more. My only complaint was that there was sometimes so many things happening on the stage so you didn't know where to look!
I finally got around to developing my first picture from a manual black and white camera- not quite as good as the rainbow one, but I love it!
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On another, entirely unrelated note... An interesting article caught my eye today. US Congress has ruled that pizza is indeed a vegetable.
According to dictionary.com, a vegetable is:
l
noun
1.
any plant whose fruit, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems,leaves, or flower parts are used as food, as the tomato,bean, beet, potato, onion, asparagus, spinach, orcauliflower.
2.
the edible part of such a plant, as the tuber of the potato.
4.
Informal . a person who is so severely impaired mentally orphysically as to be largely incapable of conscious responsesor activity.
5.
a dull, spiritless, and uninteresting person.
I'm not quite sure which of these categories the pizza fits into...
According to the congress, the amount of tomato sauce in pizza allows it to be classified as a vegetable. I pose the question, if I take a chocolate Santa Clause and spoon it full of tomato sauce, does that make it a vegetable?
If I take a steak and inject it with over two spoons of tomato sauce, does that make it vegetarian? There you go vegetarians, a veggie steak!
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I've been shocked quite a few times since I arrived to the country. A few weeks ago, I saw a man who had been stabbed to death outside of my apartment. Two weeks ago I was on the metro to university and couldn't figure out why we were stopped for so long in the Moncloa station. All of a sudden, the driver's voice came onto the loud speaker and told us to get off the train. Then I realised why. A woman had jumped from the platform onto the tracks of the oncoming train and had been killed.
Not something you want to see. Everyone was eventually cleared from the station and I had to try and find my way to the university. I had never been at the station in Moncloa before and spent an hour and a half wandering around in the rain trying to find the university- without throwing up. Never before had I wanted a cup of tea so badly. For about two days after that I didn't feel right. It's hard to imagine what was going through the poor woman's head.
On the same day, there was an accident at a bus station in Madrid. Two buses collided and crushed a man in his 60s between them. A friend of my roommate was in the station at the time and compared it to a balloon exploding. I believe that the man died later that week from severe head and rib injuries and internal bleeding.
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Today I was on the metro again on the way home from university and was lucky enough to get a seat. At the next stop, a very elderly woman got on. No one got up to offer her a seat, so I gave her mine. At the next stop I was lucky to get another seat, which again was promptly given to an elderly deaf man- again no one else would get up. At the next stop I managed to get the seat beside the elderly man. A blind man with a guide dog then tried to get on the train and no one would get out of his way. I had to ask two people to move for him. He sat on the other side of the elderly man and proceeded to ask the man to let him know when we had arrived at Legazpi. The deaf man didn't hear him and the blind man continued asking him and talking to him- a bit like Hear No Evil, See No Evil! I leaned over to tell him how many stops we were from the station and his Labrador leaned over and started resting his head on my knee! He was such a lovely little dog!
I couldn't believe the amount of people on just one train, on one journey that were willing to ignore an elderly lady, an elderly deaf man and a blind man! At least I feel like I did my good deeds of the day!
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In other good news, I'm after managing to secure a tattoo appointment with the fantastic El Bara of True Love Tattoo in Madrid. The guy has a waiting list of over 5 months! He is so worth it!
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In even better news, I've moved all of my exams to December, so that means a whole month in Ireland during January- including my 21st, which Mammy has gone and organised for me! All I need to do is get myself a dress and some pretty shoes!
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Have a lovely weekend!
To end with a nice little quote... here's one of my own...
When you see a shooting star, for that one moment, all that matters is who is holding your hand...
