Our Week in Spain (part 1)
March 10, 2002
Sunday. We sleep in past 10 and get no "free" continental breakfast. I venture in to Parque Sur, hoping to get rolls and coffee to go, and an English language newspaper. Neither turns out to be possible. Here in Spain, if you want a cup of coffee, you get either "café solo" which is black and condensed, or you get "café leche" which is the same stuff with hot milk added. In either case it costs a Euro a time (about 90 cents), and it comes in a ceramic cup. Here in Spain, if you want a cup of coffee, you sit your butt down and drink it.
"To go"? No Comprende.
Impressions of Madrid. Where to start? It's a strange and beautiful place. Historically, we learn from our guide book, it was a little town, fought over by Christians and Moors until the 11th century. Then it was made the capital about 400 hundred years ago, roughly 1600, replacing Toledo, for some reason. A hundred years ago there were 400,000 people here, living in the older central part of the city. Now there are over 4 million people, and it's all a bunch of 20th century sprawl. So ninety percent of Madrid is the American equivalent of suburban strip-mall expansion.
And ninety percent of THAT is covered with gang-tagged graffiti. It's incredible, actually, more so even than Chicago. Gang graffiti everywhere, and no visible attempt to cover or erase it. The only blemish you see to a gang tag is somebody else's gang tag. Much of it is the squiggly script you see all over urban America, but there are some very artistic pieces too, just like the US.
Small cars. Narrow roads. Tight fits between cars, and never a spare parking space. You go for miles and never find a place to park in Madrid. We drove around all day, seriously, and saw four open spots. We counted. Cars negotiate tiny gaps between busses and pedestrians, although foot traffic steps into crosswalks with hardly a look, and everyone either stops or speeds up to weave past them. You'd expect to see an accident every minute, but in fact we see none. Everyone drives a torturous brand of aggressive defensive driving. You wouldn't think so, but it does not take long before you're exercising the same sort of behavior. You have to.
Sculpture everywhere, and fountains. The traffic is managed by a series of round-abouts, and virtually every one is filled with an eye-catching monument or a working fountain. Many apartment style buildings, each with balconies, each with laundry hanging out to dry. Miles of this.
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