Domingo en el Centro

Today the barrio pulses and thrives like a chrysalis exploding with a million copies of the same tiny creature. The ancient streets that wind wrap around one another, creating an organic metropolis that tells the story of its life in its cobbles and walls. People from every corner of the globe come each sunday for El Mercado del Rastro, or simply, El Rastro--the largest and oldest outdoor market in all of Europe and probably the world outside of the grand Bazaars of the Abbasid caliphate. An hour and a half before I had even gotten to the main street of the market, stretching before me for at least a mile. It's like 3 Portabello roads and a Camden market combined. Around midday the population reaches critical mass and the sun pours down from a cloudless sky like floodlights on the stage. In every corner lies something, each square inch occupied. The bars that line the side streets are havens for the travel-stained and discerning madrilenos who gaze with sidelong glances at the performance in the street. A man in front of me leads two children while smoking hash in a cigarillo - a euro blunt I suppose. On either side I hear every language as people try to bargain with the steadfast salesmen. You don't like the price, you don't buy. Personally a leather jacket for 15 sounds fantastic, and so does a tie for 2,50. By 1 the situation is nearly unsustainable and one seeks the exit but finds none. The place is alive and has grown far beyond the imagination. Life everywhere existing just shy of chaotically. I recall theoretical comparisons of cities and think of words like "green space" and "logical". Thoughts of New York are inescapable. It's impossible for me to dislike that place, but I can understand those who view it with disdain. The grid system is so antithetical to what the centuries-old cities are. They have birth and growth and it shows like scars. Children becoming adults with varied senses of humor and airs of importance, those who have made mistakes and learned, those who have been marred or sheltered. All with their closets full. New York is like a stillborn, a robot, a Gattica baby. Sterile in its design, mechanical. The idea is brilliant and dates all the way back to the city along the Indus, but there is no perfect approach. In that way it's like a lifetime itself. One can choose any number of paths but none stand out as the one true way. I suppose that's why I'm here. I prefer a trip down every possible path. However this particular avenue I find most agreeable, and perhaps, if I'm fortunate, the stroll might last...

Fin de Semana and other buzzings-along..

A week rolls on and the axle gets smoother. In the morning I walked to the metro and realized I left my pass back at the place and hadn't a single euro in my pocket with which to buy my fare. Hours later, however, it became apparent that the day would be a good one. Fresh dressed like a million bucks, I was eager to get my teach on. The sun shone and my shit was pretty much straight. I got bumped from a 6pm to a 3pm lesson, and after my religious observation of the vino tinto things went so well with the class that they asked me when I was teaching again so they could be sure to attend. After that, it was still 4pm and most of the day was ahead of me. I took the metro to Tribunal, which is only half way back to my flat, and had a long walk around Malasana to research for the night. I realized that even in the old city there is still so many gems for me to discover that I became energized. Walking home I made sure to imprint the images of the barrio on my mind and when I finally got to the flat I danced around for a bit as plans swirled in my head. Why not? It had been a productive week to say the least and much of my Monday homework was already done. There would be no sleep before the dawn. I still had many hours to kill and with my energy and the agreeable nature of the weather outside my window I decided to go run for the first time since I landed. I have a feeling I got a lot of strange looks along the way because I did not see nor have I yet seen a single runner along city streets. It was only when I got toward the Palacio Real that I found more of my kind. Following their lead I stumbled onto a massive network of tree-lined trails and grassy knolls which took me far from my origin. I finally got back into the city somewhere north of Gran Via and had a long way of navigating the increasingly congested streets of the old city ahead of me. 

.....

