Madrid
Days 1 -3: Arrival, tours, museums, flamenco, and FOOD
Day 1 - Wednesday
I awoke to the sound of the car door opening, and the dark-haired Uber driver nodding at me. “Oh, yes, thank you,” I sputtered, stepping out of the backseat of the black Mercedes. The world tilted as I got up, and a thought the size of a worm had me grabbing my purse and weekender bag before coming to the back of the car for my luggage. The driver had already pulled the suitcase out, rolling it my way with a curt nod and a ‘Muchas gracias, hasta luego.” Fuck, I forgot to speak Spanish. I nodded back and bumbled, quietly in case I said something wrong, “Thank you, gracias, adios.”
Suitcase in hand, I finally looked up to inspect my surroundings only to realize that I had no idea where the hotel the hotel entrance started, and where the sidewalk and sideway cafes, and globs of strangers passing by, ended. I made out the blurry image of open doors and walked, eyes lazily hanging onto what looked like a concierge desk. Before I made it fifteen steps, I was stopped by a doorman, who reached for my luggage and spoke in rapid-fire Spanish. I caught about 3 words as he spoke (“aasghufrddcaoei reservacion jgaaionnkljwejf numero aofmsdmoiohgvisjigwe recepcion”), writing and ripping up a ticket, before handing me the stub of the ticket and pointing me toward the desks. My eyes could not focus, even if I tried. I began to take my suitcase with me, but he said “Ah, no, in English...” Eyes still glazed, I understood he was going to keep the luggage and bring it to my room, and all I had to do was give the ticket to reception when I checked in. I turned around again, about to move towards the desk, but was stopped. Green eyes, a full auburn beard, and there was Scott, walking towards me, wearing a blue and white button down and navy slacks, speaking, arms open for a hug. From there, all I remember is his touch, and how whatever had just happened, was not how I thought my arrival would go.
That first day in Madrid was a fever dream. Remind me never to take a red-eye international flight, because obviously, I can’t handle it. As soon as I got into the hotel room, I showered, enjoying the luxury of a 5-star hotel that I didn’t pay for (thanks to Scott’s work trip), and collapsed for a few hours. My only agenda item was a midday walking tour, and after much internal debate, I decided to rally and do it. With almost nothing in my stomach except a few pieces of emergency-airport-purchase crappy granola clusters, I headed out into my day alone in Madrid, so jetlagged I forgot how to dress.
This trip came together on a whim, as many of Scott’s work trips do, but the difference is that I told Scott months ago, when he first got wind of a potential Spain trip, that I would be coming on this one whether he wanted me to or not. In a span of two weeks, I’d scrapped together my tickets and itinerary for a week in Madrid. My first time back in Europe since January 2019. I was eager to leave NYC, as I always am, and anxious about seeming too American, as I always am. Madrid wasn’t my favorite city when I’d last gone, but it was beautiful and old and fantastical and I would love it for the next week.
The walking tour, an Airbnb Experience hosted by a woman from Manchester, was 2 and a half hours of Madrilenean history and cultural snippets. By far the highlight was the story of Plaza Mayor and the decades-long mystery of the stench that drove everyone from its vicinity, whose source was eventually revealed to be a nearly immortal boiling stew of dead birds in the bronze belly of the horse and king statue. I’m a history buff, what can I say? This tour represented an uncharacteristic embrace of my tourist status and I don’t regret it. I wish I had the energy, pretentiousness, and dedication to plan and take myself on a tour of my design, but now that I’m a working American and not a bohemian college student, I have nothing but the fumes of intellectualism to run on. It would have been nice if led by a local, but at least the guide had a degree and an obvious expertise in the subject. It was informative and a helpful introduction to Madrid. By the time that walking tour had ended and I’d collected a sweet Polaroid of myself in front of the royal palace, I knew I had to eat.
That first day I met my greatest anxiety about the trip, and the one thing I truly detest about solo travel: eating alone. And I’d predetermined (about 5 days before leaving, in fact) to eat at this Spanish tortilla place that was supposed to be reliably good and casual. When I arrived, it was empty. Not a soul inside. It was an off-hour on the earlier side of the 5-7 pm tapas rotation, but there wasn’t anyone inside that tortilla place. I panicked. I couldn’t go in there alone, me and my stupid American accent, all alone, pathetically asking for a shared plate for just me.
