The Perfect Patatas Bravas we had in Granada in 2010
The Square that is Jaime's other home
After getting hair blowout!
Patatas in Chueca NOT so Bravas
Where "Murder of Crows" was played
Click to view the Video
Preparing for flight home
White Asparagus
Skate in butter with Capers
Baby Fava Beans with Sausage from Catalonia
Today was a very hot day in Madrid. Not a day for doing a lot of walking. We did walk up the street so Cathy could get her hair done. It looks spectacular now, we will see what the heat does to it!
When we were in Granada, Cathy, Tamara and I ate a late-night snack on public square. We had the best Potatoes with Romesco Sauce (Patatas Bravas) I have ever eaten. It is the Gold Standard with I judge all Patatas Bravas against. I can still taste the dish in my memory. While Cathy was having her hair done, I went in search of spirits to take on our eventual flight back to LA since Iberia only serves wine. I found two small bottles, we will see if I can smuggle them on to the airplane! After Cathy had her haircut we walked up to Chueca Square and had a snack. I ordered Potatoes Brava. It didn’t measure up. Like Don Quixote my quest to find the perfect Patatas Bravas will continue.
We taxied to a wonderful public art space: Matadero Madrid. Matadero is located in the city’s former slaughterhouse and cattle market, a complex that is of great historical and architectural value. It is very large complex of old buildings that are now devoted to the arts.
We first listened to a 30 minute aural performance piece named “Murder of Crows”. In a large room there are 96 speakers arranged and you sat where you want on the provided chairs. The speakers are scattered throughout the room. The music includes a chorus singing to us what sound like a Russian Military Anthem, there were the sounds of crows flying, other tapestries of music were woven into a whole experience. It was Surround Sound to the extreme, in the best sense of the word. We really enjoyed it.
The next two experiences were less enthralling. They were both about the Modernist Viennese Painter Gustaf Klimt. Cathy and I had seen several of his paintings when they were on exhibit at LACMA several years ago. The first exhibit was in a space about the size of a large high school gym. Music played and video images were displayed on all 4 walls and floor. The images morphed into 3D depictions of buildings, waterfalls or even Klimt’s most famous work “The Kiss”. We found this presentation overdone. Got it you can do magic with modern computer animation. I have a hunch the Van Gogh show playing in LA is similar. We then went into a separate room where each person is escorted to a separate swivel chair. When seated Virtual Headsets are placed on you along with headphones. The headsets fit over your glasses. You have no vision other than the headset. Fish and birds fly by, Klimt paintings appear, giant swimming things come and eat you. You can swivel in the chair 360 degrees and see what is behind you before it swims or drifts by. Klimt was certainly secondary to the exhibition of what they can do with virtual reality. I never experienced a Virtual Reality emersion before. I get the feeling that lots of younger people are into it. Not us. I am glad we went to Matadero Madrid, especially to see “Murder of Crows”. It was a great way to spend a very hot day in Madrid!
We returned to the hotel and rested. Then we had a bottle of wine on the hotel terrace overlooked by Alvaro Morte. We went to dinner at a wonderful restaurant: La Buena Vida (the good life). We couldn’t believe it - they had White Asparagus, which we love. We ordered Skate, which we haven’t made for a long time, but will when we return to LA. The Gazpacho with Shrimp was excellent. This is a small, intimate, not very expensive restaurant we would happily return to again.
Tomorrow we are off by train with a guide to Toledo.
Masked on the Subway Drinks in Chueca, thinking of Jaimie Mezze Spread Thickly sliced Pastrami Today was a continuation of getting over jet lag. We started on a quest to get my SIM card. iPhone have dual Sims so I thought (incorrectly as it found out) that I had a an empty slot for a 2 nd sim card. When I switched from AT&T to Spectrum, Spectrum didn’t use the eSim on the phone but actually installed a SIM Card. That meant that if I installed the Spanish SIM I would loose my California phone number while we were here, and I didn’t want to do that. Long story short we put the SIM in Cathy’s phone. This took a long time at the store, and it was frustrating. Oh well. We did accomplish the other two items on our agenda. I successfully withdrew money from an ATM machine and took the Subway back to the Hotel. Cathy stayed behind and I took a long walk into the Salamanca. This is definitely the place where the rich live and shop. It was a very fancy area filled with name brands Timm
Hoisting the Paella Pans Lake Albufera, where they grow Bomba Rice Rice Liquor Paella Inspection Paella Passed the Inspection! Perfect Patatas Bravas Why can't we take Parsifal out with us? White Asparagus Beautiful Modernist Style Market Unusually Shaped Tomatoes, wonder what they taste like The Water Tribunal When we awakened, we asked ourselves, why are we staying in this hotel? The room was nice, we had a private patio, but we thought the service sucked, and the bed was hard. We had to decide if we wanted to switch to a better hotel. The obvious answer was Hell Yes! We quickly secured a reservation at the Westin Valencia, a luxury hotel in every way. We packed up and took our luggage to our much nicer new digs. Since it was only 11:30am we checked in but couldn’t go to our rooms, which hadn’t been cleaned yet. We then taxied to The Water Court (Tribunal de Las Aguas). The Tribunal meets outside the Door of the main Cathedral, every Thursday at noon, keeping alive a one thou
Park atop the Parking Garage with species indigenous to Valencia Face inside of Statue Performance Arts Center Interior Main Performance Space Reflections of light off of broken tiles Water Features and Cinema Cinema Inside the Garden atop Garage Fabulous Garlic Shrimp Best Paella Yet! Let’s get the worst part out of the way first, and add some lessons learned. A little background first, when we were last in London, Cathy got pickpocketed. We have no idea how they accomplished it, but as we were walking, we realized her purse was open, her wallet was missing. It was amazing how professional it was. Because we shared the same American Express and Visa cards all our credit cards needed to be cancelled. In addition, Cathy lost all her id’s, Driver’s License, Insurance Cards, etc. When we arrived back in the States, we got new credit cards and made sure that we had separate numbers so that if one of us ever lost their cards the other one will still have a working card. Another lesson
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