Madrid, Spain

We started our trip in Madrid, where we ate our weight in tapas, drank countless pitchers of sangria and walked all over that magnificent city.

I left the 40th sections of the poem at a Belgium bar, where we stopped for mussels and beer after a loooong couple of plane rides. I was tired and cranky when we first arrived in Madrid, but after a nap in our hotel and a stroll around the pedestrian mall, I was totally happy and relaxed by the time we sat down for a snack.

"What gives me to be free to a woman’s and man’s good will? What gives them to be free to mine?"

The second night in Madrid, we ate at the oldest operating restaurant in the world, the Sobrino de Botin, where I feasted on chicken and the best artichoke hearts I’ve ever tasted. And sangria, of course. After dinner we relaxed in Arab baths, where we alternated between hot, cold and warm baths and the hottest steam room I’ve ever been inside of. This is where I left the 41st section of the poem.

"The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness. I think it pervades to open air, waiting at all times. Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged."

I left the 43rd section of the poem at the Prado museum, where I absolutely fell in love with The Garden of Earthy Delights by Bosch. I know he was trying to warn of the dangers of hedonistic living, but I thought the garden looked pretty fun. I left the poem tucked away with the muse of epic poetry, who sat in stone with her other 6 muse friends.

"Here rises the fluid and attaching character, the fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman (the herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself)."

On our third night in Madrid, we were upgraded to a new hotel room, which overlooked the pedestrian mall on which our hotel was located. One of the best parts of our time in Madrid was the time we spent on the balcony, watching people walk by until the wee hours of the morning. On our third night, I folded the 43rd section of the poem into a paper airplane and sent it into the night.

"Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old. From its falls distilled the charm that mocks beauty and attainments. Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact."