DONDE ESTAN LOS TODOS CHICOS AT, part 3

we stood in front of las meninas for, let’s say, an hour (let’s say), because our attendant late renaissance art history phd-in-progress had something to say about it. a few things, even, about why it might be the most important painting in the place. and we were proud, because you can understand the garden of earthly delights without understanding it (or so we fancied ourselves led to believe), but to be a successful voyeur in the chamber of the infanta margarita is something that requires a more, well, delicate sensibility -- as they say.

the surrender of breda was a similar story, but velazquez had played different tricks than with the attendants of the infanta. it might have just been the lingering effects of the night and the morning, but the museum guests with their ears pressed to the black sound clubs giving them their recorder tours seemed not to hide their jealousy over our access to javier’s private lectures. that i was looking around was definitely a result of those lingering effects. in other words, it’s possible that halfway through our several hours long private tour of the prado, it’s possible that i was still, well, drunk -- as they say. (although they don’t say that it might have been on attention.)

they say that you can’t do better cruising in spain than on gran vía, that gran vía smack dab (wink) in the middle of Madrid, and it would seem to be true: there’s a decision over whether or whom to follow at every crossing where two (or four or a dozen) pairs of eyes have had that extra moment to linger. but i say that if you want to know what delicious piece of eye candy is going to be wondering if you have any drugs at five-thirty the next morning in chueca, get yourself man to the prado on a friday afternoon.

this is the thought that i have on a friday afternoon at the prado as i catch my second second wind of giddiness. my bus back to seville leaves in seven hours, which won’t be enough time to collect on my investment at the museum (still drunk, as they say, i’ve probably invested sloppily anyway), but it’s still long enough that i might die at dinner. we’re meeting other friends.

i try to revive myself again with the same bit of whimsy (which is a phrase i think is fucking ridiculous now that i am no longer drunk but being encouraged again to drink) as we’re snacking at the market, but it doesn’t have the same effect as at the museum. our guide is still with us, but the fare at the market doesn’t look so great.

i’m not at all able to hide my jealousy as we cross gran vía toward the comic book store owned by one of our other friends. i could have died, but i’m saving that for dinner. dinner, however, turns out to be more than pleasant, because i like our other friends. i can die at the tiki bar we’re going to afterwards if it sucks. but the tiki bar doesn’t suck. the interiors of tiki bars in madrid are decorated in hipster rockabilly nostalgia, and the drinks they serve in their huge tiki mugs come with a free third second wind of giddiness.

i am taking my time getting my bag from the hotel, but i don't yet know that the metro route i’ve mapped to the bus station requires me to change trains at a stop that has just closed for the night because of a special holiday weekend schedule. when i come up from the metro wherever it is that i come up from the metro, i’m able to quickly catch a cab, but i regret catching the one that i do because it’s the one driven by the guy who can’t stop telling me that the last buses leave from that bus station at one and it’s already twelve-fifty. we arrive at the bus station some time after twelve-fifty, and i die at one o’clock, precisely as my bus is pulling out of the station in madrid to take the living passengers back to the madness in seville.

the resurrection doesn’t normally figure much into the christmas story, but what can i say, it was a christmas miracle. and in seville, tonight, the penultimate (but isn’t it always here), the eve of the last day of christmas, the magi are on parade. they’ll be in the neighborhood around seven. but what of it? we didn’t spend any time at all at the museum on the adoration of the magi or the triumph of bacchus. to be honest, i don’t even remember seeing them. apparently, as they say, they really aren’t that important.