Before I get to our first fight I think it is important to note that Ben and I normally get into fist fights every other weekend in Charlottesville for no real reason and with no real animosity. So far however, on this epic journey that is littered with the confusion, exhaustion, and alcohol that seem ripe to produce a knock-down drag-out brawl, we had yet to so much as get overly sarcastic with each other. I digress and should just get to the blood, thats what you’re reading for, but then again if Bob Barker taught me one thing its always hold back the good stuff until people are on the edge of their seats screaming for PLINKO, so I’ll let you know how it all began.

Day 40

Due to yet another set back at the train station, this time in Valencia, we arrived fully prepared to depart at 2pm and had to wait until 9pm. The trip to Madrid isn’t the shortest on earth so we arrived a little after 1am with no idea as to where our hostel was and so decided to swallow our pride and pay out for a taxi as we hadn’t slept the night before either and were awkward smelling zombies meandering through the turnstyles. As our luck would have it the taxi driver had no idea either even though we had the proper address, when it was all said and done we entered our hostel at 2am dripping from the pre-dawn rain and only a five minute walk from the main train station, ten euro’s poorer for the cabbie of course. Tension brewing, exhaustion setting in.

Royal Palace = Kinda Weak

Day 41

We awoke quite late on Monday and as I had been to Madrid before and it was raining I set out to give Ben the highlights. For those of you who have never been, you can skip Madrid, I know it seems odd to say about a capital city but there really isnt that much history to witness as compared with other stops around it and the nightlife is shit compared to Barcelona and other coastal cities.

After a family-trip-esque tour of the Royal palace we walked through the center of the city before the showers picked up and we made for the hostel. Dispite a natural US citizen hesitancy, Ben and I have both gotten into the EuroCup 2008, its pretty sweet and its on every night almost so you always have pregame entertainment before going out. Ben made some dinner to watch the evening’s Cup matches at the hostel and we had our first encounter the Indian family that really got my anger building.

Hostels are for young people, and yes I actually qualify for young over here, most reputable hostels have rules saying 18-30 only, it keeps them from being booked up by cheap, pervish older people or families looking to save a few bucks, apparently this didn’t apply to “Mad”Hostel in Madrid. A family consisting of a lazy and apparently incredibly cheap father, a similarly lazy and drunk 15 year old son, a prissy teenage girl and a fugly mother who rocks sweatsuits like UVA girls sport multicolored belts, and will do anything to ensure that she watches all the younger hostelmates cook their dinner, awaiting her opportunity to make a crazy
4-course curry dinner for her “family.” I’m sure you can see my bloodpressure was rising at the very sight of this gypsy bazar, Ben’s
was too but mainly because the mom kept interupting his cooking to check the kitchen and hoard pots and pans for her planned Michelen Star dinner coming up two hours later. “10 fucking minutes you crazy New Dheli bitch!” If your kids are rich enough to have laptops and drink can after can of 1euro beers, you can stay at a hotel, end of story. We took it fairly easy that night, watched a few matches, drank a few bottles of wine from our Nalgene’s (yea this suck ass hostel didnt allow outside booze even though they had their bar closed all week for some reason) and crashed for the night. Still not mad at each other but sufficiently angry with the outside world to suffer an anuerism.

Day 42…

It began like any other, get up get dressed and start out for the day. We hit the major sites, the Prado muesum followed by the Parque del Retiro for lunch. It really is a beautiful city but when you’re this tired and have seen as much as we have in the past 6 weeks it takes a city like Paris or Rome to actually get you excited about a day of walking around and pointing at buildings. Returning to the hostel after the day of wandering we were exhausted and settled in for dinner and some wine. Fuck if the crazy family from hell didnt decide to sit down at our table for dinner, well this just ruined the afternoon and the bowl of whatever they
made, that I guaruntee you wouldn’t eat on a dare, filled the whole bar with an aura of crap that turned everyone’s happiness down a notch or two. We decided to shake it off and go out for a Euro favorite the organized “Pub Crawl.” Unbeknownst to us our blood was boiling from all the little ticks of six weeks of day to day travel and that we were only a few hours away from letting it all out.

Ben + Working Girls

A few of our hostelmates joined us as seems to happen no matter where you say you’re going and we hit the road for the crawl. At another hostel bar we had a pint and joined the other revelers to set out for a few bars with free drinks followed by “the best club in Madrid”. I put it in quotes because I’m not sure we ever got to a “club” let alone the best in Madrid as we were joined by a couple hired girls. I’m not sure how to say I knew they were trouble, lets just say God would never have designed women this disproportioned in their upper bodies, one slight gust of wind would put these girls to the ground boobs first and I’ve thrown enough water balloons to assume they would be in trouble. They were headed by a tiny girl who looked like she belonged on the set of a reproduction of Willow directed by Russ Meyer and it took a little talking to Ben to have him understand that these ex-pat tarts weren’t looking for a good time at no ones expense, we hit the road.

