Europe 2022 – Madrid Day 1

Posted on July 26, 2022 by jmatie22

Arrived in Madrid from JFK at 9am (took 6.5 hours). What’s great at arriving at 9am is that it’s 12am in SF, so could either check into an Airbnb or get a day hotel and sleep for 3 hours to help adjust.

The airport is 20 minutes from Madrid city center (Sol – Gran Via), which most consider the city center).

So checked in around 10:30am. Airbnb was renovated, so seemed pretty modern.

Probably didn’t start making moves until 6pm though. First did a grocery pit stop at a local mart called Dia (seems like a chain). Got some jaman (aka ham), power ade, and most importantly water.

After, we explored the Sol / Gran Via area out. Stopped by a Tim Horton’s (connected to a Popeyes lol) to grab a latte with French vanilla syrup.

After walked into. Huawei store (first one I’ve been to), which is the flagship store in Spain. Gotta way, they’re smart watches look really nice, but the OS on their phone is super under performance (scrolling perf is bad. OS looks a lot like a meld between iOS and Android).

After, we went to a rooftop bar called Gymage. Can find the details here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2022/07/26/gymage-terrace/

We stayed at the rooftop bar until sunset, after which we were ready to get some food. We still stayed in the Sol area, where there was a bunch of shops like Zara, an Apple Store, and street performers (also, the main access point to the city, Puerto de Sol, which has a horse status and building we walked by).

We ended up going to this really good (and cheap) tapas place:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2022/07/26/matador/

After, we walked around to see if we could find a club that played house music. We found a lot of clubs, but none that played EDM (there were a lot of Latin type music clubs). There were lots of people of all ages trying to promote various random places. After asking around, finally found one called “Fucking Monday”, which was conveniently 2 blocks from our Airbnb.

Some interesting things about the club is that there were definitely 14 year olds there (now the show Elite from Netflix makes sense). But music was good. The main room was top 40 EDM (which they called commercial music). The smaller “boiler room” was called (EDM, which was mainly big room house (think fisher / Oliver Heldens).

Ended off the night going to McDonalds (we wanted the Taco Bel to be open, but it wasn’t open at 5am unfortunately). One thing this McDonald’s had was wedges with bacon and cheese (first McDonalds to have that.

Barcelona, fourth day

Posted on November 22, 2018 by jmatie22

Our last full day in Barcelona started off with the best weather we’ve had since arriving (18 degrees!).

We started off by looking for coffee, and we ended up finding a Tim Hortons!

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2018/11/22/tim-hortons-barcelona/

After, we stopped by a paella bar and got some delicious food at St Josep Mercat:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2018/11/22/paella-bar/

From there, we stopped by an ice cream place for dessert:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2018/11/22/hollys-ice-cream/

After dessert, we headed over to Park Güell. Along the way, this part of Barcelona looked pretty different. It was a bit older than the L’Eixample area, and streets were narrower.

At the park we took a bunch of pictures from the non-moment all part of the park. By the time it was our turn to go to the monumental part, the sun was setting, it we got some good pics in (note for future, buy tickets in advance so you can choose a desired time for when to see the monument).

After the Park we went to the Palau de la Música Catalana. We weren’t able to enter the actual music area, but the outside and inside entrance were picture worthy. Also, if we wanted to catch a show, they were playing Beethoven that night.

After the Palau, we grabbed some tapas for dinner at this place:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2018/11/22/la-pepita/

Then after eating, we prepped for a long night of partying.

Personal note, I used XCeed iPhone app to add us to the guest list for various clubs.” (Also used the discotech app to find clubs as well).

We started off by trying to go to Cafe Del Mar. Unfortunately by the time we got there, it was closed, so we tried Eclipse on the 46th floor of the W Hotel, which was a 3 minute taxi ride from Cafe Del Mar.

Eclipse had a nice view, but the DJ was not that good. Also drinks were 14 euros for a mojito. You could see from the view the beach, where you could have an awesome party.

Shortly after we headed to Pacha to check it out, which was a 10 minute taxi ride (Pacha is also near several other clubs). We didn’t arrive on time for the free guest list, but the guest list did allow us to purchase a ticket for 10 euros that includes a drink, so we totally took advantage of that.

Inside Pacha looked like its other clubs (with the cherry and white interior). The DJ played Latin music, but it was electronic dance Latin music, which actually sounded ok.

At almost 2am, we headed to Opium, where we made it for the free guest list. The music was basically top 40 music (not necessarily EDM). The app said it was supposed to be House, Electro and Dance, but clearly that was incorrect. Also, the people at Opium did not look as good as the people in Pacha. But at Opium, they had Shesha for 100 euros all night. Sam was able to get a deal for 70 instead.

At around 5:30am, we left to grab food at Casino Barcelona (haha, this was a lucky guess that they had food). This officially ended our trip in Barcelona.

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2018/11/23/casino-barcelona/

Note: Supermercat’s are open 24/7 and are an excellent source for liquor, and food you can add hot water to!