The Moroccan and The Brit
I met DJ after connecting on Couchsurfing, on a rainy weekday in front of the Apple Store in the Puerta del Sol. That was a common meeting spot during my time in Madrid because it was central, I could hook up to the wifi and the store front wasn’t as crowded as the center of the plaza. He had just arrived in Madrid from Manchester and was spending a few days sleeping on a stranger’s couch before heading off to backpack through Spain with a random Kiwi he had met on a facebook group. I took him to the top of the Corte Ingles on Gran Via to see the view, then we walked through Malasana trying to decide where to stop for a drink (we are both extremely indecisive people) and finally settled on a little hipster cafe called Galleta Bar. I got a glass of wine and he got a latte. DJ doesn’t drink or do drugs or anything fun, really. After Bar Galleta, we sat on the second floor of Burger King on Gran Via. This is where DJ taught me the proper use of the word ‘proper.’ I asked him if I could say things like, “These burger fries are real proper,” and we had a laugh.
Later that evening, we went to a language exchange that someone on Couchsurfing had recommended to DJ at a bar called La Excentrica. Since the next day was a “Dia de Fiesta,” or a national holiday, the bar was packed... with some very good looking men, might I add. I spotted a nice looking man from across the room who smiled at me and made his way over to the table that DJ and I were occupying. His name was Inigo, he was 30 years old and he worked in the financial district of Madrid - Plaza de Castilla. We chatted a while and exchanged flirty looks until I finished the glass of red wine I was drinking and excused myself to the bar to get another one. There was a friendly looking man standing alone at the bar that I smiled and said hi to. He helped me get the bartender’s attention and spoke to me in broken English, after he requested that I speak slowly. I thought he was waiting for someone, but I invited him back to our table and he followed me back. His name was Abdul, he was from Morocco and he spoke French, Spanish and Arabic. He frequented these language exchanges to practice the English he was learning in class. Abdul and DJ sadly took my attention away from Inigo and he left before we could exchange any information. I would later go back to the same language exchange in hopes of running into him again, but we never did end up crossing paths after that.
I met a few other interesting characters at this language exchange; a Brazilian artist named Joao, who several weeks later would tell me the moles on my skin created constellations, before ruining the moment by harassing my tonsils with his tongue; a Lebanese man named Safi who, for whatever reason, really struck me although I never met back up with him... I think he reminded me of a girl from college that I really admired; two men who were probably in their sixties that hoarded my attention for about a half hour; and several others. By the end of the night, DJ, Abdul and I had made plans to meet the next morning and do a walking tour of Madrid, guided by Abdul, who lived right off Atocha Street, about a 5 minute walk from the heart of the city. The next morning, we had churros at San Gines, walked from the Palacio Real to the Temple and stopped to take pictures at the Plaza de Espana. Abdul shared some fun facts about the statues of the soldiers on horses and what their leg placement meant, and about the big tall building at Plaza de Espana being completely empty and unused. After spending several hours together, Abdul had to leave to get ready for work, and I had to head back to Pilar to pick up the children from school, but we made plans to go to Madrid’s boujee-est night club that weekend. I pointed DJ in the direction of Retiro Park before hoping on the metro.
That Friday, after finishing up with work, I went into the center with Nori (the housekeeper) for the first time, and we had lunch and a beer at a shitty little Chinese place close to Gran Via. Then, Natalie and I met up to go to a giant pop-up warehouse/factory sale and didn’t head back home until around 10pm. We each went our separate ways to get ready to meet up with DJ and Abdul for a night out. As I was walking home from the metro, I stopped at one of the “Chino” shops and picked up some vodka and Fanta to pregame while I got ready, and for Natalie and I to share once we met back up in the center. I mixed a bottle of Fanta and vodka (about half and half) for my bag, along with another water bottle of pure vodka and headed out at about 1am... dangerously close to the last metro of the night. As I was sitting, waiting for the metro, I felt something wet, and looked down to see that one of the bottles had leaked through my bag.
I didn’t think I’d make it but I caught my last connection on the very last metro to Lavapies, which was filled with other drunk party-goers and groping lovers. When I came up to the entrance of the Lavapies station, Natalie was waiting alone for me on a bench... at least I had beat the boys there, I thought to myself. We quickly took turns taking swigs of my remaining bottle of vodka, and chasing it with Red Bull we had bought from the convenience store next to the metro entrance. Abdul finally showed up in a cab with DJ’s Kiwi companion, who was already wasted out of her mind. He told us he needed to get her back to her hostel before we could meet up with DJ, who was already at the club. So we walked for about 15 minutes up little alleyways, dotted with sketchy crowds of people who would approach us and try to sell us weed. Betty--the Kiwi--kept trying to convince Abdul to stop to buy weed and would make attempts to chat up and flirt with these strangers as Abdul pushed her along. Natalie and I hung back a few feet from them, laughing at Abdul’s misfortune and comparing it to a regular work day for us as au pairs.
