A 'quiet night out' in Madrid...

Juxtaposition or what? I've come to the conclusion over the last 24 hours that no such thing exists here. Literally, I'm still trying to piece together exactly what happened last night. There is a link to 'Titanic' within this entry, so don't worry!

Our night began with plans to have dinner at 'El Tigre'. Located about a five minute walk from Gran Via, this little beauty of a restaurant promises to feed you enough food to last a lifetime. Although jam-packed with people, and this is apparently a 'quiet' period for the restaurant, we were hastily gestured into a corner and a waiter took our order. The best way to describe the menu is all-you-can-eat. Yep, you pay ?6 which includes a drink and what seems to be an endless supply of various starched goods, such as patatas bravas, bread with serrano ham and cheese, bread with tortilla on top, bread with meat and salsa brava on top and more patatas bravas. The waiter keeps coming back, asking if you want more plates until you decline.

Feeling suitably full, we then proceeded to a place called 'Copas Rotas', a ?1 wine bar not far from 'El Tigre'. Finding that the downstairs bar was jam packed, a short walk up two flights of bright pink stairs brought us to an upstairs bar, comprised of two long white tables, a bar and a large screen showing a football game. After ordering a glass of Cava each and spending a grand total of ?3 between us, we sat down for a quiet drink and recovery after eating what was probably twice our daily calorie intake in Tapas.

But no, a few minutes later, our 'peace' was disturbed by the arrival of a middle-aged French man wearing a hat. After randomly appearing and talking to us, he disappeared, then returned with some business cards. These helped to explain why he had asked us where we were from and 'speak English?' a few times. We were now inadvertently involved in a Language Exchange night. This then prompted various people to be pushed in our direction, including an aspiring air host called Marcello whose only knowledge of UK culture was the teen drama 'Skins' (not something I have watched in recent years), a lovely married couple from Ecuador whose English was very limited considering they were taking an English exam the next day, a man who apparently wanted to travel to the UK to become a Johnny Depp look-a-like and a French man called Theo. After a long period of awkward conversation, and several people asking where I was from in France or Germany (and French hat man explaining that I have the face of someone from Alsace in France), enough was enough.

So, we made the innocent mistake of heading downstairs. After a photo for the language exchange's Facebook page, and the French hat man reprimanding me for holding up the Language exchange's business card for the photo by saying 'No! Too much, too much!', we escaped to a wee corner of the downstairs bar where we could finally try and contemplate what had just happened. But no, five minutes later, another strange man appeared. First walking past and smiling creepily at us, he disappeared and gave us just a few seconds to laugh it off before he came back. If you thought things couldn't get weirder, you couldn't be more wrong. This man introduced himself as David, before proceeding to kiss us individually on the hand. He then began telling us his life story; how his name was now Jack, about being born in Australia but speaking 'no English' having grown up in Venezuela and now working as an actor. His demonstrations of his acting skills involved picking up a glass, wobbling his head and then shouting 'TERRIFIC!' combined with a waterfall of spit. He then proceeded to tell us that he was Jack, like Jack out of Titanic. After teaching him how to say 'Jack, I'm flying' in English, he stood stretching his arms out a few times like the romantic scene between Jack and Rose in the film. This then inspired him to enlighten us with the extent of his English vocabulary, which consisted of the classic:
-No English!
-Hollyvood
-Pretty lady

At this point,with us on the verge of struggling to contain our laugter, Jack thankfully decided it was time to move on to other unsuspecting visitors to the bar. Once again kissing the hands of the other two, and trapping me in a full on hug followed by 'I'm flying, I'm flying', he disappeared.

Slightly bewildered and scarred by the whole thing, it was time to make a swift exit. After a laughter filled walk to the Metro station, the night was over. Not exactly sure what happened, but it sure was a good night!

Not bad for a 7/8? night out, eh?