I walked passed my plan A and stopped at a random plaza, frantically searching “vegan” on Google Maps. As a semipermeable vegetarian, I have had too many encounters of accidentally eating meat in places where I don’t speak the language or can’t trust people to know their food. Throwing a vegan filter on my food search guarantees I can eat it, and sometimes you can find young, hip places. The tricky thing is that vegan cuisine in European countries tends to be way worse than American vegan cuisine (a rare time I’ll admit any kind of American supremacy).
The vegan place I located to be my plan B was terrifying. It was also mainly empty, but even worse it looked like a nightmare playhouse of a 1990s movie theater. There was black and white tile on the floor, neon green and pink plastic chairs in odd shapes, and the walls were royal purple. I walked, the waiter spoke Spanish, and I stared back at him. He raised his eyebrows as my mouth hung open, no noise coming out. Like a caveman, I stammered, “Food.” He squinted his eyes at me, handed me a menu, and gestured to the empty restaurant for me to find a seat. I sat down, ashamed of acting like I was born yesterday, and tried to read the menu. I couldn’t. Something was so off. The interior design, the emptiness, my empty brain— I got up and fled. I stumbled out of the back door onto the street and quickly walked down the street, convincing myself that I was not a main character enough for him to call after me.
My plan C was a tourist trap. I knew it was. But at least it had people outside of it. I sat outside and flagged the waiter. And for the first time: I finally opened my mouth and Spanish came out of it. A beer and a bocadillo de calamares (calamari sandwich, essentially). I don’t know if that was the best bocadillo de calamares in the city and I’d probably be shot in the head if I said it was, so it wasn’t. But at that moment, it saved me from passing out in the street.
(Watch out for loud sound on that video!) On my way back to the hotel, the neighboring insurance office had a 6 pm chime with small rotating figurines. You can see them slowly moving in that video. After that, I went back to the hotel room, crawled into my temporary side of the king-size bed, and didn’t move until convincing myself to get up for dinner at 8:30 pm.
For dinner, something I was only doing because I knew I had to eat more than a half-size bocadillo and a handful of granola clusters, I decided to retry the vegan filter. I narrowed it down to one place with excellent reviews and a couple of photos of people who looked under 35. Donning a black t-shirt, jeans, black boots, and a red lip, I stepped into the Madrid night and power-walked my way to my solo dinner.
As if I paid myself forward, my restaurant selection was perfect. I ate two croquettes and a bowl full of shishito peppers. Like a whole bowl of peppers. I got halfway through and paused, taking a deep breath. The thing about Spanish food is that it's absolutely delicious, but seems to be almost always built to share family style. This makes solo dining complicated, especially since I am sensitive to food waste and love to try half the menu of any new restaurant. So I ate the whole bowl of peppers, ordered nothing else, and enjoyed my 3-euro wine. I’ll get into the wine later.
The night ended with me in bed and a bleary-eyed welcome home to Scott who arrived at midnight after his work dinner. He brought good news: He wasn’t working tomorrow.
Day 2 - Thursday
I learned so much on this trip, but the single most impactful piece of information I learned was that I don’t sleep in New York. When I slept that first night, I slept for 11 hours straight. It was partly exhaustion from the previous day, but more so, the thick blackout curtains and the quietness (lack of sirens) on the street. We quickly dressed, grabbed coffee and toast at a cafe nearby (already better than solo dining), and hit the Reina Sofia for an early afternoon art walk.
The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia is known for many artworks, but most notoriously for Picasso’s Guernica, an allegory for and product of civil war. Navigating quickly through the three floors of the museum, we saw an urban planning exhibit, a turn of the 20th-century bohemian exhibit, and various mid-century works. Guernica was hidden among them, but once you got near it it was impossible not to be sucked in by its tidal forces. It's impossible to look away from, it’s massive, and the crowd pulsating before it is inescapable. The whole experience fills your senses and even after we left, I still felt that shimmery aura that good art leaves on your skin.
The other activity I’d planned for the day was across the city, about a 35-minute walk, so we opted to have lunch on the way. After some indecision and marching in a row on the narrow sidewalks, we landed at a place in the basement of a market called Sincio. We didn’t check reviews or even the name of the place, we were just happy Spanish people were eating there. It ended up being one of the best meals of our trip. Traditional and inventive foods like bean and bacon stew, mushroom carbonara, and a seafood fideua left us rolling our eyes with each bite. Long gone were the perils of solo dining and uncertainty. Finally, I was dining in Madrid.
