Home > On Tour > Jungle Adventures > The Europe Tour 2000-2001 > Madrid, Spain
	Madrid, Spain Barcelona, Spain <<<   Lisbon, Portugal >>>   The bus trip to Madrid was as much fun as underwater polka dancing. We got caught in tons of traffic jams, had a lunch break that turned way too long when the bus drivers disappeared, amongst various other things. The only high point was the beautiful scenery. We arrived at the hotel and moved into our room, which was huge. Everyone who dropped by that afternoon said "DAMN! You're room is so big!!" We were thankful...it's a rarity! That night, i went to dinner at a place called Tony Roma's with my roommate and another friend, Monique. We had about as much luck as we did two years ago getting here. I got the address from the front desk, and gave it to the cab driver, who had no idea of the location. He instead drove us to one MUCH further away than the one I remembered. Fortunately it was only a $6 cab drive anyway. After an AMAZING meal of bountiful beef ribs with some spicy wings to start. Mmmm.... After such a nice meal, we headed home. Tuesday, we started load-in very early, because it would be a long day! Madrid is known for being one of the top-three worst buildings this company plays, simply for the fact that for an item to get from the trucks to the ice, it has to take a horrendous path of ramps, cobblestoned floors, and the work of tons of useless locals. This year it did not go nearly as bad as it did two years ago. I think this is due to the fact that several of us had been in this building before, and knew what was going on. Well, okay...truck unloading didn't go that bad. The rest of load-in sucked ass. The locals were horrible and weak (one of the guys couldn't even lift one side of a moving light...the whole unit only weighs 40lbs). So the whole day went and we actually got finished in 13 hours total, which isn't too very shabby. The rest of the week is not much to speak of, the only highlight during the week was the artistic talents of much of the crew taking over Nuchols' crate. Now Nuchols is very much into the whole dark side of things (guns and knives, hard core music, and lots of black). So while he was out of town for a few days, a group of us got ahold of his personal crate and completely covered every inch of the outside with bunnies, smileys, sheep, flowers, balloons, and my contributuion, a teletubby making cynical comments like "Say no to guns". Anything that he would be against was game. All happy stuff!! It actually turned out quite well! The results should be on the Sunday marked the last two shows and load-out, the day we all have been dreading since tour began. Load-out took forever and was pure hell, but the real fun didn't begin until we were near done. Because of the way this building sits, our trucks have to park in the street to be loaded. One guy, who I guess was a bit pissed that we were blocking traffic or something, jumped out of his car, ran into one of our trailers while it was being loaded, and attacked several of the people in there. He was very drunk and very violent, swinging at anything in sight. One of our truck drivers grabbed him and the rolled down the ramp and off the side to the ground, breaking our truck driver's ribs. The guy got up and started swinging again, hitting two crew guys. I saw some people I thought were police across the street and asked them to help. they just shrugged. I yelled at them to please help, they just shrugged. One finally got mad at me and said, "Now you listen!!!" I said, "OK." And he just turned around. I have no idea what that was about. It turns out they were bank security guards who had no interest in helping out a bunch of people against a violent drunk man. It is funny though that as long as he was doing the attacking, they were passive. As soon as one of us started beating on him, and especially when I picked up a pipe ready to take him out for good, they started reacting. Obviously they were on his side. Anyway, within about 20 minutes, the cops finally showed up. We thought for sure they would arrest him and take him to jail. No, no, no. This is Madrid, Spain. Even though he had been driving drunk, had beat up several of our guys, then proceeded to push the cops around, they shook his hand, made a few jokes and let him go. Even when he attacked a guy after he was let go, they just separated him and told him to leave. In the US this guy would have been beat to near death before being dragged to jail. But afterwards, we went home and got some sleep before another bus trip, this time to Lisbon, Portugal.