What To Do When In Madrid

My offer to help Julia Stöpel on the mobile photo sharing community Instagram with some tips and recommendations on sights, clubs, bars and nice places to visit when spending some time in the capital of Spain made me think about writing a long overdue blog post about that matter for reference and to eventually help more people at once. I spent a entire year in Madrid during my studies which was the reason for the offer in the first place.

Now that’s me turning the thought into some written words about a pleasant stay in Madrid in no particular order, just like it came to my mind, so please skim through so you won’t miss the gems on the bottom:

Yambala

Yambala is a little Mexican/intercultural flavored bar close to Plaza Mayor or Sol, the centre of Madrid. You usually expect the centre of a big city to be the tourist meeting point which it definitely is but walk down Calle Mayor, THE tourist street, pass Joy, THE tourist club, and just right after you passed it turn left into a little alley which leads to THE Churros place Chocolatería San Ginés where you should have at least one churro at 6am after clubbing and on another night turn left again around the corner to have some amazing cocktails or a Michelada before going out, at Yambala, owned by a dear friend of mine, Conrado who still should remember my name. (Picture Source)

The Pleasure of Writing for the Pleasure’s Sake

I like to write – and maybe it’s because I love to read a lot, too. It’s pure enjoyment to learn something new even if it’s not necessarily in my usual field of interest. Or just right because it isn’t. Often those peripheral matters spark a certain curiosity to dig deeper into another expertise which you tend to ignore when working in a profession that makes your mindset to be focused on certain topics — design, advertising and user experiences in my case.

I like to write – which doesn’t mean that I shine in writing in particular. Contrarily the act on refinement of my own words and noticing the own clunky sentences enable me to look on what I produce from another perspective and further give me a chance to reflect on thoughts in their rawest form.

I like to write – because it’s not the field I’m the expert in. Again that creates the necessary distance between the content I wanna write about and the natural pressure I put on myself when creating a personal output that can be viewed and critised in public. With a beginner’s mindset the benchmark’s pretty low.

I like to write – the mind wanders, usually in a distraction-blocking environment, time on your side and in good company or isolated on your own in a little bubble.

I like to write – and that’s why.

Je Ne Sais Quoi

I can’t believe it but it’s actually already two weeks ago that Nadja and I went on vacation to visit the beautiful city of Paris, France. It was her first stay there and it’s been a year ago when workmates and me have been there to attend the OFFF 2010 conference.

Needless to say it was another experience than the last time and gladly I’ve just recently bought a new lens for my trusty camera of choice, the Ricoh GXR. The A12 lens sports a fixed focal length of 28mm with a F2.5 aperture and I gotta say it’s a pure joy to use. All the pictures in this post are from the trip and if you want to see the whole album, head over to the corresponding Flickr set.