It was a gloomy and foreboding day. The sky was gray, the puddles were reflective, and my boots were a wetter color of black then when I started out for the bus stop this afternoon. Fortunately, the rain stayed light, my waterproof camera remained waterproof, and my adventures at the end of the day amused my Spanish parents enough for them to compare them to those of Tom Sawyer. I don't know that the moniker quite fits, but it was an American reference I recognized rather than a Spanish I-have-no-idea-who-you-mean, so I'll take it.
I've decided to try to walk around Madrid when I can instead of taking the metro, which is both cheaper and helps me to get to know the city when I don't need to go very far. My walk with A helped me out so much in terms of getting oriented with the city, and I was constantly recognizing places she'd taken me and realizing on my own how to get there, which was personally exciting to me but probably to no one else.
I always leave super early for my intercambios, when I'm meeting someone in Madrid for a language exchange, and today was no exception. But it took me a lot less time to walk there than I thought, so I started window shopping at a pastry store, one of my favorite pastimes. I wasn't too hungry because my Spanish mom had dropped everything when I wandered into the kitchen to grab something to eat before heading out to Madrid to make me lunch, since I was going to miss the normal mealtime. Before I could protest, I was siting at the table watching her fry up a filet. But still, it is my firm belief that anyone can fit in a pastry. As I was perusing the options, the man next to me doing the same asked me in English if I could recommend anything. I said I couldn't, but he appreciated my ability to speak English so much that he struck up a conversation and invited me to join him and his companion in a bite in the cafe above the store.
It ended up being really interesting. Both men were Turkish, and only the one spoke English and a bit of Spanish, and we had a great conversation about Istanbul (they offered to show me around if I ever came to town, which they insisted I must (and my boyfriend could come too)) and the upcoming Presidential elections with Obama (who is apparently great friends with the Turkish Prime Minister) and the other guy (lol). I helped them with the menu and ordered for all of us in Spanish and they were just as impressed with me as I was with myself, though I daresay the waiter wasn't too awed by my mediocre language skills.
There were delicate moments, such as when I suggested they try the famous Spanish jamon and they politely refused and it took me a moment to remember why, though they were very good-natured about it. And then when they mentioned how wrong and unnatural it was to see gay men holding hands and kissing in the streets. But all together it was an engrossing cultural exchange.They insisted upon paying for my tortillas con chocolate (which were basically light pancakes drowned in chocolate sauce and whipped cream) as a gesture of Turkish hospitality and wished me merrily on my way as I headed across the plaza to meet up for my actual intercambio with H.
After all that, I was a little late, but H seemed quite happy to meet me and we walked and talked for quite a while around la Puerta del Sol and la Plaza Mayor before settling down in a cafe for a hot drink. After, he offered to accompany me to the Taste of America store I wanted to visit, even though he advised me that it was probably closed. It was, but we still had a good time looking in the windows at all the American things he didn't know about (chief among them being marshmallows). After a final discussion about Bladerunner and our favorite James Bond (I think he's the only other person I've ever met who really likes Pierce Brosnan), we parted ways, he on his motorcycle on the slick streets of a trafficky Madrid (he joked about my having to be in an accident to really become a local) and me on foot, once again enjoying the quiet streets on the way to the bus station.
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