An American Tour of Madrid

Today I met in the city with a friend of a friend who is going on her third year living here in Madrid and absolutely adores it.  It was amazing not only getting to know her, but to hear all she had to say about the city and lifestyle as well as to wander around with her as she pointed things out.  I only hope that I can be as good a tour guide when my family comes to town.

I'm in an interesting situation here as I'm now going to relate a lot of what I learned from her for the benefit of everyone, even though my family will no doubt read it and then already know all I might tell them on our tour.  But considering my mom and her excellent researching skills, she might know more than me by the time she gets to Madrid anyway, so I'm not going to worry too much about it.

A lot of what A told me regarding the touristy aspects to Madrid kind of matched what I had started to think myself.  Madrid isn't really a place for tourists to see, but rather a place for tourists to experience.  Sure, there are a lot of plazas and monuments and a palace as well, but the lifestyle is really what should be conveyed.  That may be a bit trickier, especially as a big cultural aspect is staying out until six in the morning to party and enjoy, and I don't know that my parents would be so into that.  :)

After meeting in the Plaza Espana, A and I wandered through a couple other parks and plazas as we meandered down Calle Gran Via.  We saw a ton of things along the way, such as the royal palace (which A definitely recommends as worth a visit).  The royalty situation in Spain is interesting.  Not so long ago, after the Spanish civil war, Spain became a dictatorship, led by Francisco Franco.  There was no current royal family at the time, but Franco named the prince of Spain, Juan Carlos de Borbón, his successor, thus restoring the monarchy.  But when Franco died, it didn't take long for Juan Carlos to turn over power to the Spanish parliament.  So the King is still the King, but he gave up most of his power to the people.  We also passed the King's favorite restaurant, and A said that one time when her family had been visiting, they actually saw the King come out of the restaurant with a bunch of guys in suits who hustled him away into a car.  Pretty cool!

We stopped for tapas in the Plaza Santa Ana, good and cheap little sandwiches with various fillings and sangria, which I think will be my usual drink in Spain when everyone else goes for beer.  Another thing about Spain is that they don't worry about saying "Oh, it's five o'clock somewhere."  It's perfectly acceptable to be out drinking a beer at eleven in the morning after coming in from a long night out on the town.

There were a lot of other things we passed by, such as the famous El Rastro, an old street market tradition that operates on Sundays.  It was actually just closing when we got there, despite it being a Thursday, because of the All Saints' Day holiday, where Spaniards visit the cemetery and remember their lost loved ones.  And party.  Because that's what they always do on the holidays.  And because Halloween isn't that big here.

The opera house was also a lovely building, and we walked down a lot of very popular night scene streets, where with every step you could see another bar.  Apparently the city of Madrid has the most bars out of any other city in the world.  I believe it.  A also told me that you can supposedly tell a good bar from the others by the amount of trash on the ground, because that means that more people have been there.  I said that I thought that was something that could be easily manipulated by the bartender and she laughed and agreed.  Apparently Spaniards are big on littering, but they have amazing street cleaners so you can't really tell.

I also have to go back to el Mercado de San Miguel, which is an indoor food market that has everything you could ever want.  Except maybe root beer.  But A also informed me that Madrid has a few shops called "Taste of America" that supposedly carry such delicacies.  It's been three months since I've had root beer - I may need to investigate!

To top off our trip and all that walking, we rewarded ourselves with churros and chocolate from Madrid's oldest maker, San Gines.  The churros look like Mexican ones, but without the cinnamon sugar.  Instead, you dip your churros in a mug of warm chocolate.  Mmm!  I'm not sure why I always seem to end these blog entries on food, but for some reason that always seems to be a happy ending for me.  :D