Georgraphy lesson!

This is Galicia, a province of Spain that is next to Portugal in the northwest of the country. If you look at the lower left hand side of the province, you'll see a little pink dot and that is Tui, the little town the DC Hot Commondities visited. We liked Tui a lot - it's a very small town but beautiful, very gothic and european looking, and just across the river is Portugal! That was pretty cool. It helped that we also had a very sweet apartment to stay in with gorgeous views and we had many adventures. For perspective, here is a map of Spain:


You can see where Madrid is, in the middle of the country in blue, and then Galicia is that green area up in the northwest. It was a rather pretty drive but with some pretty crazy mountains that were hard to go through at night in the sleet. They speak a different language in Galicia - Galego, which is the closest to Spanish/Castellano of the different languages spoken in Spain - the other main ones being Basque/Euskara and Catalan. It also has a lot of similarities with Portuguese, and apparently there is some controversy about whether or not it is a separate language from Portuguese. Speaking of Portuguese, since were so close and you can cross the border without a passport, we took a day trip to Portugal, and ended up going all the way to Oporto/Porto, a large city in northern Portugal. It was really beautiful, had an excellent radio station that we enjoyed very much, and we even found black eyed peas in an immigrant market there! That was good because we were afraid of not having good luck in the new year, although we did eat our grapes.


That's Oporto. Mothersheister said she thought "the black people are more free here." It was raining most of the time in Oporto so we didn't get to enjoy it as much as we would have liked. Here's a pic from Tui, of the church/fortress:

Although you wouldn't know it by the language, which is not connected to the Celtic ones, bent had always learned that Galicia was connected to Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, Wales, Isle of Man and Scotland as a Celtic area. But aside from some old myths we didn't find a whole lot of evidence of this. Galicia is really green and coastal, kind of like Ireland, and its rainy and warmer than you expect it to be, also like Ireland. There are even palm trees! And they have bagpipes! But we also called it the "Maine of Spain" because it's pretty rural, "it's beautiful" and far away from everything, on the Atlantic coast.


In addition to our Portugal visit and our meanderings around Tui, we also went to the beach at Baiona, a small town on the ocean that is super picturesque and has a big castle fort which is neat. The waves were really amazing and we got to watch the sunset over the Atlantic - a first for most of us!


Tui was a really fun place to spend new years eve and the first few days of 2009.

Some things we miss about Spain, some things we are glad to have back in D.C.

so there were a lot of great things about spain, despite all the drama. we really liked all the graffiti everywhere:


we also miss some of the food, which is so tasty.

we miss drinking in public, damn that is so great.

we miss the lackadaisical pace at which each day passed, including eating dinner at like 10pm.

we miss walking around tui in galicia, acting like zombies, and we miss the hot commodities!


we miss the metro in madrid, the longest wait we ever had was 4 minutes! what's wrong wmata?

we miss the good, strong wine, and olives.

we miss portugal, even tho it's not spain, where they had great music on the radio, black eyed peas, and beautiful city of oporto:


not so much missing stepping over dog-doo everywhere. or the rudeness. or in mothersheister's case potatoes at every meal (wait to we go to ireland!). we certainly don't miss spanish thieves. or expensive prices, in euros no less.

we love to be able to eat tofu again!


and our lovely beds are the best ever. we're happy to see friends again, and happy to eat other tasty treats like black beans, burritos, and bacon.

but mostly we hold very fond memories of a great time in espana.

So happy!

it seems best if mothersheister gives a first hand account of her perspective of the process of going through spanish border and u.s. border, but in the meantime, here is a very cute picture of us, so happy to be on the plane after we got through the spanish side. the u.s. hurdle was still ahead (which included some uncertainty for dj "i love edward cullen") but we were not yet worried, only euphoric that all three of us were on the plane and no kenyan was left behind. if you would like a version of this photo that reveals our top-secret identities, please let us know, b/c it is wicked cute, and if you have security clearance we will email it to you.

Safe and sound back at home.

This is a mini-post just to say happy new year to all and we are back in DC! We are feeling so happy to have made it successfully through the borders with dj mothersheister and dj "i love edward cullen". More of everything that you love to come soon.

Travel document.

The mothersheister has finally got her "travel document " in hand. As you can see here, it's her "certificate of identity" sent by courier from Kenya over the past few days. It was a time of many long waits at the Kenyan Embassy in Madrid, but the staff there were super nice and so helpful. We believe they have never dealt with such a thing before, and they tackled the challenge with gusto. We are hopeful that now the mothersheister will be able to get on the plane and back into the US on Tuesday when we fly back, between this piece of paper which is huge and cool looking, and her residency card. 

