Oh Madrid Madrid Madrid, you never cease to amaze me. The amount of odd experiences I´ve had here just keeps on getting larger. Don´t get me wrong, I´ve had pleanty of great experiences, but then something odd comes along and gets me saying, oh Madrid, Madrid, Madrid . . .

I just walked into the local Internet cafe a block down from my hostel here in Madrid to make literally a million copies of the only CD of pictures I have left from my previous travels, (yes, it might seem a bit like overkill, but damn it I´m covering my bases), only to be stopped at the front desk by a ragged looking foreign man. He heard me speaking English to the woman working the front desk and asked if I could help him with a quick translation. I, somewhat hesitantly, agreed, and, squinting at him skeptically, sat down slowly, hands wrapped around my bag. I trusted no one. And I especially didn´t trust Internet cafes. And the shady people in them. *Does squinty shifty sideways eyes looks, and thinks of the Simpsons episode where homer directs a movie and makes the dog the suspect because of the shifty eyes, and then realizes she´s way off subject and remembers what she was writing about*

SO, after having him push a pen at me, he proceeded to ramble off some sentences in poor English, and I frantically started transcribing them down in proper . . . er. . . better English. I soon realized that he was attempting to file a police report, and I felt a bit better about the situation, having just filed one a week earlier myself. However, this camaraderie soon started to wear off, as the message he wanted me to transcribe became more and more hostile. Evidentally, he had been accosted by a Spanish police officer, and the dispute had arose due to, according to him, a prejudice against his religion. He wanted me to write that he himself had been a military officer in his country of origin (I will omit where for sake of falsely implying generalizations of these people). He wanted me to let the police inspector this letter was evidently aimed at to know that he could have easily taken out the police officer who accosted him as Spanish police training is, evidently, crap compared to the training he received in his vast military experience. I toned this message down a bit, still trying to empathize with the guy- maybe he did get accosted and was simply bitter. Uh-huh. keep dreaming Alex.

Soon his message delved into politics, and brought the UN and even the Iraq war into it, though I failed to see the connection. I was starting to scribble illegibly and wanted to get this over with- fast. He wanted me to write that he was going back to his respective country to get troops and they would come and take the Spanish ambassador (when did he get involved? Poor guy . . . ) and take out punishment on him . . . ?!? I was starting to wonder if he was homeless. Or on drugs. He then asked me to write that every action has an equal action, which, besides being a completely butchered version of the original law, I wasn´t going to write, especially since the next phrase was something to the extent of, ¨blood will be spilled¨ and something else very terrorist sounding. I explained how I did not want to write this, or for that matter, anything else for him, which sparked a long explanation on why he hated Spain, only a quarter of which I caught. Come on- I, judging by my last entry, am not a huge fan of Spain either, but, call me crazy, I draw the line at violent threats.

I attempted to get up saying I had to make an important phone call, but he desperately asked me to write one last thing for him, and he promised it was not related to his ¨police report¨ (threat). I, eager to get away from him, said he had one minute. He then proceeded to explain a prospective personal ad he wanted me to draw up, and I got up and left when I heard, ¨I am sexy beast, and I want . . . .¨ Really? Was this for real? Was I on MTV´s boiling points, where they throw random people into outrageous situations to see how much they can take? No, I just attract crazies obviously. Not that I ever felt in danger- I am in an Internet cafe filled with people- but damn it, how do I turn off this crazy magnet! Please, someone send me the manual for crazy magnets!!! Mine is malfunctioning!

Anyways, on a side note, I am now doing much better than I was after last week´s fiascos, and am finally enjoying, despite the occational crazy, Madrid. I am now caught up deciding which graduate school to attend in the fall which is exciting, especially since it´s a miricle I even got into one, let alone have a choice. So I have put down my violin and stepped off my soap box of being robbed and have moved on- I guess crazy is better than thief, right? ;)