Now keep in mind, I thought I’d spend Thursday alone. I booked a spot on a rooftop bar tour that evening, letting myself indulge in yet more low-brain-capacity activities guided by some English speaker. This bar tour was just that, but also a little more. Led by a guy from Ohio (or Illinois? Indiana?), made up of 8 people from the US, Switzerland, Singapore, and Korea, our journey took us to three bars, each decreasingly less touristy.
The first stop was at The Tourist Rooftop Hotel Bar, we enjoyed an incredible view of the city and I had to strangle my tinto de verano to keep the wind from blowing it over. I spoke to a woman who had just relocated from California to Madrid, a freelance software engineer looking for friends and places to hang. A seed of jealousy, a perennial flower I never need to replant to ensure annual growth, began to germinate inside me. I wish I had a job that I could freelance. Maybe if this Substack could take off and earn me a liveable wage…
Our next stop was a food market at the top of a department store, El Corte Ingles. A local, IYKYK spot where you can buy a bottle and they’ll open it for you on the spot, we stood outside on the patio and shared a couple of bottles of wine. Our view was minimal, a big-boned skeleton of an apartment building under construction, but this was the turning point of the tour.
Enough wine had begun to flow, and Scott and I found ourselves locked in a conversation with the newly transplanted woman and the host, a 5-year resident who moved for the sake of a love now broken. The topic was one I can never help but get passionate about, and if you’ve ever met me in real life one you know I am insufferable about: The difference in quality of life there in Spain (Western Europe, generally) and America. As we discussed the ease of healthy and affordable produce, affordable rent, affordable glasses of wine, walkability, and community, that seed had sprouted and peeked out of the dirt. As it saw the light for the first time in months, that sprout reminded me: Living in the US was a backup for me, a settling ground, a bitter spoonful of crushed dreams. My tipsy mind began to twirl with ways I could get us to move. I could write. Scott can transfer to the Madrid office, it’s a little tricky for him, but he could do it. We could do it. We could get an apartment with a balcony, shop at small markets for 30-cent bell peppers, and laugh in 6 different languages with our collection of international friends. I wanted to do it. We could do it.
At the third location, a modern rooftop hotel bar that somehow escaped the tourist stage light, the sun set over the Madrilenean skyline and distant mountains. Terracotta shingle roofs illuminated in orange haze, the breeze turned chilly, and we started to break down some of our truest thoughts. Euro-dating as an American, expat things like passing through the same flat as all your friends until you graduate into a place of your own, how many mistakes you can make on a weekend trip to Amsterdam, etc. My sprout had leaves and a green bud waiting to peel open in bloom. I’ve tried to grow out of the adolescent part of me that yearns to eat at the cool kid's table, but it always returns when I listen to people who move out of their home country for a better life. I want a seat at that table and I know it is open for me when I want it, I just can’t get myself to stop eating my lunch in the bathroom stall.
After the orange in the sky turned to dark blue, Scott and I caught the metro and journeyed north to another planned activity: A Michelin start vegan dinner experience at El Invernadero. I don’t know how many courses. I don’t know how many drink pairings. We did the entire thing in Spanish. It was the best meal I’ve ever had in my life. Homemade mead, tomato three ways, hibiscus hard kombucha, hand-rolled beet and bean mini-tacos, specialty curated wines, regional cheese and honeycomb, melon balls injected and marinated in spirulina seed. I don’t even know what was happening, but sitting at the chef's bar was the best choice. We laughed with the chefs, they gave us new, bewildering morsels bursting with flavor. So many times, I turned to Scott and we had a conversation with our eyes: What the fuck did we sign up for how will we ever beat this experience we are definitely kinda peaking at life right now. By the end, I could not physically fit another bite in my mouth. They gifted us the two clay cups we’d been drinking out of all night and a tote bag.
Emerging into the urban night, the neighborhood we were in was quiet. We continued reciting our praises of the meal. And it occurred to me: That was the kind of meal that you leave a tip for. Tipping is not a common practice in Europe (they pay their employees liveable wages and don’t keep them in the American abusive customer service circus), but I’d heard allegations that there were meals in Europe when you could tip. Usually when you experience outstanding service and food throughout the meal. Like we just had. We waffled back and forth, standing in the street like we were bartering cigarettes for spare change, debating if we should withdraw cash and go back to the restaurant, or just let it be. Ultimately, we decided to tip. We withdrew about 15% (5-15% is the range when you do tip in Europe, apparently) and walked back into the restaurant, which was closing down now. Stammering in his ever-accelerating Spanish, Scott told them that we don’t know their customs, but we’re American, and it was such an incredible meal. Their faces changed from apprehension to appreciation, they beamed, and we all smiled at each other before leaving again, for the final time.
