About 25 years ago, I was out at one of my favorite Silver Lake bars having a "fruit" juice cocktail of some sort and I ended up talking to this guy who had a funny accent.
"Where in the world do you come from?" I asked the tall, dark and handsome stranger.
"Ey kahm fwam Oschlow, ja?"
"Oslo, Norway?" I asked with doubt.
"Ja, Oschlow ees de da kopetal uff Norveezh - ja"
"No way", I said to the funny sounding guy. "Norwegians are white and blond."
"Ja, boot I kahm fwam Messiko."
"Oh, well no wonder you're so brown. So you come from Mexico - but you don't sound Mexican."
"No no - I hawve 2 weegs een Messikan Riviera und now 1 weeg hawve een Los Anngelez, ja. - tomorwoow I fleye bag to Oschlow - ja?
We talked and talked about many things, some of which I am not allowed to tell you about in this family oriented blog. But if you are thinking of a word that starts with f and ends with k, means a lot of heat and excitement - you are most likely right; firetruck
In the end, I still didn't believe that the guy actually came from Scandinavia - he was just simply do dark. So I said to him, "OK, if you really do come from Norway then send me a post card when you get home."
I knew that if whether he really was from Norway or not, a post card from Oslo would have to have a Norwegian stamp on it. I seriously doubted a post card was going to come from anywhere, much less Oslo of all places.
But a few weeks later I received a pc from Oslo and I was stunned. Little by little we became pen-pals. We wrote letters back and forth to each other all the time. This of course was years before the words 'internet' or 'e-mail' even existed in some Harvard drop-out's garage in Silicon Valley.
The following summer, I went to visit Atle in his penthouse apartment on top of one of the hills of Oslo - overlooking the city. Then again the following summer I visited him as well. But sadly I had to visit him in the hospital. He had that new disease that so many guys were getting.
As time went on, things were getting worse for him and only his best friend new of his condition and me. And he only told me because I was coming out to visit him.
Our writing continued but naturally slowed down after my second visit in Oslo.
Then the following year - for sanity reasons, I needed to get out of LA. It is now 23 years ago almost to the day that I decided to pack it up and go take care of my dear pen-pal Atle in Oslo. How I cried when 29 days before my departure from LAX, I received a call from Atle's best friend. His friend told me that it was no longer necessary to come to Oslo. Atle passed away.
I was a mess and I still needed to get away from a crazy family life, my job, LA and................
So, like the Village People sang in the 80's; Go West and like Queen Isabella who told Christopher Columbus to go west, my inner queen told me to go west too - West Europe that is.
I called my Danish friend Preben and told him the story about Atle. Preben said that if I wanted to come to Copenhagen and stay with him, then I was more than welcomed.
And 'more than welcoming' was he ever. Preben lived in a teeny-tiny apartment at the time and studying to be a doctor. He said I was welcomed to stay for as long as I liked. He gave me more than just a place to crash. He gave me the beginning to my new life.
I decided I would stay in Copenhagen for the rest of the summer and once it started to get cold, I would make my way to Madrid to live out the rest of the year before returning back to LA.
I had just arrived in Copenhagen. After only 2 weeks I met a guy who asked me out on a date. I had just met this guy named Jens. A "policeman" he tells me. Ja - ok, you're some kind of kinky weirdo but as long as you're paying for my meal......... Our first date was at an all-you-can-eat-pizza joint and I just thought to myself that this was really a cheesy guy to think he can score on all-you-can-eat-pizza. Policeman or not - this factory out-of-a-box, paper thin pizza is major points against you.
One thing led to another - but little did I know that just those 2 very small words "I do", would have such a major impact on my life and change everything - EVERYTHING!
That also included my plan to go to Madrid. But now 23 years later, I finally made it.
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| sunny Copenhagen airport. |
This year, our winter was extreamly loonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng and borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring. I really need the wonderful sun that Spain has to offer. I was soooooooooo excited to be going to Madrid - Finally!
How ironic - the day we leave Copenhagen, the sun is so bright and out in full force that Jens even has to wear his sun glasses inside the terminal.
Are you bored so far? Cuz if you are, this would be the perfect time to press the 'escape' button.
We were in Madrid for just 4 days and I took 395 pictures. The place was so amazing that I just couldn't keep my fingers away from my camera. A lot of the photos are doubles of buildings from this angle and that. I was just so blown away by it all that I had to make sure I had it recorded.
