🏛️ The Tapa Weekend: May 17
Museums are free, there's a food truck festival and Salamanca gets covered in flowers.
By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | May 17, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #54
🎉 Welcome to a new issue of The Tapa: Weekend Edition! An English-language newsletter about what to do this weekend in Madrid (plus memes!)
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Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend
Happy Friday, everyone!
We know. How is it possible that the municipal pools in Madrid are already open and yet we’re still dealing with this insufferable cold weather? Beats us.
We wish we could provide you with some cool options for skinny dipping (why else do you think people go to the Complutense pools anyway? ) but it looks like we’ll have to wait a bit more.
Sure, posting instagram stories by the pool
pretending to have fun with your friends while still feeling miserable insidesounds great! But how about posting them from the Melon Museum? (An actual, real place outside Madrid celebrating, well, melons).
So grab your phone and make sure it’s charged to 100%. We have a long weekend ahead of us!
1. International Museums Day 2024
Did you know this was a thing? Apparently International Museums Day is a thing and since it’s free, we’re here for it.
Museums around Madrid will remain open this Saturday until midnight and completely free of charge. With this year’s theme being “Museums for Education and Research”, the list includes the Prado, the Reina Sofía, the Galería de Colecciones Reales and the Museo Arqueológico, among many others. Yes, there is something for everyone.
There will be tons of activities, workshops and concerts (there will even be DJs and electronic music in at least one museum). There’s something special about visiting a museum at night. It feels mysterious, intimate and sexy.
Who needs the summer and a pool when you can go look at a Picasso while listening to Steve Aoki? We’re sold.
PS: We’re not kidding about the Melon Museum. It’s a real place. It exists. It has existed since 2003. We don’t know why and who’s funding it but it’s there for you to visit and if you do, please tell us about the experience because we’re genuinely intrigued by it and totally want to go someday.
Día Internacional de los Museos. May 18. Multiple locations around Madrid. Check website for options.
2. Mad Street Food: Food Trucks, Food, and Mad(rid).
Yay! Food truck festival season is here and this one you better not miss.
Sure, Mad Street Food is conveniently located by the highway and on the other side of the City Cemetery and Crematorium but you’ll be fine (unless there’s a zombie apocalypse. In that case you’re screwed.)
Anyway, there’s the usual: burgers, hot dogs, fries, sandwiches, crepes, arepas, pizzas, burritos and hopefully lots of alcohol to drown out the sound of children (just make sure you’re aware of your surroundings in case of, you know, zombies).
There are also concerts, DJs, bands, and other activities for you to participate in so why not give it a shot? There’s nothing like the smell of a crispy burger in the sun while you’re sitting on the grass. (And especially when the crematorium is not in operation.)
Oh, lighten up. It’s Friday.
PS: If Moratalaz is too far for you, you can try the Tapa Mundi Vegan Ruta happening now. You’re welcome.
Mad Street Food. Recinto Ferial de La Cuña Verde, Moratalaz. Through May 19. Check Instagram account for hours. Free admission.
3. The Importance of Being Earnest, but this one is in Spanish
It’s funny because the pun doesn’t work in Spanish (the official translation for this famous play by Oscar Wilde is “The Importance of Being Ernest”, so not even the new ChatGPT 4-o can find a clever way to get outta that one).
But we digress. If you’re in the mood for some clever, turn-of-the-century comedy about Victorian conformity, then this is your perfect plan. The plot centers on two young guys, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who both use the alias "Ernest" to escape their societal responsibilities and pursue romance (Tee-hee! If you pictured us twirling our mustaches while reading that, you were right).
Through a series of witty dialogues, mistaken identities, and satirical commentary, Wilde goes after the superficiality and hypocrisy of the British upper class, while advocating for sincerity and the absurdity of rigid social conventions. Wilde, what a guy.
This version of the play stars Silvia Marsó and Pablo Rivero (among others) and is directed by David Selvas.
The Importance of Being Earnest. Teatro Pavón, Calle de Embajadores, 9, Madrid. Through June 30. Check website for schedule. Tickets start at €14.
4. Dream
If you’ve had enough of San Isidro stuff this week and would like to get away from the streets, then this is an interesting option.
“Dream” is an anagram of the word “madre”, Spanish for mother. And this choreography by director and playwright Natalia Menéndez is all about exploring the mother-child relationship. Also featuring award-winning Spanish flamenco dancer and choreographer Israel Galván, this dance performance is something you don’t want to miss.
The description of the show alone intrigues us: “Motherhood, understood as a biological process that equates us with the rest of our fellow animals, can be tinged with affective connotations as close to love as to hate. Often, it can even evoke feelings that combine and alternate, beyond any rationality. This confused and radical mixture of sensations can resemble a dream. Or perhaps a nightmare”.
Don’t expect a plot (you expected a plot from Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and look how that turned out). There’s no storyline to follow, just a visual and musical exploration of the mother-child relationship (with some slight references to the great mothers of Greek tragedies.
See? Don’t say we don’t stimulate your intellect.
Dream. Teatro Español. Plaza Santa Ana, C. del Príncipe 25, Madrid. Through May 26. Check website for schedule. Tickets start at €6.
5. Vogue’s 9th Mercado de las Flores de Primavera
The flowers market is back for its ninth edition, people.
This Saturday, and just like every spring lately, Vogue is organizing the Mercado de las Flores de Primavera (Spring Flower Market) in upscale Salamanca (the neighborhood, not the city), in which over 25 flower stands from some of Madrid’s best flower shops—such as Muscari, Daguerre, Elena Suárez, Botanyco, Blooms, El Florista, Maua Studio Floral, Blooms or Flores en el Columpio— take over traditional Calle Jorge Juan and turn it into a celebration of colors and aromas.
Not only that, but some of the nearby clothing stores offer discounts (up to 25%!) so you can buy a bouquet and also some pants in case you’re late to a wedding. There will be wine tastings, celebrity sightings, workshops, free meriendas and a lot, lot more! Just make sure that you dress nicely if you go. This is Salamanca, not Malasaña. You don’t want celebrity socialite Carmen Lomana to give you the Miranda Priestly stare when you show up wearing crocs.
In all seriousness now, and more importantly, CEAR (the Spanish Commission for Refugee Assistance) will have a presence there, so make sure to help if you can.
Mercado de las Flores de Primavera. Calle Jorge Juan (between Serrano and Velázquez), Salamanca, Madrid. May 18. Noon-8 p.m. Free admission.
👨🏻💻 Viral Stories of the Week
👶 “Oh my gawd, I knew you when you were a baby…”
Journalist tries to do vox-pop (street interviews) in Andalucía. Turns out interviewees knew her when she was a little girl—and are, in fact, related to her. Hilarity ensues. Bonus: Where else but Spain do women of a certain age wear pink quilted vests? Nowhere!
😭 Trust us, Spanish high school finals exams are tough
A Spanish high school shares an image of final year students taking exams. But in the background…
PS: We feel his pain: one of the Tapa founders has a son who graduated yesterday.
🔔 A Message From Our Sponsor
Secret Kingdoms is your English bookstore in Madrid. It specializes in Spanish history and literature, contemporary and classic novels, books for children and young adults of all ages, history and historical fiction, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, poetry, biographies and much more.
Located on Calle de Moratín 7 — a few blocks away from the Prado Museum — and with over 20,000 new and used books, Secret Kingdoms has something for everyone.
Find out more at www.thesecretkingdoms.com
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We’ll be back next week with more.