Hi Gang! Just got back, washed up, and ready for bed. But first, I wanted to give you all a brief "run down" of the evening.
It was great. I had such a good time, meeting new people, seeing old friends again, and of course, eating some really good food.
Were 20 persons in total, 18 of which were men.
But fine.
3 women whom told me they would come didn't show up.
We started in El Brillante at 8pm. The first person to arrive was a great Spanish guy (and Spanish teacher) named Jesús. Just about everyone arrived within 20 minutes. The conversation was lively, everyone mingled around, lots of smiled shared and beers toasted to those whom couldn't be with us tonight. We had calamares & patatas bravas.
By 10:15pm or so, about half of us decided to "move on" and the other 10 or so went their own direction. So we headed to Plaza Santa Ana - where we found ALL the bars quite full (or too expensive for our tastes). So we moved on toward SOL where we settled in a place called "La Alhambra". I'd been there before for drinks once and for lunch another time and I liked it. The place is quite nice but a little small for my taste. Plus, it was quite noisy with loud music which made it difficult to talk. There, we had croquetas, more calamares, and finally, a plate of fried potatoes with serrano ham and a fried egg along with wine, beer, what have you.
I left the bar "La Alhambra" at about 12:15pm - as did Antonio and replay - and we three kings had one last drink at a small bar in Opera before we each went our respective ways. I got home at 1:45pm via metro.
So the night, at least for me, was a complete success. I was SO happy to see my old message board friends Mongo, SRedw, Damian, Steve Robinson, replay, & Antonio. And I also made some new Facebook friends too which was nice. Jesús, the first person to arrive to El Brillante, was a real character, possibly "The Life of the Party", very lively, energetic, personable and talkative. A great guy.
El Brillante was the perfect place to start as there was lots of space for our group, the food and drinks were good-n-cheap, (the calamares were perfect!) and it wasn't noisy at all. Of course, there was really no place to sit either but that didn't seem to bother anyone.
Tomorrow, I'll post some photos. We took A LOT, but let the first 1.5 hours pass without taking any because of all the conversation. Now, time for bed. It's 2:20am. Not late by Spanish standards but it's WAY past MY bedtime.
Saludos, MadridMan
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