Well. Madrid is a lot.
It’s my first time in Spain, and my first time in a Spanish-speaking country since Mexico, back in 2018. Which means my Spanish sucks. I know some greetings, and I know how to count (ish), and I can ask where the bathroom is. The rest is a work in progress.
But that’s been okay – mostly – because a) there are tourists everywhere and most are equally incompetent (or just obnoxious) and b) the folk who live here are breezily accepting of our incompetence/obnoxiousness.
(Which, I might add, is not always the case for foreigners in New Zealand).
Anyway. Madrid. Jesus.
This city is just so large. There are so many people. And there are many, many large buildings and large statues and large monuments and all are largely made out of marble/bronze/iron/brick, and most were built long before New Zealand was even, like, inhabited. Which blows the mind just a little bit.
There are also many dogs. Everyone has a dog and all these dogs are very definitely pedigrees and very well-groomed and well-walked, and they are all walked/shown off at all hours of the day and night in all the many parques. Dog shit levels are about on a par with Remuera, which, given that Madrid is sixty-eleven times the population of Remuera, is impressive. But, unlike Remuera, the dogs are not in fucking prams.
Also, every street is like something out of a storybook.
Now. The food.
Mention Madrid to someone who’s not in Madrid, and they’ll go TAPAS TAPAS TAPAS at you. Well, yeah there are tapas and everyone is definitely eating them, but they’re not very f*cking cheap. And if they are cheap, they’re not very f*cking good. Or substantial. Or healthy, for that matter. My first tapa experience was a bowl of olives with my rioja and a wee cheese-and-tomato sandwich with my cider. Those tapas were $2 a pop, which I’m definitely not complaining about, but I ain’t paying $20 for a truffle-and-goat-cheese tostada just because you can eat it on the same street as seventy thousand other people beneath some manful statue on his great galloping horse.
I had been starting to wonder if the whole free-tapa-with-your-drink thing was a load of internet BS, so last night I was quite overjoyed to discover that the bar at which I was having a few bevies did indeed hand out wee morsels with each round: overflavoured corn kernels, a teeny plate of cheese cubes, a mound of chopped chorizo. Just as well too, cos the damn kitchen didn’t open ’til 8.30pm and let’s just say the bevies are very good and very not-expensive.
In any case, I have so far failed to find cheap street food, which is kind of my thing. BUT. No matter, because the supermarkets are fucking amazing. I would relocate to Spain for the supermarkets alone. New Zealand has two supermarket chains; Spain has at least 20. There is a different supermarket every few hundred metres. AND the food in nearly every supermarket is at least a third the price and definitely a hundred times more wonderful than anything in New Zealand. Some points to note:
– Hummus in New Zealand is shit. Hummus in Spain is legendary.
– Pâté in New Zealand might as well be cat food. Pâté in Spain might as well be heroin.
– A $30 bottle of wine in NZ has nothing on a $4 bottle of wine in Spain.
– Carrots are actually sweet and crisp and juicy NOT GIANT ORANGE TURNIPS.
– Gazpacho is my new favourite thing even though it does something seriously frightening to your wee.
– FIFTY kinds of sardines in one freakin’ aisle.
– YOU CAN BUY SPIRITS IN SPAIN FOR LESS THAN A LETTUCE IN NZ.
– Olives. Gherkins. Bread. Kefir. Cheese. Real butter. Eggs. Chocolate with nuts in it. THESE THINGS ARE UNDER TWO DOLLARS AND THEY ARE AMAZING.
The real thing though, and probably the best thing (and definitely the cheesiest thing) is that people here are so busy. In every direction there are people, doing stuff, every minute of the day: walking, running, eating tapas, sitting in the park, drinking beer/wine/sangria (at 11am), smoking weed, yelling, singing, hawking fake Gucci handbags, posing with fountains/statues/more tapas, protesting against the government (today, and on tractors, no less), and a whole lot of shit I haven’t even seen yet because I’ve only been here a week.
I like it. I really like it. But I need to scrub up my f*cking Spanish.
a woman wanders 