It's 4 in the morning and I'm running down the Gran Via towards Hotel Alberto Aguilera with my friend Sarah (the Danish woman seated beside me in the preceding post).
In Plaza de España, three homeless teenagers taunt her with obscenities- she screams Spanish epithets at them in return.
"Ay dios mio," I laugh, looking behind us. "You'll have us both mugged."
Just a couple of hours earlier, we had been staring at a sign on a building beside Sol & Sombra disco in Calle Manuel Fernandez Gonzalez: it said Rizal had been there, that much I understood.
"You need help with translation?" someone said behind us. He was a dark Spaniard, probably of Moroccan descent, who wore a suit and spoke English fluently. "It says Jose Rizal met his friends here to plan reforms for the Philippines... By the way, yo soy Enrique. I'm an economist and I need a drink. May I invite you both to come with me?"
Enrique took us to El Burladero, a bar where famous matadors like to hang out and celebrate their fights. It was literally a stone's throw from the very modern disco where we had been dancing with our friends.
In the back room of El Burladero, together with the matadors gazing out of posters on the walls, I watched Enrique teach Sarah how to dance the Spanish flamenco.
"Remember to always look your partner in the eye," said Enrique, "as if challenging him. 'You think you're better than me? You think so? Prove it!' It's a battle. The physical movements of flamenco should express the passion within you- in this sense, it is spiritual."
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