Madrid makes for good walking

Modern travel is fast, convenient (mostly), and brutal--on the nerves, mine anyway. Yesterday I spent as a passenger, passive in a series of padded seats--first in Manolo's car to the Vallodolid train station, then in the train to the outskirts of Madrid, then in the Metro to and from downtown (not padded), then in an EasyJet jet to London, and finally in another train with Rachael down to Brighton. I did spend a few pleasant hours afoot in Madrid, mostly in Parque del Retiro, certainly the best part of my day.

There's probably no better way to first see a big city than coming up from underground, coming up into the sunlight and the noise, the hordes of people, the traffic.... It's a moment of spectacle and discovery and excitement. My first sight of central Madrid was on the Gran Via, a wide and busy street lined with posh shops and sidewalk cafes. Four and five stories of balconies rose up overhead on white stone buildings topped with ornate cornices and towers. People filled the wide sidewalks, beautiful woman and men, tourists, waiters among the crowded cafe tables. Immediately three black gay men passed me laughing. Several women in head scarves went by, then a Japanese couple, then a sun-burned group of people speaking British. Of course such diversity is not unexpected in a city like Madrid, but still, I noticed, after nearly two months in northern Spain, a region of great cultural uniformity.

I walked first to the Parque del Retiro, happy in the substantial heat of the day to be under the shady trees. I passed along the white dirt paths, admiring the trees and inspecting the older people sitting on wooden benches, the younger people laying out in the grass in the sun. At a fountain a woman in Minnie Mouse costume stood waiting for a customer, her mouse head canted up to let the breeze cool her face. A couple came near and she pulled down the head and waved animal balloons at them. Her accomplice, standing nearby in a padded Spider Man outfit, accosted another pair, also with the promise of shapeable balloons, while I slipped past unseen. I came to a rectangular lake, where people were out rowing around in small boats; the women wore bikini tops, the men went shirtless. Eventually I found a small table and sat down to a long lunch of bread and cheese and walnuts and orange and chocolate. Afterwards the park was large enough that I got lost.

Eventually I passed by the Prado, wanting to go inside but with too little time before having to go out to the airport. I walked through narrow streets, past a house where Cervantes lived and died, and past an American girl who said, "yeah, 'Sweet Home Alabama.'" I thought, do you know that that is a reactionary and quasi-racist song?

In the arcade around the Plaza Mayor most of the shops were devoted to either ham or souvenirs or stamps. I wouldn't have thought that the philatelic trade could support so many stores.

I walked to the nearby Sol, a roundish hub from which a number of streets radiated, each wide and each brimful of people, some on the way somewhere, some shopping, many like me simply gawking. I took Calle Montera uphill back towards Gran Via, passing shoe and discount clothing stores, more souvenir shops, bars and cafes, and then numerous prostitutes. This last was a surprise, though someone had told me weeks before that prostitution was legal in Spain. But it was the location of the women, and the time of day, which seemed to me incongruous. They were young and old both, and all lightly dressed. They stood alone under small sycamore trees, or in groups of two and three sitting on narrow ledges in front of the shop windows. One of the older woman, wearing a halter top, stood in the middle of the passing throng with her hands on her hips, challenging the passing men with a hard look. All of the women held small purses under their arms. I passed close to one young woman and saw the word "Cornel" tattooed lightly on her upper arm. At the top of the street a plump young woman in a tiny denim skirt stood just outside the door of a McDonald's.

I rode the subway out to the airport and began the ordeal of flying EasyJet. Long lines, long waits, late departure. On the plane I was surrounded by young and shaggy-haired British men returning from holiday; one wore a t-shirt that said "I got out of bed and dressed, what more do you want?" I arrived in London at ten and found Rachael. She had come in just an hour before from Paris, where she had spent the last five days with her daughter, Bella. We rode the train to Brighton, and then walked a half hour in the dark, up and down steep hills through wet and cool neighborhoods to her street, Hollingbury Rise. Inside her rowhouse I met Bella, who is twenty and who was sitting in front of a computer and talking on the phone; I thought, this feels comfortingly familiar.