I’m glad we tipped. It was the right thing to do for that caliber of a meal. But Scott’s explanation was caught in my head. He was completely right, we are American and we tip. I don’t feel bad about in that instance. But what I do feel icky about is that Americans only know value through transactions and throwing money at something. The whole tipping system, a remnant of slavery and segregation, is about who holds power, which is directly derived from money. We’re so cheap, so vapid as a society, to only express genuine emotion through a price tag and transaction. I hate it here, and being abroad only made it more salient. Still, we slept that night like summer bears fat on nuts and berries.
Day 3 - Friday
After another morning spent sleeping way too well, we stopped for a midday breakfast (some may call it lunch) at a random cafe. I had a very European sandwich of smoked salmon, hard-boiled egg, pickles, and mayo. Scott has a ham and cheese sandwich. Even the simplest things are better when your country isn’t injecting them with innumerable and unnameable chemicals. While we’re eating, a young man comes in. Something about him is obviously not Spanish, maybe his blond hair, but more like his accent. He sits down and pulls out a book, glancing around to see if anyone is watching him. It’s easy to spot a study abroad kid having their silly, wild, adventure by themselves. Maybe the first time they’ve felt truly alive or realized that their life before was rather dull or they are understanding why poetry exists. Wonderment abounds, and glitter coats all. I do yearn for it. So much of this can be explained by Hemingway, I think. We downed our espressos, and off we went to the Prado.
Standing outside of the Museo Nacional del Prado, in front of that 18th-century palace, I tell Scott that so much of these study-abroad kids can be explained by Hemingway. They all want to be Hemingway. They want to traverse Europe and come out a literary and intellectual star, a messiah for Americans trying to find love, depression, and adventure in the old world. To write a song of war and humanity, to get mistaken for an Italian, to be quoted on a tote bag from Shakespeare and Co in Paris. Maybe it’s not a conscious dream, but it’s the undercurrent that pulls students out to sea and leaves them depleted when they return to their now ill-fitting lives afterward. It’s the knowledge that you are nothing yet part of something. I can’t lay as much claim to this now. I don’t learn unless by belabored choice and I answer emails for a living. But some places still alight that glimmer of intrigue in me, and the Prado is one of them.
The Prado is a European art museum, one of the largest and most renowned in the world. A quad-tiered cake waiting to be devoured by hordes of tourists and art aficionados, the Prado was what I looked forward to the most on our trip. Goya, Bosch, Titian, Velasquez, Fra Angelico, anything pre-modern, basically everything in there. I saw the reconstructed chapel that had captivated me 5 years before and found that I was a different person upon reentry. A feast for the eyes so abundant that within 3 hours we were stuffing ourselves past comfort. A madman's dash through the gift shop, and we were out, back into the bright, Spanish sun and cool breeze.
We walked and walked and returned to our hotel for a quick outfit change and refresh. Then we took a cab to Corral de la Moreria to eat some fine dining and watch flamenco. Upon entry, it became evident that this was not going to be a relaxing experience with personal space and an air of romance. The venue was old, and tables were crammed so close together that you could only slide into your seat if you moved the table next to you. We were seated in the back, and it was only a matter of minutes before we realized our waiter was alone with all 10 tables in the back and only a shadow of a colleague to help him. I understand how and why, but the service was bad. And not because I’m an American expecting “customer is king” service, but because the man physically could not serve that many tables at once. Food was mixed up or forgotten entirely, drink refills were nonexistent, and Scott was moments away from an allergy scare.
All that melted away with the start of the flamenco. There were two singers, a mandolin player, and three dancers. Incredible vocalizations that I can only describe as emulating Arabic prayer chants came from one of the two men on stage, and the dancing began, with each dancer taking turns for each song. To my untrained ear, it all sounded arhythmic and somewhat hard to follow, but it was nonetheless impressive and enchanting. The undulating singing, the stops of heels on the wooden stage, and the flourish of movements and clapping from both singers and dancers. Everyone in the crowd was mesmerized.
We closed out our third day with music of centuries-old anguish and passion. It was an earlier night, because the next day, Toledo awaited.