Note: This is a journal entry — it was written on paper or on my computer, then transferred to my website, maybe years later.

Last night (=the night before last) we stayed at a hotel (hostal) in Caceres on the other side of the "parte antigua" (the old walled portion of the city).  We had some coffee and pastries at an outdoor cafe in front of the plaza where all the people were standing last night.  It had been totally cleaned up by then; no trash at all.  We had left our gear at the club overnight (gracias a dios!) so we went and picked it up and drove towards Madrid.  I was jamming MP3s off my iPod like I did yesterday.  :-)

On the way to Madrid we passed the restaurant where we’d eaten that horrible lunch yesterday.  It’s called ‘Los Conos’ and I think it’s just west of the Casarrubios del Monte exit — about 40 kilometers west of Madrid on the N5 highway.  On the right if you’re heading west from Madrid.  If you ever go there, go fuck with them and tell them I sent you!  (But you better bring a couple of really big ugly guys with you because those folks are fuckin’ CRAZY.)

We got to Madrid around 2pm.  Found the record store and dropped off our gear, then went to find the hotel to drop off our luggage.  Went to McDonald’s and had some lunch (I was craving some good American-style junk food).  Somewhere in there I was able to leave a message on John’s machine at work… he must have been in transit, oh well.  Went back to the record store and did a quick soundcheck.  Then Ryan and I found an internet cafe (EZ Internet).  I didn’t have the right change so I only got twenty minutes online… enough time to read my mail and reply to John’s love-note, but not enough time to blog, oh well.  I also checked out the Drudge Report… we’ve been seeing on the Spanish news that they’ve finally caught the Washington sniper(s).  Thank god.  It was good to read the story in English because I couldn’t really get the whole story on the Spanish news the way I wanted to.  After that, Ryan and I went back to the hotel for a little disco-nap.  Got woken up around 7:30 and bolted over to the record store to do our little show.  It went fine.  The store was full of indie records, both CD and vinyl.  I looked for some old Pink Floyd bootlegs for John but this was a more respectable kind of place, nothing pirated, heheh.  They closed up the shop around 8:30 and covered all the merchandise with big green netting so nobody could browse the CDs while we were playing.  (WOW!!  Not what I’m used to when I’m doing an instore, for sure.) I guess there were about 20 people in there to see us.  The little PA worked fine and the show went well, even though the soundman (or rather, the owner of the PA) didn’t see fit to show up for it… good thing Ryan’s a soundman too!  He had to twiddle the knobs for us.

After the show I needed to do an interview with a woman named Alicia, so we wandered over to a little pizza restaurant about 10 blocks away.  Ryan and Andy sat there patiently eating pizza and drinking beers while we did the interview into a little tape recorder.  The interview was for a radio show that she does, something with "Telescopio" in the title.  She was very nice.  We tried to do the interview in Spanish but I kept lapsing into English when the words failed me.  Well, at least I tried.  I do think it’s important… porque estoy en este pais donde se hablan espanol, no estoy en america.  Pienso que tengo que TRATAR a hablar en espanol, para dar respeto a la gente que viven aqui; si es posible comunicar en espanol, es mucho mejor.  Anyway.  The interview took about an hour, though we tried to make it shorter, it was just hard for me to express myself and come up with the right words.  But I tried, and ojala que me van a perdonar por mis errores.  :-)

Back at the hostel now.  I need to go to bed, but the street outside is absolutely full of people making lots of noise.  I’m so tired I could probably sleep through anything!!  Tomorrow’s a really long drive, like seven or eight hours to Vigo.  Andy says this is going to be the best show of the whole tour… or anyway, the best club, best PA, best setup for the musicians.  Should be cool.