Sunday, April 30, 2006

Madrid








There are a number of things which surprise me about Madrid. Firstly, I had never actually seen a picture of it before landing here. So the hilly-ness of the city and its many trees surprise me, as I imagined it to be situated in a desert-like red bowl of dust, concave and treeless. In fact, there are many, many trees (more in the center than in Paris by far), lots of hills and there has been no red dust. Secondly, I always assumed that Paris was one of the European capitals that spoke the least English, despite its huge tourism industry. Now I have found a European capital that speaks even less English than Paris. My assumption that many people would speak French was also rebuffed by tourism office workers, waiters and store clerks who snorted and/or giggled when I asked those who didn’t understand me if they spoke French.

There are old men with Picasso-like brown leathery skin who surprise me, as they whistle down the street from their bicycles so that people will bring their knives for sharpening between the stones on his handle-bar. And there are short, large-bellied men playing classical Spanish music on harps and accordions in the street who surprise me.

There is more of certain kinds of noise here than in Paris: more guitarists with lovely voices and lively fingers singing Spanish love songs, louder conversations, more laughter, more groups of people (adults mainly) singing and clapping together on the street as they remember a song, more birds singing (and singing louder—I think they have some different birds here…). So far, I have heard less honking and much much less “Vous êtes malade ou quoi?!”.

The biggest surprise of all is the huge park in the city, El Retiro. What shocks me most about it is that it exists at all. What I mean to say is that I particularly love gardens and parks. I have books on exquisite gardens of the world, and have read many more. Further, I have even taken a semester long landscape architecture class in which we spent several weeks studying the impact of urban green spaces on their urban area and population. In all of those readings and studies, many parks and gardens around the world were mentioned. But never ONCE was this one mentioned. Not only is this one more beautiful than any I’ve ever seen (including Central Park, the Luxembourg Gardens, Golden Gate Park), but it is definitely the most used and loved of those that I have seen. Each time I go, at any time of the day, any day of the week, holiday or non-holiday, the massive park is packed with people. The reason, aside from the beauty, is that they have so much going on inside: they have cafés, food stands, potato chip, pumpkin seed, candy and nut-vendors, ice-cream stands, fortune tellers, palm readers, acrobats, south-american guitarists singing love songs, Spanish kids doing choreographed hip-hop dances (for money), Chinese people drawings names in Chinese characters, balloon animal makers dressed up as Mickey Mouse, toy stands, soccer greens, basketball hoops, rollerblading, bicycling, picnic tables, concerts….And of course, perhaps best of all, is the man-made lake in the center of the park, on which you can rent a paddle boat (see picture). There is also a Conservatory (for flowers, though it’s used as an art exhibit space now) in the woods of the park made entirely of crystal. The sun shines through the panes and beams rainbows across the grass, onto the leaves of the surrounding trees…

Finally, Madrid mornings smell different from Paris mornings—I smell more coffee and hot oil than freshly baking bread (PS I really don’t like churros, nor do I like churros y chocolate).

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