Now we are about to embark on an expedition to Galicia, in northwestern Spain. Bent just had her first driving in Spain experience with our gigantic 9 passenger monstrosity of a van/truck, and it went all right. We don't know what the internet situation will be in Tui, the tiny village on the border with Portugal where we will be staying, but hopefully we can keep yall updated. 

In the meantime of all this drama, we have had a lot of fun times with djs RadIUS and Choque y Fuga. Some highlights include going out dancing at a gay club with the longest drag show ever (but dj Ratita did win a song competition with prizes of a car and a free whisky), riding bikes around town, living in our "hut" aka a nice little hotel room right downtown, and more. Lots of drinking wine and beer and whisky as always and lots of good food as always. 

We leave you with another shot of the mothersheister and her document:

This is our definition of suck:::Nuestra definicion de asco.

Dear readers-

Thanks for checking in and also commenting! Responses to comments are coming, they have been delayed by extraordinary circumstances. It's a long story but it involves thieves, late night Madrid, stupid police (duh), and the loss of two cameras, credit cards, euros, assorted other things and most importantly the Mothersheister's passport and therefor visa to be in Spain and to go to Morocco. This is a calamity of the highest proportion and we have spent the last 15 almost sleepless hours trying to resolve it but in the end there is only so much we can do. It had to happen on a Friday night, the day before we were scheduled to leave for Morocco, just hours after we bought bus tickets to the straits of Gibraltar b/c the bus was selling out of seats. So in addition to the actual items, the thieves also temporarily stole all our fun and joy in life, stole our trip to Morocco from us, stop about 150 euros/$200ish dollars for the fees to cancel the tickets, and much more that is not articulable.

Fortunately, a bright ray of sun did arrive about 5 hours after this tragedy struck - the infamous djs choque y fuga arrived in Madrid from DC and we were overjoyed to see them. They have brought great strength and support to all of us here already including dj RadIUS (who we are not able to post photos of his first day b/c they are almost all gone with the two stolen cameras. that of course is in addition to the stolen/lost camera of our second day here. and the stolen sweater and jacket of dj ana the night before. Ay Cabron!!!!)

We are now temporarily shacked up in a cute hotel downtown just of Plaza Puerta del Sol, one of the most important public squares in Madrid, to get some needed rest and regroup to make a new plan. 

We understand the social dynamics of theft, and have not been exempt from engaging in it in relatio to multinational corporations or for immediate need, but we would never take someone's wallet with their travel documents. Fine, take the money, but leave the damn passport. Of course such demands from the karma of the universe are met with silent betrayal. Especially considering the number of times we have gone out of our way to return IDs and such to people, or other stolen goods.

Perhaps Mothersheister will be interested in recounting the full details or some of them at a later date but now it is still a bit too raw, so we'll leave it at this. We will bring updates as soon as possible, and thanks again for reading and all your support, especially to djs robbins-sibouih. 

Stay tuned!! We leave you with a beautiful moment of happier days, climbing the mountains of Madrid

xoxo

bent 

Food: we like it

Although christmas eve dinner let a bit to be desired, we have had lots of delicious food in Madrid so far. And usually food comes along with drink, which any one familiar with gender fatigue knows, we love!! 

So this was at one of the best places we have been so far. It's called "El Tigre" - they had big glasses of wine and FREE tapas. That's what's up!!! And they were so tasty. S so tasty. Mothersheister and bent got a little bent at that bar, and loved the food. Going to bars and eating little bits (or lots) of food is pretty fun - it's totally not like bar food at most places in the US which is pretty cool, and there's a different selection at a lots of different places, but somethings that are almost always on the menu. Like papas con 3 quesos. We've had a couple different versions of that. Here is a picture of it, in the upper left hand side:

You also see in the foreground the wine, next to it was a tasty dish with peppers and tomatoes and ground beef that was spicy - rare for Spain! They said it was from somewhere in west African, maybe Ghana? Anyway, it was good. Behind that is "una canya" which is a short little glass of beer. To the left of the canya is olives and you can see their pits below the potatoes. They had good food at this place and we played cards afterwards - it's a bar owned by some of DJ "ana"'s friends and one of her exes served us which was very funny. But not awkward which is good.

Another great place we got good food for cheap (7 euros for two sandwiches and a sangria!) was at the fleamarket on Sunday. We have been so lucky it's been nice weather, so it was great to enjoy these treats outside. Here is bent enjoying her "tosta con atun" and sangria! Yum!!

We were super excited to find at the fleamarket two copies of the record containing now one of our favorite songs which we heard on the radio one night: Eddy Grant's "Gimme Hope Jo'anna". So damn good:

Despite the aformentioned disaster that was Christmas eve dinner, we had some delicious treats from a famous cake shop for breakfast on xmas morn, along with mimosas and a delicious brunch including the coveted black beans that were carried from DC to Madrid!! 

And how can we talk about food in Spain without mentioning ham...

Buen Provecho!!!