williamwataru

During our first two days in Madrid, we had a hard time understanding the city.

Our first impressions weren’t particularly positive.

On our way to the hostel, we saw a man peeing into a corner, the urine slowly dripping into the middle of the street where we were walking. On many streets, we could smell pee and occasionally see poop on the ground. There seemed to be more homeless people here, and some of the people felt more aggressive than what we experienced in the other cities.

The city definitely feels much bigger, which adds to the complexity.

There is construction happening seemingly everywhere, and the streets around the major sites feel hectic. It feels more touristy, or at least the places we initially spent time in felt more touristy.

The public transportation is extensive and seems more efficient and plentiful than what we experienced in Barcelona or Valencia, but it has also been more confusing. Some of the trains have been incredibly hot and very smelly as well.

Madrid has been going through a heat wave, and I think the temperature added to the stress of trying to figure everything out.

There are beautiful buildings everywhere, just as there were in Barcelona and Valencia. But I have to admit that after traveling through Europe for the past couple of weeks, a lot of these beautiful buildings are beginning to look similar to my completely untrained eye.

I know they aren’t actually the same.

I just don’t know enough yet to understand what I’m looking at.

Maybe that sentence describes some of my experience with Madrid as a whole.

I don’t really know what I’m looking at.

Our hostel was also not great.

It had five floors full of dorms and private rooms with shared bathrooms, but each floor only had two toilets and two showers, divided between men and women. It felt like a lot of people were sharing very little bathroom space.

We stayed in an eight-person dorm, which we thought wouldn’t be too bad, but the demographic was much younger. People were constantly coming in and out late at night and making a lot more noise than usual, so it was difficult to get good sleep.

All of this certainly didn’t help our energy or mood while forming our first impressions of the city.

I believe first impressions are important, but I also pride myself on constantly revising my perceptions of people and places, and Madrid was no different.

We ended up having a lot of great moments during our time, and I can understand why people love Madrid.

The city is so big!

There are so many little bubbles within it that it’s easy to get lost, and I think maybe that’s part of the point.

One moment, we were in the city center walking along Gran Vía, an iconic street lined with beautiful architecture, shops, and restaurants. We had a bottle of wine in Plaza Mayor, which instantly became one of our favorite places in the city.

Then we walked about twenty minutes south and suddenly we were in Lavapiés, a neighborhood that felt like a multicultural hub, with markets, restaurants, and immigrant communities from around the world.

Mercado de San Fernando became one of my favorite spots because we stumbled upon what felt like a one-man-show restaurant and bar serving delicious food and vermut.

If you’ve seen the Japanese show called Midnight Diner, the man working at the restaurant reminded me of the man in that show.

Part of the reason I’ve been enjoying Spain more than France is simply because I can actually speak a little Spanish.

I took three years of Spanish in high school, and although I’ve forgotten most of it, I can still say some basic phrases.

Some of my favorite moments have been trying to speak Spanish and getting positive feedback from Spanish speakers here. I really do believe it makes a difference when traveling if you can at least attempt to connect with people in the local language, although sometimes it’s really difficult.

Another one of my favorite experiences was visiting the Prado.

Without really planning to, I learned a lot about Spanish history and the royal lineage through the art. As we moved through the museum, we were able to trace pieces of Spain’s rise as one of the great empires of the world and watch the paintings slowly change as Spain itself changed.

By the time we reached Goya, especially the darker works created later in his life, the mood felt completely different from the royal portraits and religious paintings we had seen earlier.

I guess fighting with Napoleon and the French will do that to you.

Later, we toured the Royal Palace of Madrid, which ended up being one of our favorite experiences in the city.

The palace was so lavish and over-the-top with decoration that it was unlike anything I had seen before. What made the experience even more interesting was recognizing pieces of the history we had just learned at the Prado. Suddenly the kings, dynasties, wars, and changes in Spanish history felt more connected.

Of course, I can’t talk about our experience in Madrid without mentioning the food.

Our favorite meal actually came from a recommendation by someone we met by chance at a coffee shop, which also happened to have the best espresso we’ve had in Europe so far.

The shop was called Brunetti Italian Store and had much more than coffee.

