Travel briefing

According to Time Out, the greater Madrid area has very good water. My taxi driver from the airport was listening to Belle & Sebastian. Sandwiches here are not as good as sandwiches in the U.K., but the shampoo is the same. Oh, and did you know that the last Habsburg king was Charles II of Spain? He was retarded and had a big tongue.

People thought it was caused by sorcery.

So far, that's all I know about Spain. I told Charlie what I'd learned and it turns out he already knew about Charles II -- he's very knowledgeable about the Spanish monarchy!

I thought I'd be able to go to the mall to buy a hair-dryer when I got here, but all I had time for was bus-ing into the center of the town where I'm staying and buying a drink made with carrot juice and powdered milk.

Right now I'm in my residencia listening to music that other people are "sharing" through iTunes. Someone has: the entire soundtrack to Wicked, the NSync Christmas album (Home for Christmas, in case you don't know), both the live and album versions of "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield, entire albums by Rockell, Pebbles, the Postal Service, Broken Social Scene, Ryan Cabrera, Ryan TEDDER, Hoobastank, Air, and Daft Punk, the soundtrack to High School Musical II, a cover of "Umbrella" by Mandy Moore, a million songs that are from video games, and many other hits. Who is this person? 24=year-old Korean male? 37-year-old gay white guy? Spanish teenager at soccer camp?

The place where I'm staying has a lot of wandering cats. There's a little white one walking by my window right now, and I'm listening to someone else's Matisyahu mp3.

I think it must be a soccer camp teenager who has all this music, because there are five more "shared libraries" that also have the Postal Service and Metric and the soundtrack to Wicked, and what are the chances of that in a sleepy exurb in the middle of Spain? Total summer camp effect.

Yesterday I was in London, experiencing the best that Hackney has to offer. I sat on a blanket and watched a dog eating a beer can in the park, for example.

The day before that I was still in Berlin! I already miss it.

JD was in Berlin, and she took this picture. It is a picture of me learning that the German word for cervix is gebärmutterhals.