Madrid, or Whoaholycraphowcoolisthat

The other day I talked about our impending doom, but Madrid wasn’t totally bad.

In fact, I had two great nights there. On Monday, after I’ve arrived, my esteemed colleagues and I went to a little tapas restaurant whose name I forgot. Too bad, because it was rather spiffy. Nice food, great wine, much fun. We actually walked there from the office, so I managed to get some quick glimpses at the city. Beats driving around in a taxi.

On Tuesday, the good folks of Yahoo! Spain took us to Casa Patas, a Flamenco-themed restaurant. Really nice food, good wine (once again). Around 22:30 we’ve all been really stuffed, and wondering where to go next, when we were told that there was a Flamenco show coming up, and we had tickets.

Now, mind you, I had no idea what to expect. Flamenco had never really appeared on my radar prior to that evening.

To make it short: it was one hell of a show. There were three singers, Pepe Jiménez, José “El Flaco” and Pedro Jiménez, two guitars, Jesus Losada and Victor “El Tomate” (I am not making this up, it’s what the pamphlet said). Also, three dancers: Primitivo Daza, Miguel Canas and Rosa Jiménez. (Thanks to David for letting me use the picture.)

And quite frankly, they rocked the house.

The music was superb. The dancing was mindblowing. It was an awesome evening, and I was completely blown away. The other guys had a good time as well, and it’s been quite something!

Many thanks to both Marcos and Arno from the Madrid office for planning a great night out. Here’s hoping you’ll never come to Munich because quite frankly, I wouldn’t know how to top that. ;)

Unfortunately, I still have no idea what kind of Flamenco I had witnessed. Apparently there are around 50 different styles of Flamenco, and I am a total n00b when it comes to classifying kickass foreign ethno entertainment. :p After spending some time listening to many different artists (Pandora.com and Last.fm be praised), I hadn’t made any progress. So I’ve asked my Spanish coworkers, and they couldn’t tell me either.

Then I’ve mailed the folks at Casa Patas (in English), explaining which show I had seen, and asking whether they could tell me the subtype(s) of Flamenco that were shown this evening, and guess what I got back? A form letter, in Spanish, with a rather lengthy Word document, describing the history of Flamenco, in Spanish. Gee, thanks. I wonder what made them think I could speak Spanish, after writing them in another language. ;)

So, that didn’t help either. It means listening to more music then, hoping to find something I might like. Well, that can’t hurt, but it’s driving me nuts to listen and listen and listen and not find the right thing.

Before discovering the Internet I’ve had a bit more patience, I think.

Madrid, or Why we’re all doomed

Madrid was nice. I’ve met a lot of friendly people, co-workers and random passersby alike, taxi drivers and dancers (more on that later), and made some observation which lead me to believe our attempts at saving the climate are futile.

In short: from what I observed over the course of three days, along with what I’ve seen during our days on Teneriffe, Spain’s collective consciousness doesn’t seem to give a damn about energy conservation.

Don’t get me wrong, please. Germany is far from being perfect and totally awesome in that regard, but most people are trying by now. Also the government tries to get people to conserve energy, to recycle, to re-use things. Hell, I remember the recycling ads from my childhood, so apparently the effort is made for a good number of years by now.

But Spain… man, this was nuts. One-off styrofoam cups everywhere. Two or three plastic cups at the watercooler, at once, which are thrown away after one go. (I mean, why wouldn’t you, there are many more available.) I was hard pressed to find four (4!) ceramic cups in the entire office, and used one of those then. (Seriously, I am not recycling my pants off for years, just to start using styrofoam cups again while being away.) People leaving their cars running while they were waiting for someone on the street, for 10 minutes, 15 minutes… Incredible. (Apparently fuel doesn’t isn’t expensive enough yet.) And so on.

Then I talked to a colleague from France who told me that they started a “let’s all recycle!” campaign last year or so. Last year. Which means that until last year, the concept seemed foreign to them.

There were more little things I’ve noticed, and which made me raise my eyebrows every now and then. Now, I am not a tree hugger, and I don’t think I am the awesomest dude around when it comes to energy conservation and reducing waste (thusly reducing CO² production). But if you’re a concerned citizen human, which at this point everyone should be, I think, then you can’t look at shit like this and help but twitch.

In the end it is a governmental fault. See, here in Germany the political caste has adopted CO² reduction as an urgent issue, and sometimes, they even act accordingly. But even if they don’t, they usually present it as burning issue, and hearing it over and over again, many people have adjusted or are at least starting to. Somehow the system works, even if it could work better, but we’re getting there… I hope. None of us is without sin, so there.

But apparently a lot of European states seem to hope the problem seems to go away by itself. Which I find highly disturbing, and which makes me think we’re all doomed.