When we ordered our espresso, the guy working there suggested we get their homemade tiramisu with it, so of course we did.

It ended up being both the best espresso and the best tiramisu we’ve had so far. 

Something about this experience made me think about how underrated immigrant culture can be when traveling in another country.

When people travel to France or Spain, I think we naturally focus on French or Spanish culture and cuisine. We want to have an “authentic” experience of the country we are visiting, and I think there is absolutely value in that.

But countries are not culturally isolated from one another.

There are immigrant communities, neighboring cultures, and generations of people bringing their own food and traditions with them.

Coming from the United States, there are also cultures that may have a completely different presence in Europe than they do back home.

It reminded me a little of California and Mexican food.

Mexican culture has become so intertwined with California that when I visited California while living in Oregon, one of the things I looked forward to most was eating Mexican food. To me, the difference in quality was enormous.

But I imagine someone visiting California from another country might be so focused on finding “American food” that they overlook some of the Mexican food that actually makes California feel like California.

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I’ve had multiple Italian experiences during our time in Europe that have become defining moments of the trip.

Maybe that is obvious considering Italy’s proximity to France and Spain, but it wasn’t something I thought much about while planning this trip.

Back to the Italian coffee shop.

While drinking our coffee, I overheard someone asking about Italian beer, and the guy working there referred the customer to the back of the store to look at the options.

I was intrigued. I knew nothing about Italian beer, so I asked him about it too.

He introduced us to Ichnusa, an unfiltered beer from Sardinia, as well as an Italian craft beer called Rock n Roll made in an American Pale Ale style.

I had never heard of either of them, and they were both great.

The Ichnusa was a delicious light beer that felt perfect for sipping on a warm day, while the Rock n Roll was heavier and had a higher alcohol percentage. 

We agreed it would be a great beer for getting drunk fast. Both have their time and place!

The most important part of this story is the guy working at the cafe. He was really cool.

After striking up a conversation with him, we learned that he had moved from Mexico to Spain and had been living in Madrid for ten years. He met his wife here, who is from Venezuela, and they actually have a travel YouTube channel together.

He told us about his experience living in Madrid compared with Mexico, what he thought about Barcelona, and eventually we asked him what his favorite Spanish food was.

He mentioned something I had never heard of before, Rabo de toro.

Rabo de toro is a braised oxtail dish associated with Spain and, historically, with bullfighting culture. He told us we had to try it before leaving Spain.

In my experience, this is often how I end up finding my favorite meals while traveling. Ask someone who knows the local culture what they actually like to eat.

So we searched for a restaurant that listed rabo de toro as one of its specialties.

The restaurant we found dated back to 1787 and was deeply connected to bullfighting culture. When we walked inside, we were surrounded by bullfighting memorabilia, including a large mounted bull on the wall.

The waiter was warm and friendly and seemed amused when we ordered our meal in Spanish: Two glasses of wine, an artichoke dish, and rabo de toro.

It ended up being the best meal of our time in Madrid.

The artichoke was savory and slightly crunchy, with a creamy, delicious sauce.

The oxtail was extremely tender. The meat fell easily from the bone and practically melted in our mouths. You could taste the richness of the meat and the wine in the sauce, and the flavor was intense.

Even just sitting in the restaurant felt like an experience.

The building was clearly old, and after reading about the history of the restaurant, it seemed like a miracle that it was still there at all.

We felt thankful just to be sitting inside it.

Looking back, I think Madrid was simultaneously the most challenging and one of the most rewarding parts of our time in Spain.

We went from having a pretty bad first impression of the city, to learning about Spanish history through the Prado and Royal Palace, to meeting a Mexican immigrant in an Italian coffee shop who told us about rabo de toro, to eventually eating it in a really old bullfighting restaurant.

None of those experiences could really have been planned, and I think that is what Madrid reminded me of.

I spend a lot of time trying to understand places.

I want to know what I’m looking at. I want to know what I’m supposed to eat, where I’m supposed to go, and what makes a place special, but sometimes I just don’t know.

Sometimes the best thing I can do is keep walking, keep asking questions, talk to people, and let the experience become whatever it is going to become.