Now until this point we had been pulled around the city and through bars by someone who knew where they were going and for one of the only times on this trip, except perhaps for Munich, I had no fucking idea where we were. After a few minutes, maybe 30, of trying to navigate the streets with the tiny map I had in my back pocket Ben decides he’s had enough. We stop. It begins with a few comments from Ben about my navigation that evening and then quickly takes a slide toward a real argument when Ben starts shouting a few things he later asked to take back. I haven’t been angry in about 12 years and didn’t get angry this night either, I’m pretty sure the fact that I wasn’t going to shout back got Ben even more ticked off but he’ll have to comment on this himself.

Somehow in all the yelling I get a nose-bleed, I know it sounds childish but hell, for all I know thats what happens when I get mad its been that long since either. Ben starts to calm down once he realizes whats happening and agrees to go find some paper towels as I
lose about a pint and a half of blood on the streets of Madrid and we weren’t any closer to finding our hostel anytime soon.

I know it’s not what you were hoping for but what can I say, we just haven’t had reason or perhaps energy to actually throw fists yet. We made up and there’s a pretty funny video of me trying to get cleaned up as a car is very confused as to why my hands are covered in blood, we’ll try and get it up shortly. Ben agrees that perhaps the best way to make up for this blow out is to hit up a strip club and while I agreed, the strip club seemed to get a tip from the Heineken Experience and the Acropolis and was closed upon our 5am arrival. Tired and bloody we headed back to the now obvious location of the hostel at 530am and got up at 7am for our train to San Sebastian. An hour or two of sleep has become a staple of this trip and I can say that we are both better people after a long, sober, nights rest. But this is the trip of a lifetime, we have this blog and our pictures to keep our memories vibrant so we drink early, we drink often, we go out at 1am, and we get home when the sun comes up, because we’re in Europe and this is the only time we will be able to get away with it.

Ben’s Semi-Coherent Recollection of the Fight:

Yes, I went on a pub crawl. Yes, I got drunk. And yes, I did not know that the girls I was talking to may or may not have been part of the world’s oldest profession. Now, as I have said before, I let Ryan lead the way usually and blindly follow because I am pretty sure that maps and directions are some form of erotic literature to him. So on this night after the crawl (the end part I do not remember either) we wandered the streets per usual with Ryan leading the way and giving me no input as to whether he knows or doesn’t know the right way. It wouldn’t bother me if he just told me he was lost but it’s his refusal of admission that began to finally irritate me. I demanded the map and for him to point to where we were. He relunctantly handed it over and cockily asked me to
find the way. At this point in my alcohol induced state, I don’t think I could have picked a cow from a barnyard line up, much less read tiny street names and a map. I grew more frustrated at my own inability and took it out on Ryan. While some of the things I said may have been warranted from some of our experiences, others were not (and I did apologize the next day). Eventually Ryan left me and began to walk away with the map and I realized that I am bound for jail or a mugging if I didn’t find my way home. So I followed him. But he was upset (no matter what he says about his anger level) with me and kept turning around and yelling at me to leave. So I went Gollum on his ass and creepily stalked around the corners as he walked. Then I noticed that he stopped walking and was doubled over holding his head. I approached him and found him profusely bleeding from his nose. My cloud of rage and anger slowly lifted as I looked at this guy, with his clean shaven boyish looks helplessly oozing his own blood from his face. I decided to be
a big boy and help him. I went to find some paper towels and waited with him while he stained the streets of Madrid a dark maroon. Yes, we partially made up enough to try and find a gentlemen’s club and the video we will post is possibly my favorite documentary evidence of this trip, mostly because of the way he holds his hands while waiting to get his hands clean, how he cleans his hands, my comments as he washes up, and his final words as the video closes. Gold, Jerry, gold.

So with maybe an hour of REMless sleep, we head off to the train station. Ryan is not speaking to me the next morning. It takes me a while to piece together the previous night’s altercation. But while on the extremely overcrowded metro with my pack on, someone keeps bumping me. I hear an Australian accent call to me and a man to my right says, “Hey mate, you might want to watch yourself because he is a pick-pocket and is trying to work you.” The fellow immediately behind me jumps off the train almost instantaneously. I guess it takes an inhabitant of an island of criminals to know one.

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