I am on vacation June 20. Is there a gathering then or not?

carmendeespana, I'm not sure yet but I guess I should make a firm decision sometime this weekend. Will it be Monday, June 20th? I don't know yet, sorry.

Any suggestions on WHERE it should be? El Brillante near Atocha, maybe? We haven't done that one for quite awhile, could sit outside too. Good and cheap food and drink.

Keep in mind that I expect this "Party with MadridMan in Madrid" to be MUCH smaller than the last one (50+ persons, I think) since this one is mid-week and not a weekend, and I'm not promoting it on the front of the website as I usually do. Again, this'll be a less formal gathering, won't go very late, and possibly just a one-stop get together as opposed to going from place to place.

Saludos, MadridMan

"Party with MadridMan in Madrid" on Thursday, June 23, 2005 8:00pm. Sound good?

Now we just need to decide where. While "El Brillante" is a favorite place of mine, maybe the large terraza on Plaza de San Andrés would be good once again. It's rather central and not too difficult to find but can be crowded. Well, if our group is small it won't matter so much.

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

Saludos, MadridMan

I will miss this edition of the Party with MadridMan, but since I am coming to Madrid from September 28 to October 7, perhaps that time will coincide with a MadridMan Party. This is a call to Mongo and Epaulino4 to synchronize your calendars, since I will, of course by staying at Hostal Adriano.

My wife, this time, and I know it is going to cost me plenty, is allowing me to journey to Madrid with a male friend, you know "Boys Trip"?

Don't worry....we are not very dangerous.

Hey MadridMan......This is great! My wife and kids are headed back to the states for a month to visit family and I am able to go to one of these. My suggestion would be to start out in Plaza de Santa Anna at the German "Natterbier". They have Beer taps in the tables and VinaTecha is right next door for our Wine drinkers. It is also centrally located right next to Sol for wherever the group wants to go. I'll monitor the subject.

MedicalMan: Good suggestions! I'm a little concerned about the Plaza Santa Ana terraza though. While all very nice, they're generally small and on a hot Thursday night in Madrid they're likely to be FULL at the 8pm start time which would leave everyone else to stand around - where there's really no space to stand except MAYBE inside and WHO wants to be inside on a hot evening? They'll likely simply have their doors open.

Hope to see you in Madrid on June 23, 2005!

Saludos, MadridMan

The choice of location also depends largely on whether people want to eat. I wouldn't recommend Plaza Santa Ana (even though I live there and it would be a very short stagger home) if people want to have tapas. It's expensive and the food's not great.- If people just want to drink, then it's fine and I could even tell the ladies in the terraza to keep us a few tables free. If it's food people want, Plaza San Andres is good, but perhaps hard to find enough tables. There is a fun place in Plaza Tirso de Molina. It's a rooftop bar with a Granada theme and with a wrap around terraza and views over the square. And it's cheap. They might be happy to take a reservation if we can give them approximate numbers.

barry: all good comments. And I agree with you about Plaza Santa Ana. I think we'll want to eat something along with our drinks - at least *I* will.

Your idea of the rooftop/wraparound terraza in Plaza Tirso de Molina sounds intriguing. But after some people have read the thread about Lavapies they may have other ideas about coming and then walking home/back after dark.

Regarding the terraza in Plaza de San Andrés and not having many tables available to us, I don't think we'll have all that many - not like in past years since I'm not promoting it anywhere but right here in this thread. In the past I've promoted it on the FRONT page of MadridMan.com and other strategic pages, also on get-together threads of other message boards, and even sent emails to my closest friends in Madrid to attend if they wanted - but not this year. So maybe we'll only need a few tables. And I was happy with the food at that Cervecería San Andrés. Wait... I DIDN'T EVEN GET ANYTHING TO EAT! Too much socializing. hehehe.. but the food did LOOK good and believe it was inexpensive.

Any other, additional suggesions? June 23 is drawing near!

Saludos, MadridMan

Wow, I just picked up on this thread yesterday. June 23rd? I think that's my last day of school, so I will have all the more reason to celebrate!

My only suggestion is that if you're looking for a terraza, and that sounds like a good idea, you should try to get a round figure of how many people are planning on going. This would be my first MadridMan get-together sound I can't even guess at how many people normally go to these events. Ten? Twenty? A thousand?

Anyway, if you have a ballpark figure, then you can go to one of these places and have them hold a table for you. This obviously works better if you know the owner. I mean right on my street (calle Ibiza) there are about twenty great terrazas in the boulevard, and I could get a table, but the only negative side is that it's on the other side of Retiro and not in the Sol, Santa Ana, La Latina, Cava Baja, Cava Alta areas. You may be looking for some place in those parts of town. If so, I'm sure one of you knows a terraza well enough to ask the owner to reserve a table. You might even be able to do it that very afternoon a couple of hours before people meet up.

I think it's the best way to avoid the old, "Now what do we do?" crisis. At least that's my first impression, but maybe that's not being very realistic since there's no way of knowing how many.

A la espera de más input...

Hey Barry--
Where's this roof-top terraza in Tirso?