Madrid, thus far

No sleep.
No food aside from the granola bars and oranges in our bags.
Over sixteen hours on a train.

It was like a pilgrimage to Madrid--the place of rest and riches of running water, feasts and internet access. When we finally made it into the train station our nerves were shot and probably talking in incoherent blurbs. Fortunately, we´re foreigners and so allowances are made.

We were expecting Kenny to pick us up, but via a handful of text messages we discovered it would be his friend, Jazz, instead. We didn´t care who it was, as long as they picked us up and delivered us to food, a shower and a bed.

One text message informed us about Burgo´s, the place we would meeting Kenny.

Burgo´s. Sounds like a fantastic burger joint to me.

We started rambling about burgers and food in general, about how much we would eat and considering if asking for drive-thru so as not to interrupt our journey to bed would be bad manners.

Jazz arrives, saying ¨Hi, we´re meeting Kenny at Burgos, he´s already there.¨

Perfect, maybe he has ordered ahead.

¨Yeah, we heard. We don´t know what Burgo´s is but it sure sounds good!¨

It is Burgos. Not Burgo´s. And it is a city, not a burger joint, two and a half hours north of Madrid.

The looks of sheer panic that struck across our faces would have been priceless had we caught them on film. Instead, we could barely manage a reply. We prayed it was a joke; we hoped that Jazz was, instead, whisking us away to said mecca of rest and riches.

But alas, it was not a joke and Burgos is definitely every minute of two and a half hours north of Madrid. Even more heartbreaking, we saw buildings and landmarks that we had already passed hours before on the train, whizzing by us like some cruel form of deja-vu. We sat, in a dejected state of shock, our heads bobbling back and forth, fighting off sleep (or perhaps coma) while the three other people in the van jabbered in Spanish.

We found out later each and every one of our chauffeurs was born in America with English being their native tongue. It was the beginning experience of some bizarre Spanish-speaking club we are excluded from, or so it seems.

Kenny explained it like this: a fierce attachment to Spain and the culture, resulting in the unwillingness to accomodate non-Spanish speaking individuals.

I´ve experienced it like this: an ignorant and snobbish decision to exclude indiviuals you are perfectly capable of accomodating. This is particularly true, for me, of the American-born ¨Spaniards,¨who didn´t bother to say so much as hello or inquire as to what we were doing.

We spent the evening at an ¨underground worship,¨where nearly everyone was capable of speaking English to us but chose not to. But to each their own, and perhaps they weren´t appreciative of us gatecrashing their worship.

underground worship -- a group of young people gathering to listen to a band and meditate on their faith in general.

Either way, it wasn´t entirely heartbreaking because we weren´t exactly in any state to be interacting with anyone, let alone with a language barrier of sorts to contend with. Eventually, we made it back to Madrid and collapsed into bed at 3:30 am.

Woke up around noon and have lazed since then. Our feet our still swollen and bruised, but it is glorious to know that today we will eat and tonight we will sleep.

We are recuperating. To be continued...