I will do a few photos of our trip in 4 daily chapters on this blog and then you can hit the link at the end of the story to see everything we saw.
Day 1
Above you can see that the sun was out in full force and that's the Norwegian jet we are about to board. Norwegian is a major competitor to the company I work for.
OK - we land at MAD after a 3 hour flight. Our single bag is the first one on the luggage carousel. We grab it, walk out the door and the airport-city bus arrives just after Jens lights' up. 5€ each and just 2 stops later we step off of the bus at the post office.
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| post office |
From the post office bus stop it's just a 2½ minute walk to the hotel. The hotel is draped in net as they are making a last few repairs of a major renovation. We check in and squeeze into the one man elevator up to the 4th floor.
We walk in and our eyes are bugged and 'wow' is smeared all over our face. But then I blink my eyes and I come back to reality. Now I'm starting to get upset. "This isn't the room I booked" I snapped at Jens. The room was beautiful and large. But of course I'm just comparing it to our bedroom at home which is just barely big enough to fart in. "I booked a suite!"
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| very large room |
At the far end of the room is a little door and I open it and I say, "Oh mi god! Jens, come and look at how small this closet is." He looks into the 'closet' and this is what he sees:
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| huge suite |
Our suite has 4 large floor to ceiling French doors and this is the view from them.
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| the view |
We unpack and then head out the door to the first outdoor restaurant we can find and order lunch.
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| liquid lunch |
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| lunch on the fascinating boulevard |
After lunch we take a bus tour to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the city.
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| bus tour |
This is where I go crazy with my camera. Here are just 5 of the hundreds of buildings I snapped from the bus. To see the rest, click on at the final link at the bottom of this story.
Day 2
I love the room so I take 50 thousands shots of it.
Day 3
The breakfast table is so huge, you cannot eat one of everything.
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| very nice breakfast lounge on 6th floor. |
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| check out those huge earlobes. |
Here you can see Jens waving to me as I go to the post office to mail your post card. Did you get yours? The one window to the left of Jens, the one he is standing in and the 2 to the right are the 4 French doors of our suite. 2 floors up is the rounded room that is both bar and restaurant - interchangeable. The boxed room with the 2 arch windows is the bar and to the left of that is a huge bar terrace. At the very top on the 7th floor is the sun lounge but it was closed the entire time as the weather was not fit for your bikini.
I thought this was funny - the kitchen products shop was called Fagor while the office above that is the gay and lesbian center. I had no idea at the time when I booked the room that the gay part of town was just 2 streets away from our hotel.
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| gay and lesbian center over the fagor kitchen shop. |
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| view from suite. |
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| Jens on one balcony snapping a picture of me on the other. |
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| at the Oriente (East) Garden near the Palacio Real de Madrid (Royal Palace). |
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| later we run here for cover from the rain - Oriente Garden. |
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| Oriente Garden |
Today we did the self guided tour of the palace. You get your own hand-held speaker and you get a few minutes of info about each room. If you have the time and the interest you could spend up to an hour in each room with lots of wifi recorded info streamed to your hand-held speaker. The place was unbelievably beautiful. But photography was not allowed and thank god or I would never get this blog finished. Naturally I bought a tourist book of the palace. Google the royal palace of Madrid and see for yourself.
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| Palacio del Real Madrid - Royal Palace |
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| Almudena Cathedral of the royal palace. Google it to see the inside. |
It's cold then it's warm - jackets on then jackets off. Eventually it starts to rain but less than a spoonful of drops. But we don't hesitate to be safe and find shelter in a glass of cold cervesa for me and cheese cake for the cheesy cop.
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| I make delicious cheese cake but this was mucho better. |
Poor Jens, the shoes he bought in America last year are just too tight for walking the streets of Madrid. So we went out looking for a new pair of sneakers. We hit up so many small boutiques but they all had very expensive sport shoes - the brands you know and they were cheaper at home. Spain is supposed to be the place to get cheap shoes at a cheap price. Finally we tried this huge department store and Jens walked out of there with 2 pairs for less than the price of one here at home.
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| Rosa and Azul (Rosa to the right) |
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| happy feet |
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this guy had delicious balls scoops I mean, scoops. |
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| fancy brick work |
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| Mary prays for your sins. God cries a tear drop on my lens. |
After a big hunt for an early-bird restaurant that serves dinner all day long, we find this wonderful restaurant just up the next street from our hotel. Juan gives us the low down on the kitchen options. He speaks loudly so that we can understand. I ended up repeating in Danish most of Juan's recommendations to Jens. The hunt for this restaurant ended up being decorated as a hunting lodge and the food was phenomenal. Once you are inside, you forget that there are 8 floors more of building above you. The ceiling was made to look like it was an A-frame of a classy wooden cabin with glass windows that look out to mountains, forests and lakes.
