Palma de Mallorca

It's been a busy few days for this traveler. After walking around Madrid for a couple of days, and having seen the outside of almost every building in downtown, I decided to actually go inside a building and see what I could find. My plan was to head to a couple of museums, starting with the Reina Sofia, which is a more modern art gallery, rather than the typical old European museum (more paintings of Jesus, anyone?). As it turns out the Reina Sofia was free on Sundays after 2:30, so we waited in the long queue outside with all the other tourists and finally got in at around 3 o'clock. One very neat thing about the Reina Sofia is that they'll let you take your camera in; I almost missed my opportunity to do so because I had assumed that they wouldn't allow pictures. Just to be sure, I sheepishly asked the guy at the desk, who I expected to say "Of course you can't bring your camera into the world famous art allery you Canadian asshat", but who instead said "Yes absolutely; just don't use your flash when taking pictures". Cool! As such, I got a bunch of shots of my favourite (and least favourite - more on this later) pictures, which I'll scatter throughout this post. The gallery was full of Picasso, Dali, and many other very famous artists who I'd never heard of and can't remember (let's face it, I know damn near nothing about art). After we'd completed our tour of the first floor of the building, we realized that if we were going to see everything, it was going to take about 5 hours of solid artgazing. But, oddly enough, I felt that I actually wanted to take the time to see the rest of the artwork. I found that as we progressed through the galleries we were eventually able to talk quasi-intelligently about the intricacies, style and themes of the artwork we were encoutering. I found that personally I quite liked Dali's abstract pieces; more than once I found myself staring at one of his paintings for 15 or more minutes before I was satisfied that I'd uncovered enough of it's little secrets move on.

About halfway through our tour of the massive complex we found Picasso's Guernica, which is apparently "the most important painting of the 20th century". As with most of Picasso's work, it takes a PHD's worth of study to figure out what the hell it all means, but we were at least able to admire it on surface levels as we pushed through the heavy afternoon crowd. This was the only room in the gallery in which pictures were prohibited, although everyone was snapping shots anyway... I decided respect the art and not take any pictures, but then discovered that if you went a few rooms back you were allowed to take pictures of the painting, from afar. I once again took advantage of the camera's zoom and sniped a decent shot, which really shows the size of the piece (even the people in the picture were about 15 feet away from the canvas).

Near the end of our self-guided tour, we rounded a corner on the top floor of the gallery and were accosted by sights of what I thought was the worst piece of the day. It appeared to be the drunken scribblings and blotchings of a handicapped first grader. Admittedly it could be that my own knowledge and experience with art is not profound enough for me to be able to enjoy such a piece, but I really couldn't get into this one; it looked awful, it seemed as though no artistic talent was required to make it (And although I try and realize that artistic talent is not always required for a good work of art, the fact still struck me with this piece), and it didn't make me think at all. There was no discernable theme or message (again, I may simply have been too feeble-minded to pick it out), it was just kind of ugly. I took a picture of it so that I could take another look later, when I hadn't been so saturated with great art... Looking at it now my opinion has changed, but only for the worse. Be your own judge.

Speaking of that, the previous night had been the scene of some other strange art, so to speak. We made a foray into the gay district of Madrid on Friday evening to have a few drinks and enjoy the night scene, and the sheer number of clubs was so overwhelming that we had trouble picking any place to actually go into. When we finally did pick one, it might not have been the best of choices, although it certainly was an experience inside. We had entered hypergay campland, packed full of men dancing and enjoying the drag show on the little stage at the front. We squished ourselves through the dense meatmarket of a dancefloor and found the bar, where we discovered hard-core gay porn playing on all the TV screens around us (this was exactly as awkward as having a girlfriend and watching a bunch of heterosexual porn with a group of people you just met: Very awkward). As you probably know I have no issues with homosexuality, in theory or in practice, but when we started getting tugged and called over to tables, we all felt it was time to take our leave. We ducked out abashedly and found a much tamer gay bar to buy a few drinks in, and we spent the rest of the night bar hopping with a couple of locals, and drank happily until I was too tired to stay vertical. My walk home took me through the red light district, where I was propositioned by many and groped once by a prostitute. All in all, an interesting night!

I awoke on Sunday morning hopped in the shower ate four yogurts for breakfast (when you're traveling on the cheap, you eat whatever's left over) before heading down to the metro station and catching a train headed to the airport. I ran into two young drunken Canadian girls who were also heading to the airport, so I took them under my wing as we completed the three transfers to the correct metro line. We got to the airport with no time to spare before their check-in was due to close, only to find a long queue leading to the international check-in desk. I checked in at the national flight desk and told them I had to use the facilities and promptly dissapeared; I knew they were about to be denied for a flight and didn't wanted to be there when the shit hit the fan. I have no idea whether those two got on the flight, but I can tell you one thing: That's what happens when you decide it's a good idea to stay up all night drinking your face off before a flight, instead of getting half a night's sleep. You end up non-functional, unshowered and reeking of cigarettes and booze, running an hour late for an expensive flight you're probably going to miss and you've forgotten half of your belongings in the locker back at the hostel. They wouldn't even have found the right terminal if they hadn't run in to me (or someone else heading to the same airline). Rookie mistake!

My flight seemed to be instantaneous as I slept the entire way, only waking up as we landed in Palma de Mallorca, where I now sit typing away furiously. I managed to get myself out and about yesterday with a small group from the hostel; we walked up to the castle which overlooks the entire city and some of the coastline. The view from the top was excellent but the real gem there was the inside of the castle, which was setup as a courtyard, with two tiers of balconies facing into the center (Fish-eye style composite picture down and right). While some of the structure was closed, we managed to get in without paying and enjoyed our active little daytrip. The hostel here is kind of shitty, with a poor kitchen and bad wifi, but the people are great. I'm staying with a bunch of Kiwis, Aussies, Brits and South Africans looking for work on Yachts, who mostly just drink rather than handing out resumes to potential hiring captains. It makes for a good hostel atmosphere though, so I can't complain at all. It's my new British buddy Adam's birthday today, so I think I'll end up at the pub whether I like it or not, once again drinking the hours away with people from every corner of the world. Because even when you travel alone, you never really travel alone.

C