Three hours behind schedule, the Madrid-bound 747 was still circling JFK’s runways without a word from the Iberia Airlines crew. The Spanish passengers barely glanced at their watches; the Americans on board were unmistakable from their scowling brows and growling stomachs. It was a rude introduction to the Spanish sense of time, embodied in the citizens of its leisurely capitol: Whether late lunches or planes, slow afternoon strolls or siestas, Madrid’s people take their time.
The city is my first overseas stop on a year-long, solo circle around the globe. When short trips in Europe, South America and the Middle East left me longing for a longer stay, I decided to take my freelance writing business on the road. I bit the bullet and bought a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Cairo via Madrid.
In Cairo, I will live with a Lebanese-Canadian sex therapist and her children, taking Arabic classes and helping her with her dissertation. After Egypt, I will leave the skies behind to traverse a lot of land and a little water: spring visiting friends in the Middle East; summer working on volunteer projects in Eastern Europe; the fall hiking in Tibet and Nepal; and December sunning on the beaches of Thailand and flying home in time to ring in 1999. At least that is the plan: I may return homesick mid-way, or not return all. I make no promises so that I can come and go with the exchange rate and the weather.
Such a journey requires one to reinvent one’s existence, given the demands of every new environment; to accept one’s ignorance, given the multitude of languages and lifestyles one encounters. It is trusting in the unknown, existing in and for the here and now. Travel at its best is the ultimate celebration of life, not a break from it.
It is an anthropological and psychological study of my own society and self as much as it is an exploration of foreign cultures. To see something as “other” requires differentiation: what makes me like or unlike the people I meet? Will a universal sense of humanity — not to mention womanhood — connect me with people who live so differently?
Leaving home forces me to question my sense of belonging. In the U.S., I feel that my nationality is incidental to my identity; elsewhere, it defines me. What does America mean to me, to an Egyptian, an Israeli, a Tibetan? How has my country changed the world, for better or worse?
Like a cultural broker, I look to convey facets of our culture beyond McDonald’s and Baywatch, while being open to other’s insights on our way of life. And with you, fair reader, I want to share my own perceptions about people and places normally only viewed from the perspectives of high-school history books, cheery travel magazines and the dismal nightly news.
That said, Madrid is frankly just a fun weekend fling. After the
all-night, trans-Atlantic flight, I was happy to arrive in Alonso
Martinez, a central neighborhood with many cheap spots to eat, sleep and make merry. There I found a room in a family-run pension for 1,500 pesetas (about $10), though my chamber was smaller than a bread box. I had to shuffle sideways to get in with my oversized backpack, heavy with laptop and too many books.
The 6 hours I lost coming from New York turned my day to night and night, day. Luckily, Madrid is in a permanent state of jet lag. My first night I was wide awake until 4 a.m., a reasonable bedtime for Madrilenos. Although never leaving home, the pension’s grandfatherly, piously Catholic host still didn’t turn in until 3 a.m., when he finally turned off the bombastic classical music he blasted nightly.
Socializing is an art and science in Madrid. To master the scene, one must predict the peaks of the city’s pint-sized tapas bars. From early evening until the wee night hours, Spaniards flit from bar to bar like bees gathering nectar, stopping here for a tapa (appetizer) of fried calamari, tortilla (potato and onion quiche) or chorizo (sausage), there for a glass of beer or sangria.
Around 10 or 11 p.m., after an protracted affair of tapas and drinks, dinner arrives at last. The table stars hefty dishes like paella, a stew of saffron rice and mixed seafood. To sample a dish, some establishments will let you order a pincho, or a bite-sized portion.
Spaniards take their main meal of the day between 2 and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, restaurants provide a menu del dia, which allows diners to select a tapa, main dish and dessert for one low price. Do leave room: cream-layered cake topped with pine nuts is a pleasure not to be missed.
Madrid’s daytime treasures are its more than 40 museums, el Museo del Prado being the crowning jewel. The Prado is part of the Art Walk, a triangle of galleries west of the historic Parque Del Buen Retiro. The museum houses one of the greatest collections of Spanish painting from the 12th to 19th centuries, most notably the works of Goya, Velazquez and El Greco.
With nearly one hundred rooms of artwork, the Prado alone warrants a day of reflection. It would take an eye’s lifetime to tire of all that decks its walls — El Greco’s tense, tumbling compositions and strangely elongated hands, Rubens’ lovable, fluffy-winged angels and dark, brooding portraits, Titian’s bursts of candy colors.
To merely get around, the subway is clean, quick and simple, but to properly enjoy the city’s grandeur, you must walk it. Take time to aimlessly wander neighborhoods, weaving through compact mazes of zig-zagged roads and spacious, tree-lined plazas. Get caught in the spokes of traffic-hubs, where six thoroughfares each spin off into multiples of back streets. When you can roam no further, pick a park bench and watch fiery young couples argue, make up and make out.
My memory of Madrid is in the lingering details. Snow-colored buildings trimmed with cream ornaments, each window swinging open to a wrought-iron balcony. The fall shades favored by Madrilenos, from the brown-mustard sweaters of casually dressed youth to the chestnut fur coats worn by older women strolling the boulevards.
I try to match the lilting steps of these ladies, who gossip arm-in-arm. They live the life of leisure Americans keep hoping the washing machine, the Internet and next year’s model will deliver. I should take this pulse to heart and stay a little longer, but the rest of the world awaits. Sleep well, Madrid, I’ve got another plane to catch.