On Monday, my second day in Madrid, I found myself in my hostel around 11:00 pm. Fernando and I had been walking around the city all afternoon, and I was considering going to bed. But part of me refused to let myself do that. So I decided to go find a bar and have a mojito. The bar I found was a small, local place. I ordered my drink and sat down at a table a little away from the bar. A little while later an older, bald, squat man came up to my table. My highschool-Spanish allowed me to tell him that I could only speak a little bit of Spanish (hablo poco espanol), he could speak English so we started a conversation. I ended up sitting by him at the bar for a few hours chatting about this and that. He happened to be a lover of classical music, and a friend of a cello player in the Madrid orchestra. He offered to buy me another drink, but after one mojito, and having to navigate back to my hostel, I knew another would not be good. So I declined, but told him if he was here Wednesday he could buy me one then.
Wednesday I showed up, and there he was, same spot at the bar, drinking the same beer. This time our conversation was more about American politics (he doesn't like Bush, Obama, or Guliani), Spanish politics (bad city government, good national government), Spanish food (great, cheep) and where the most beautiful girls in Spain are (the south). By the time I left, again around 1:30 am I felt like I really learned a lot about Spain - more than most tourists who just come and snap pictures, read pamphlets and leave.