Partied Like a Rockstar

Ok I did not want to leave you people in suspense any longer (because I just know you are checking everyday to see if I’ve put up a new post concerning the remark made on the last one). Well as a preface you must know that here in Spain these people have incredibly active nightlives. Apparently it is quite a normal occurrence to end your Friday or Saturday night Saturday or Sunday morning with breakfast with your homies and you usually turn in around 7 or 8 AM. Now I don’t know about you guys, but my body is used to BYU time and that usually means late is 3 or 4 AM and even then you’re back in your apartment by 1 or 2, so this whole partying all night until the sun comes up (literally) is a little new to me. But I must say that on the night I became a true Spaniard my body embraced it well and I feel like I’m home (mas o menos).

Our big night of fun started with the 11:04 train into Madrid (can I just point out that this time is when things are at a peak and going down usually, but this is not even when the nightlife starts here) with 8 of us girls completely psyched to party it up at our first discoteca (yep that’s right-and don’t go thinking this is a place where you deck out in your bellbottoms and get down to “Play that Funky Music”; it’s just what they call their dance clubs here). So we were in Madrid by about midnight and even though we’ve been there plenty of times we still found a way to get ourselves lost on our way to the discoteca, thus we resorted to asking a group of about 7 eighteen-year old boys where it was and then ended up following them sort of creepily because apparently they were partying it up there that night as well. They pointed out the club to us and then went on their way without heading inside. That should have been our first tip-off that maybe we were a little early for the dance party. The second tip-off had to be the groups of people standing outside without heading in. So to be like the cool kids (and because we were still kind of confused on how you even got in the place because it’s not like any of us do any heavy clubbing in Provo) we headed next door to good ole’ Mickey D’s to bide our time until the cool hour. And then we got impatient and went inside by 12:15.

And now we enter the world of KAPITAL. Just to paint a mental picture of this place here is a small description, courtesy of Frommer’s: “This is the most sprawling, labyrinthine, and multicultural disco in Madrid at the moment. Set within what was originally a theater, it contains SEVEN (emphasis added) different levels, each sporting at least one bar and an ambience that’s often radically different from that of the previous floor. Voyeurs of any age take heart-there’s a lot to see at Kapital, with a mixed crowd that pursues whatever form of sexuality seems appropriate at the moment.” So I’m not sure if that’s exactly how it was (especially the different forms of sexuality because as far as I could tell all the guys were doing a pretty good job of swarming the American girls), but you get the general idea. But to that I would just like to add that I felt like a freaking celebrity there. It was like one of those clubs in New York or LA that you see in magazines of famous people. So basically we had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into by the time we were done exploring the basically deserted (no one awesome shows up before one) club, but we were loving every minute of it.




So to wait it out until the party got started on all the dance floors we headed to floor seven-the lounge area fully-equipped with two bars, many couches, even a fountain and some lovely bed-like things in the middle-and worked our American girl magic. And when I say “worked” I really mean sat on a couch and talked in English and then random guys came to see the exotic women. Even our friends from the street finally decided to show up and come and chat it up, even after us following them creepily. And the best part was that they had other friends who provided us with many funny quotes in their drunken English (one of them even looked like a mix between Nick and Joe Jonas, so that made the devoted Disney fan in our group sublimely happy). But at least the rugged and dark one acknowledged it: “I’m sorry my English is like ‘crap’ (editing needed); it is because I am so drunk.”

So by that time we were ready to boogie and all us girls headed downstairs to get down with our bad selves! The first floor we picked ended up being our favorite so we spent most of our night there, changing it up when we got bored of creepy guys following us around. So after only about 10 minutes of dancing I came to the conclusion that American girls are hot stuff here (probably just like anyone with a decent accent is in the US). So a lot of our night was spent with all us 8 girls dancing in the middle of groups of guys, keeping a close eye on each other. But don’t get me wrong, we did dance our fair share of dances with Spanish men and chatted it up a lot more. The Disney fanatic even got herself her Jonas boyfriend, so I think that night was a success for her. So basically how you got asked to dance (don’t go expecting some guy to get down on one knee and politely ask if you would care to dance, this is no EFY) is by them grabbing your hands and pulling you towards them. And you respond by either starting to dance with them (yes) or making an “I’m so creeped out by this man will someone please save me?!” face at your fellow girls (no). Many a strange conversation was started this way; my personal favorite happened to be, “My friend he is going to go and get the ugliest guy here and bring him here…What do you think of my monster?” How this thought popped into his head, I am still trying to figure out.








So after quite a bit of dancing we went back up to floor seven to get ourselves some drinks and rest for a bit. This happened to also be the time when someone decided to be a klutz and knock over their drink behind where I was sitting and thus I felt a strange cold sensation on my rear end, which just so happened to be a giant wet spot that had formed there. It was my don’t-even-think-about-grabbing-my-butt protection. But before too long we decided it was time for some dancing again so it was back downstairs for some of that.




I’ll just give you a quick overview of some of the classic lines of the night:

“Hola, what is your name?”
“(Insert name here-it happened to all of us)”
“Oh cool, cool. I am (insert Spanish man name like Jose or Guillermo or Jorge-take your pick). Can I kiss you?”
“What? Um…no.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know you.”
“But you are in Spain.” Thank you Captain Obvious, but tell me-does that line work on any girl?

To one particular girl in our group:
“Oh you are so beautiful. Are you an angel? Are you for real? (to one of us): Is she for real?...Can I kiss you?”
“No I don’t know you.”
“But why? You are so beautiful and I am not ugly. Can I taste those lips?”
But alas when she still would not let him taste those luscious lips his final conclusion was that she liked girls. Go figure.

To Megan (this gets me every time):
“Hola I am Roberto, what is your name?”
“Megan.”
“Oh, like Megan Fox?”
“Yup, exactly like that.”
“Oh cool…Would you like to go to the sofa?” Megan Fox you do wonders for your fellow Megans.


So by the time we had our fair share of partying it up it was around 5:30 and we decided we should gather our things and head back to the train station to catch the first one back. It wasn’t until we were all on the 6 AM train that it really hit and our zombie-like appearance took shape. And then we were back in Alcala by 7 and after eating and doing our best to clean up a bit (the smoke smell took days to wash out of my hair) we were in bed by 8 AM (thank you blinds that block all the light from outside). When we woke up at 3:30 it was like a dream and sometimes I can’t believe I partied like the Spanish, but then I remember this sudden new cool feeling I woke up with that day and I know: I was meant to be a Spaniard.