Things appear to me different yet the same. Streets, buildings, buses and trains. Kids with dyed hair and face hole jewelry sitting in circles with cigs and bottles, couples strolling by statues. But its got a different flavor. The buildings are similar to those in other European capitols but not really. Far grander in scale than anything save the Vatican in Rome, far more elaborate and ornate than anything save the Opera in Paris, the city seems like an experiment that was carried out under a series of unrelated stewards and never ended. People walk with the air of belonging but not with the arrogance of superiority that you find in many capitols. Bars and restaurants outnumber banks, post offices, and basically everything else 2 to 1, but they don't exist in the state of competitive fever that marks so many other metropoli. Beer can come in massive mugs or pequeno glasses, both with the requisite tapa to keep one from getting too strong a buzz. Cigarettes are smoked everywhere (except my flat, goddamnit) and the metro is the best I've seen in any city in my life. Perhaps I will elaborate on the metro alone in the future. In fact, every aspect I've seen can be discussed for pages, especially with the absence of photographs (which I continue to work on, half-assedly). 

......

Anyway, tonight begins another weekend of Spanish practice, friend making, barrio exploration, and bohemian dance ceremonies. And a little consumption on the side. Ground zero - Chueca, for what's rumored to be one of the best bars for complimentary tapas with one's cerveza. This will be my first time in the barrio known for its parties and bars so I anticipate mucho excitement...the world spins round with lyrical sounds bumping and flowing from cobble to brick to mohawk to mojito with smiles and eyes and feet shuffling. horns honk but cars don't move as scooters slide by like sleds on ice while someone yells and another sneaks behind and all around children feeling like adults stepping on stones through a shallow but ancient river and you stand, trying to keep from jumping. Or maybe you just bump up against people in a bar. Anything can happen when the night turns to day rather than to sleep.

One more thing

Before I forget, there will be numerous pictures posted showing the extremity of fashion and architecture and culinary culture here in Madrid but I left the States without my camera charger and the bastard is stone dead. Don't recommend buying one here because the prices are spine-tingling for that type of shit, but be patient and I'll find a solution...

One week in..

I begin the virtual record of my life in Madrid 9 days after its beginning. I have been recording thoughts and impressions in a notebook I carry from time to time but much of this first week has been reception and assimilation of all the elements in which I have immersed myself. Like a strange new food, I had no immediate reaction but to feel and attempt to recognize. Now that it's become clear there is little here for me to recongnize, I've moved on to simply doing all that I can and taking the time to reflect when it's available. My first few days were spent in a hostel near the barrio Huertas, where I learned that while Hostel's may be temples for the travelers who care more for experience than a quiet night, they are no good for the people who actually require sleep. Within two days, however, I'd found myself an apartment right between the Sol and La Latina barrios - where anyone will tell you is basically ground zero for nocturnal activity of all sorts. Lavapies and Huertas are minutes away and the weekend nights don't ever die down until after 6 am. After 5 days of education training I have already taught 2 classes and I'm amid preparations for a third and fourth, though there's always time to go find a new taberna on a new calle in which to sit and take it all in over a cerveza and tapa. By the way, they come free with drinks - my favorite is probably the spanish olives and anchovies, but the chorizo a la sidra is equally exceptional. I take two metros to and from the training center every day, passing through stations ranging in size from a mere platform to a network of platforms and escalators so large that every station in the city of boston could fit snugly inside. 9-5 is spent in Northern Madrid where they teach me how to teach those with whom I can barely communicate to speak English. The nights range from drinks all over the city with friends from Rome, Barcelona, England and Scotland to all-night hedonistic pilgrimages from calle to calle, barrio to barrio. Sundays in Retiro park provide more entertainment than I could have ever predicted, with drum circles numbering 15-25 large and a pulsing dancefloor on the edge of a great pond. It's strange, this life of hedonism and work combined, but I have a feeling it's the way of the world here within the border's of Europe's highest capitol. At 2pm one is hard pressed to find a bar that's empty, as the entire city exhales from the morning grind and relaxes over a cerveza or two and a few tostas. At 930p it's the same story. Enthusiastic speech everywhere while the city buzzes with an energy that is calm enough to be sustainable but intense enough to spill over into the streets of a city where the fear of old age is washed away like no where else. It is something altogether different and not always elating to come to a city alone and I often find myself thinking of the people and things I have left, but I have yet to believe that things from the past must remain there and rather than look either forward or behind I spend the minutes looking all around me now - my new home in Spain.