Blogs we like

Madrid 8th – 11th July, 2009

Sights & Culture |   I will say honestly that I didn’t bother to see anything by way of sights in the Spanish capital (in any case there’s purportedly not much) – not even the much-touted Prado Art Museum – but I walked a lot of its streets, I shopped, I chased food trails all day (especially churros con chocolate), I practiced my Spanish, and I complained about how unfriendly most of the madrileños were – those in the service sector anyway: highly impatient taxi drivers, waiters and retail assistants, reminiscent of Cuban service men and women, except that in Cuba they have the communist system to blame it on. I remember the Spaniards being more hospitable down south in Andalucia, so maybe it’s just the big city syndrome. Or maybe it’s because the madrileños are so nocturnal that they just can’t help but be grumpy during the day. Of course, my mother would tell me I fit right in. Lunch at 3, dinner at 10. A perfect match. I should consider moving there.

Why didn’t I see the sights? Well, besides all the construction going on, I guess it’s because I’m not that kind of tourist anymore. I like to take my time, soak in my surroundings and the culture by being there and getting into the lifestyle and language, I go to the local parks, bookshops and cinemas, I try to make local acquaintances, and if I’m lucky, friends. Basically in foreign countries, I like to pretend at living there, and I do things there that I would normally do at home, just differently. That applies in big cities. However, when I’m in out of the way places I do normally have a very pedantic checklist of things I want to do, because what I do want to see are raging rivers, majestic mountains, vicious volcanoes, glinting glaciers and snow-white salt mines. What I don’t really want to see anymore are museums, cathedrals, basilicas or castles. At the risk of sounding uncultured, I really have had quite enough of those after three years of travelling around Europe, and these days I’ll only make the effort to visit them if they are of immense aesthetic and modernistic architectural value, because yes, I am actually interested in the aesthetics of modern architecture, whereas I am not at all interested in fine art. I used to feel while travelling that all of a sudden I had to be interested in all things that I normally couldn’t care less about, which is actually an admirable quality when you’re a virgin traveller because it’s keeping an open mind and will bring you new discoveries. But when you’re a little more seasoned that ceases to have any real meaning except that you’re able to say, “I’ve done that.”

On the same note, I will see no more of flamenco shows. This is the third time I’ve seen it, the first being in Seville and the second in Granada, and the first experience remains the best. To be fair, Andalucia’s supposed to be the gypsy dance’s birthplace so I guess Madrid wouldn’t be the best place to see it, though if you want to Casa Patas is supposed to be ‘It’.

Meanwhile, I’m still chasing my first bullfight and Madrid is the best place to witness one at the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, but unfortunately none were showing while I was there. So I guess I’ll definitely be back at some point.

Cityscape |   One of the taxi drivers I met was very friendly and we got to talking about our respective cities. I told him that I was from Kuala Lumpur, and of course highlighted the Petronas twin towers, and he got all excited and was like, “Sí! Si! En esa película, no? Ehh… cómo se llama?” And I was like, “Entrapment! Con Sean Connery!” And we were like, “Yeaaaahhh!” (Well actually, “Sí sí sí!”) And then he asked me if there were a lot of skyscrapers back home and I said yes, and he said that in Madrid there are only four, which you can see below © tomas meson:

The four (only) skyscrapers in Madrid

Best Churros |   La Esquina del Café, on the corner of Calle de las Huertas and Callejon de Jesus. The churros itself is savoury, but some places sprinkle on sugar or cinnamon if you ask. If you want chocolate you have to ask for it specifically, and you have to be specific as to whether you want it on its own to drink or if you want it with churros, because the latter is made thicker than the other – for better dipping.

Best Paella |   La Barraca on Calle Reina. The service isn’t the most friendly, but the paella just makes up for it.

Shopping |   In a nutshell: Puerta del Sol, Calle de las Carretas, Gran Via, Calle Fuencarral (mostly street fashion), and Calle Almirante (posh local designers). And for adults with bottomless pockets wanting big global names like Hermés and all that: Calle Serrano, Calle Goya, Calle Ortega y Gasset and Calle Velazquez.

Accommodation |   On a separate note, you might think about staying in an apartment rather than a hotel/hostel if you’re traveling in a group. Loving Madrid is great, and the Prado apartments are particularly economical and well-situated. The building they’re housed in might look a bit nondescript from the outside but it’s colourful and cosy on the inside and comes with all amenities including non-necessities like wireless internet (ok so it’s actually a necessity for most of us) and a DVD player. Service was a little iffy as our greeter didn’t turn up when he was supposed to, but aside from having to wait 20 minutes for him, there were no other problems.

Travelling Companions |   I travelled with my mom, my aunt (mom’s sister), my 19-year-old cousin (aunt’s daughter) and her school friend. Aside from having been imposed with the duty of sorting out absolutely everything – right down to the simplest ordering of hot water – because I speak Spanish, it was actually pretty good company. There were times when we got on each other’s nerves, mostly due to the adults’ incessant nagging and refusal to go anywhere under the sun for fear of growing pigmentation on their faces, but otherwise our time in Madrid was peppered with plenty of comical moments, mostly provided by my mother, who tends to be a bit more vigorous and sassy when she has people her age around and not being the lone adult saddled with children who are hopelessly messy and shower only once a day whom she constantly has to heckle at. I guess the trick to family trips is to always have two generations together, and always more than one of each

Conclusion |   Madrid strikes me as a place you won’t particularly enjoy if you’re only there for a few days and you haven’t got local friends there or travel companions you can go out and really enjoy the city lifestyle with. I think living there would be much more rewarding than a short visit, because it’s not exactly a tourist brochure like Barcelona.