Madrid — Week 2
On Wednesday I walked the Salamanca Golden Mile. It’s a mile thru Salamanca’s designer shops and other shopping attractions. Now, my clothing designer shops are Costco and Converse, and when I want to go fancy, I shop at Lucky Brand and Uniqlo. So this walk wasn’t very useful, but still fun. Nice stroll, shaded streets, and the food market of Mercado de la Paz is worth a visit. I stopped for coffee and a spinach pie at Pancomido Cafe, off east from the Golden Mile. You can find the Golden Mile walk on gpsmycity.
There a twist in the story this weekend. While my rules only allow me to leave a city for one day, Yusef and Nir convinced me to go to Kinnernet Costa Brava, which means to leave Madrid for 3 days. But then I have another rule, which is that every rule can be broken. You can read about Kinnernet here. So Thursday morning I was up early, and met Nir at the Madrid Atocha train station. It takes about 6 hours by car from Madrid to Barcelona, and only 2.5 hours by the bullet train. Amazing and fun ride. I rented a car in the Barcelona Sants train station. An amazing 55 euros deal for an SUV for 3 days. Nir and I drove to Cristina de Aro, where Kinnernet Costa Brava takes place. After almost 20 Kinnernet events in Israel, this was my first Kinnernet outside of Israel. Kinnernet is a lot of fun. You meet interesting people, you hear interesting talks, and in Costa Brava, it is held in the very nice farm estate of David Grebler. Unlike the Kinnernet in Israel, the participants do not get there and spend the entire time there, as the estate does not have sleeping quarters for 100–150 people. So you get there in the morning, and late at night, go to sleep in a nearby hotel. In our case — Nir, Yusef and his sister Lana, and me — we stayed at the Ilunion hotel in one of the nice bays of Costa Brava. It was relatively empty, and I was told it’s super hard to get a room there during the summer. I gave two talks in Kinnernet, one on Friday on Innovation and Entrepreneurs in Large Corporations, and another one on Saturday morning on The Jobs of the Future. I attended some fascinating talks as part of the Kinnernet Ignite session (multiple 15 slides/15 seconds per slide sessions), and also 45 minute talks on ChatGPT uses and the future of generative AI. Kinnernet Costa Brava did not skip the traditional Kinnernet Midnight Cooking Madness but it started at 5PM, while in Israel cooking starts at Midnight. There was some awesome food, including a huge shakshuka dish done by Nativ from Israel. I usually make Knafe in the Midnight Cooking Madness, but Costa Brava just didn’t have the right ingredients. Bottom line: it was a lot of fun, laughs, learnings and meeting new friends.
I had to leave Kinnernet early, at noon on Saturday, after my talk about the Jobs of the Future, to make it in time to the Barcelona — Madrid train and be back in Madrid for Gali’s arrival tonight. Martin Milesi got a ride with me from Kinneret Costa Brava to the Barcelona train station. He is from Argentina and the chef and owner of the Una restaurant in London. It’s a concept of “one table restaurant”, which means that the restaurant has only one table, for 12 people, and opens 3–4 times a week. He Has more innovative concepts down his sleeve.
Gali arrived on Saturday night, and naturally a lot of what we have done in the first part of the week was repeat of some of the places I already visited, But it was fun to see Gali enjoying Madrid so much. We spent Sunday walking around Salamanca — no question the best place to stay in when in Madrid. A posh neighborhood, many shops and restaurants, way less people and tourists compared to central Madrid, and still 20–25 minutes’ walk from the center. Unsurprisingly this included an Indian dinner at Swagat in Salamanca. Monday we did exactly the same walk as I did the second day after my arrival, walking thru all of Madrid’s main attractions.
Tuesday we walked the streets of Lavapies, south of the center, and stopped for tapas lunch at Caja Jaguar in the Mercado Anton Martin food market, which is the Lavapies Barrio version of Mercado San Miguel. After a rest at the apartment we decided to take another (evening) walk to eat our first paella at La Taberna de Peñalver.
We clocked over 20,000 steps for the day. But the highlight of Tuesday was something that Gali and I eagerly waited for. The announcement that IBM acquired Polar Security, the cybersecurity startup founded by our son Roey and his partner, Guy Shany. We were on drugs that day, walking in Madrid as two super proud parents, and answering tens of whatsapp messages. אלופי העולם!
On Wednesday we did a long walk first to a Café in north Salamanca — Hat Coffee — and then walk all the way north and west to the barrio of Chamberi, north of the center. We stopped at Alma Bakery, where the owner moved from here from Budapest, with her bakery escaping the non-democratic regime in Hungary. We wanted to go to Cesar Burger, but many restaurants in Madrid are closed 16:00–20:00, so we decided Mexican — Burritos Chueka. In the evening I walked back to Malasana to meet Zohar, my Kfar Hess neighbor who just arrived to Madrid (he lived here for several years), and we watched Real Madrid being run over by Manchester City (0–4). The bar was full, and the local fans, despite the score, did not leave the place until the game was over, and even took the time to cheer their (losing) team at the end. We should learn from them.
And if the Exit of Roey’s startup was not enough for one week, the team of students I mentor at the Ben Gurion University, won today first prize for their Sensora app!
Week totals (weak week due to Kinnernet):
Steps: 89,417
Kilometers: 75