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| fancy goat cheese salad with walnuts and apples. |
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| ox tail - tender and amazing. |
Again it was only 7:40 when we walked up to the restaurant door to read the menu in the window box. "Jes, af cors we have oben", shouted Jaun. We were the first people to walk in. Shortly after that, 3 more Americans walked in and they talked so loudly. We heard their life story - yawn. For some strange reason, American tourists are very loud. Make a mental note of that next time you are visiting in another country - tone it down a few notches. And like typical Americans they ate as though it was their last meal and sucked down the food. At the other table came in the 3rd and last couple of the evening (while we were there). They were from Finland. They were very quite and ordered glass after glass after glass of cava. It was very golden-yellow and looked so delicious. We just wanted a half glass of sangria - Juan brought us a full pitcher. Being the magician that I am, I made it disappear - wish I could have performed that trick on the Americans.
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| ¡salud! |
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| view from our room at night. |
Day 4
Today was a simple yet fascinating day. First we start once again with another delicious breakfast. Here we are sitting at the end of the breakfast dinning room. Behind Jens is the rounded room that accommodates both breakfast/dinner guest as well as bar guest. Both sections have their own terrace.
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| delicious fresh squeezed breakfast. |
Today's plan calls for a walk in the park - Parque del Retiro that is. The park is just a 10 minute walk from our hotel. On the way to the park we pass the post office and a baker.
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| post office |
After we pass the post office we pass this delicious bakery. We would have stopped and eaten an entire cake had we not gorged ourselves on that delicious breakfast.
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| fancy cakes at bakery. |
Just after the bakery is the old gate to the city. This old gate - Puerta de Alcalá is the replacement gate for an even older one. This gate is just besides the entrance to the park which is just to the left of where we are standing. The park, when established, was actually outside the city walls. Now it's part of the city center.
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| Puerta de Alcalá - gateway to the city. |
The park was first created as a private retreat for the royal family of the time - in the middle 1600's. Later it was opened to the public in 1868. We saw just a tiny snippet of the north-west corner of the 130 hectares / 320 acres.
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| we have just entered the park. |
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| one of the very many fountains in the park. |
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the largest of the lakes in the park.
there were beautiful purple flowers in the trees all over the city. |
This huge and beautiful monument in the park is dedicated to Alfonso Francisco de Asís Fernando Pío Juan María de la Concepción Gregorio Pelayo. He is more commonly known as King Alfonso XII, but his buddies just called him Al. He reigned over Spain from 1874 to 1885.
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| Alfonso XII monument |
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| the largest of the park lakes with Alfonso XII monument. |
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| another fountain. |
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| we are getting ready to exit the park at one of the side entrances. |
This is supposed to be one the very important museums in Europe and I really wanted to see it but the line to get in was forever long. The museum is just outside of the park but the whole area is tied altogether.
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| Prado Museum. |
Just beyond the Prado Museum is a fountain with King Neptune. And as you well know, Neptune's daughter sits at the entrance to the Copenhagen harbor.
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| Fuente de Neptuno |
Our 4 days kept us very busy and finally we get a chance to sit on the terrace on the 6th floor and take a breather. We were going to go up and check out the view from the 7th floor lounging terrace. The door to the terrace was locked due to funky weather. I did sneak a peak through the stained glass window in the stairwell out to the terrace and it looked amazing. It must be brand new and part of the renovation because on Google Earth it's just a cement roof top. So here we are enjoying our last moments before having to leave tomorrow morning.
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| bar terrace |
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| view from the bar terrace. |
Then of course it was time to find food. Once again we were the first to arrive to this down in the ground restaurant. The menu card in English was very limited compared to the Spanish versions but of course 'de la' this and 'de la' that can take up an extra page. And as it turns out, the English translation was pretty bad; we ordered cow cheeks. We had no idea what the hell it was and the waiter only spoke Espanish. We took a chance and ordered it. If I ever see cow cheeks again on a menu card, I will for sure order an extra large portion.
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| big rosy cheeks on Jens' face. |
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| big rosy cheeks on my plate. |
You can click on the links below to take you to each individual day.
