Hot Eats, Cool Treats.

So travel experts advise when traveling abroad you should fight all urges to nap, battle through the day and go to bed at a normal hour in the new time zone you are in. What the heck do those experts know anyways, I say when tired take a nap. Five hours later I was energized and ready to go.

Chueca is a hip, trendy neighborhood in Madrid, known for its bars, cute shops, chic restaurants, hopping discotecas and it is also know as the gay district. There is a famous bar there, El Tigre, known for its cheap drinks. With the purchase of any 1.50E beer, hard cider, or wine you receive a little plate of hot food (TAPAS!). It use to be a tradition in Spain to receive a free portion of food, know as tapas along with every glass of beer or wine, but as times have changed, so has this charming tradition and it is only practiced certain regions of Spain., like Granada for example.

El Tigre is located in the heart of Chueca at Calle de las Infantas 30. Because El Tigre is infamous for its free tapas, it is usually packed, standing room only. After realizing my dream of FREE tapas at EL Tigre was unlikely to come true, we wandered down the street in search of something else. That is when we came across El Respiro, five doors down from El Tigre, a hole in the wall bar, with electronic gambling machines, and lots of young people enjoying themselves.

Much to our surprise after ordering a couple of beers we also received various plates of hot delicious food…FREE!!! We had come to the right place. These free gift of tapas really got reved up, so for desert we decided to go for a few copas, or mixed drinks. After talking to several street promoters, hand out flyers advertising their bars, we decided on Underwood, a trendy late night spot, with an old school typewriter in the window as its location is home to the first newspaper in Spain, or so the club promoter told us. When I asked what the paper was called he didn’t know and I was left wondering if this perhaps with just a myth…oh well, sounds cool anyways.

A few copas later I was feeling good and enjoying Madrid. We decided to call it a night early in order to catch the metro (subway) before it closed at 1:30am. In route to the Metro we were temped to enter Liquid, trendy discoteca. Holy cow I have never seen so many men in my life. I guess this is why they call Chueca the gay district!!!