Here I was in Madrid, on the first days of my long-anticipated European travel adventure with John. In the preceding weeks, we had spent hours together online scouring agoda.com and TripAdvisor picking out hotels and reading Rick Steves’ recommendations on what to do if you only had 2 days to spend in Seville.
We managed to get to our hotel from the Madrid airport using the Metro (which would have been a snap if we weren’t lugging over-packed suitcases through their multi-level, elevator challenged stations). John already had a few friendly conversations with a couple bartenders (en Espanol) as we educated ourselves on tapas, and I felt like sighing, “Eh Toto. I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
My first observations were about the little ways the locals (dare I call them Madridniks?) did things differently. They didn’t seem to eat dinner before 9:00. (They also, I soon learned, might not come home from a night of drinking until 6:00 in the morning.) When we got to our hotel room, we couldn’t figure out how to turn on the lights in the room. (It turned out that you had to put the key in the wall. Very energy conscious, they designed hotel rooms so that guests could not leave lights on when they were out.) And, we couldn’t help but notice how crowded the streets got at night. Couples or girlfriends linked arm in arm Euro-style or families with young children in tow filled Plaza Mayor or the Gran Via eating, drinking, and shopping (how the Spaniards love to shop!) late into the evening.
Wow, what an introduction to Spain! Our hotel was only a few hundred feet up a little alley from the Gran Via (their 5th Avenue). Tiny bodegas, where we could buy juice or coffee, were tucked away in alleys close to trendy night clubs or upscale stores and eateries. Everything was very foreign, but also very Yankee friendly. We drank water straight from our bathroom tap.
I was loving our walks — and walking, eating and drinking was basically what we did during our first stop in our eighteen day plan. We looked at the architecture and monuments (every square seemed to have a very, very old church and a statue with some guy on a horse). We oogled at typical street scenes like the six block long line we saw near the Musea de Jamon (Ham Museum), a local deli that featured the country’s best Serrano and Iberico hams. Hundreds of people were queued up to buy Christmas lottery tickets. We took frequent rests from our walks, sitting at local tabernas, drinking tinto or rioja and trying to estimate how much the same glass of wine and small appetizer plate would cost in the US. (We seemed able to leave our short, and frequent, wine and tapas stops, happily fed and quenched for ten or fifteen Euros.)
I loved the new sights and smells that surrounded me. I loved having a partner (an excellent map-reader) to share the adventure with, but I realized in some ways I felt isolated. I thrive on words. I revel in small talk with strangers. I like hearing people’s everyday stories, and I don’t speak Spanish. Not beyond the rudimentary phrases, “Hola,” or “Buenos noches,” “Gracias,” and “cerveza fria por favour.” So often, I would overhear conversations on the street and would tug at John’s jacket. “What did they say?” I’d ask him.
Fortunately, we were never far from music. The sounds of gypsy accordion melodies, or crowd pleasing Spanish guitar classics filled the squares. Street musicians could be found almost everywhere people would gather. They’d position coffee cans or their instrument cases nearby to encourage donations. Being able to recognize a song allowed me to feel at home in a place where I did not speak the native tongue.
Monday night, we made our way towards Pura Cepa, a wonderful restaurant a friend recommended. With Metro map in hand, we transferred from the 5 line to the 6 line, took the escalator up a few flights then walked up the very long ramp of the O’Donnell stop up to street level. The pedestrian tunnel was washed in a bluish light. I could see the thin silhouette of a single guitarist, case open at his feet, twenty yards ahead; the only other person in the tunnel. The notes that came out of his guitar were simple and clear.
“Isn’t this an old Beatle song?” I asked John as we reached the steps to the street. He squeezed my hand and sang along with the street musician, a tune I learned later was one of his Fab Four favorites. “..This boy would be good for you…..” Here I was in Madrid, welcoming new experiences and feeling very much at home.
Being touched by a familiar song is no small thing
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