After finally dropping Betty off at her hostel and having to almost push her in as she insisted that she wasn’t too fucked up to come out with us, we headed to a night club called Velvet. This wasn’t the original club we had planned on, but after all the delays, the cover had nearly doubled in price and we decided to come back a different time. When we got there, DJ eagerly introduced us to his new friends. We all danced together and at a certain point of the night, Natalie started dancing with a cute guy who stole her attention away from us. More power to her, though, I thought. I went out for a cigarette and saw DJ standing with a tall blonde girl. I approached them and she looked very troubled. Her name was Eva and that was her first night in Spain, on her first ever solo trip. She told me that she had been harassed by her host but didn’t want to elaborate beyond that. “Our friend Abdul--who is in there right now--lives really close to here and if you don’t feel comfortable enough to go back to your host, I’m sure you could stay on his couch for the night until you can figure something out in the morning,” I told her. She never told me why she decided to go out and party after being harassed, but I later figured she might’ve seen it as her only legitimate excuse to get out. She liked the idea of going with Abdul, so I ran inside to find him. Before DJ and Abdul went off to help Eva, Abdul told me to meet him back at the Apple Store in 15 minutes. I went back into the club, finished my drink, said good bye to Natalie and headed to meet him. I waited about a half hour and there was no sign of Abdul or DJ anywhere, so I ended up crashing at a friend’s house who I ran into while I was waiting.
The next day, Abdul checked in with me to make sure that I was ok and to apologize for not being able to come back when he said he would. He told me he had good reasons for it and that he would explain later. That night I had to stay in and babysit, but the next night, Natalie and I headed out to try to find one of the many Sunday night terrace parties. Usually, you have to put your name on the guest list through Facebook before attending these parties, but we hadn’t planned well so we just showed up to one, but decided against it when they told us what the cover fee is with out having your name on the list. At that point, Natalie was committed to finding a party, and we couldn’t think of any place to go on a Sunday that wouldn’t require us to have our names on a list, so we texted Abdul to hopefully take us somewhere fun. We met at the Apple Store and walked through the center as Natalie shot down all of Abdul’s suggestions, and tried to find a very specific type of place to have drinks at. As we were walking, Abdul told me all of the details I had missed from Friday night.
After leaving the club, DJ and Abdul escorted Eva back to her host’s to retrieve her luggage and bring her back to Abdul’s. According to Abdul, the place was quite obviously a brothel with different toys and props hanging on the walls. He was perplexed as to why Eva wouldn’t spot this on arrival, and chose to come in and leave her belongings. The man running the place was insistent that Eva couldn’t leave, and although Eva and DJ opposed it, Abdul threatened to call the cops on the man if he didn’t let him go in and grab her things. Apparently, Eva didn’t want to ruffle any feathers, she just wanted to get out. After the man finally let Abdul in, he gathered all of her things and they were off to his place. Eva cried when they got there and told Abdul that a man had come to pick her up from her ‘hostel’ earlier that night. He took her to a club, where he tried to lure her to the basement. She noticed he had a case with ‘props’ and that the basement was a sex club. She told the man she had to go to the bathroom, and that is when she managed to escape.
Abdul graciously let Eva sleep in his bedroom, while he slept on the tiny couch in his living room. The next morning, they reconnected with DJ. I am unclear about the details, but Eva and DJ ran off to Valencia that day and spent a couple of days seemingly in love with each other until they realized they were actually completely incompatible, had a falling out, and went their separate ways.
Betty, the Kiwi, stayed behind in Madrid because she wanted to party there a few more nights and never ended up reconnecting with DJ. Meanwhile, DJ continued his backpacking trip through Spain, and somehow met a German man with a little rinky-dink car, who he road-tripped with for three days.
Throughout DJ’s time in Spain, he would continue to communicate with Eva... Going back and forth between making future plans of visiting each other in their respective countries, and getting in fights that ended with one of them telling the other they hated each other. There was a lot of passion in their relationship... Eventually the texts stopped (probably after the many times of blocking and unblocking each other,) and DJ is back on the market in Manchester, looking for the perfect girl.
Abdul kept in touch with the Kiwi, and despite having to babysit her that first night, started a relationship with her when she returned to Madrid at the end of her backpacking adventures. She asked him to move to London with her, so he quit his job and didn’t re-sign his lease, only to have Betty bail on him at the last minute insisting that she, “needs space.”
It has been 5 months since we all met, and I have visited DJ in Manchester a couple of times since I’ve been in the U.K. Abdul is going through with the move, so we will all be in the same place at the same time once again. **Some names have been changed