Two Weeks in Madrid

It’s different when you live in a place, in contrast to visiting and being a tourist. As streets, landmarks, stores and transportation become familiar – for me, somewhere in the second week -- the place begins to lose its mystery and fascination and take on the comforting sense of familiarity.

I know how to find my flat through the maze of streets, from any direction. I know how to use the Metro to get anywhere, and smartly buy the 10-trip ticket which saves 3 euros over individual ones. I’ve visited the major tourist sites, had coffee or wine in all the famous squares and many historic tavernas. I’ve eaten my share of tortillas papas and bolillo sandwiches. I’ve shopped in small oriental-owned groceries, cheese shops, panaderias (bread stores) and druggias (where you buy shampoo). I have walked and walked, which is what you do. I have a local mobile phone with 8 people in my contact list.

I’ve been to the Prado and stood before masterpieces by Titan, El Greco, Velazques, Goya, Ribera and Bosch. I’ve even been to the movies with a local woman and her 83-year-old mother to see Woody Allen’s “Vicky, Christina, Barcelona” in Spanish, as everything is dubbed here. I will go to the Reina Sophia museum and Retiro Park (Madrid’s Central Park) before I leave.

The initial awe and luster gives way to some observations of annoyance. For example, men are not gentlemanly – no one gives up a seat on the Metro for anyone; people push past without a “perdon”. Questions are answered courteously enough, but no one offers additional or better information that, you later discover, could have saved a lot of time and aggravation.
Even the sound of the accordion, which delighted me my first night, upon hearing it from the sidewalk below, has become commonplace; along with the violin and flute and baritone singers which make music in the streets or plazas at all hours.

Madrid is a big, busy, dirty, noisy city, and the most late-night in Europe, with dinner commonly eaten after 10 p.m. Its habitants are remarkably friendly and helpful once you strike up a conversation or are introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Its old parts, where I have stayed, are full of narrow winding cobblestone streets, pedestrian streets inlaid with quotes in bronze from poets and statesmen, beautiful residential buildings with wrought-iron balconies, and impressive monumental buildings.

It is a place teeming with human activity that shuts down mid-day for the civilized tradition of a large meal and siesta. It is a city that has grown and sprawled in the post-Franco years, swelled with campesinos, immigrants and ex-pats, and now complains of the downside of being a melting pot.

I am pleased to have explored so thoroughly although, indeed, there is always much more. But, for now, I feel satisfied with my knowing Madrid and having been warmly received by a number of interesting Madrileños, mostly transplants.

The peace and quiet of Santa Fe will pose a real contrast to Madrid. No doubt, for a week or two I will experience a heightened sense of curiosity and appreciation that resides specifically in newness. I will see with fresh eyes. And then, as routine slowly erodes the edge of adventure, idealized notions of another thrilling locale will draw me toward my next escapade, where the unknown becomes known, in the inevitable cycles of Life.

The Alhambra, Granada

I sit in a courtyard created by two white-plaster walls topped with faded-red tiles, a wall of round stones embedded in adobe and a fourth wall painted burnt sienna. A thick, gnarled-trunk tree spreads its limbs and leaves from wall to wall, providing a canopy above the brick and stone-tile floor, the dozen tile-topped tables, the wicker barrel-chairs. I am in the center of Hotel America, a modest but pleasant inn, in the center of the grounds which comprise the famous Alhambra ("red fort").

Two fountains splash and sing, sparrows swoop in for a look, a discordant bell rings from one of the nearby watch towers until it tires of its own annoying clang and slows to a stop. I have eaten a typical breakfast: pan tostada (toasted roll), plain yogurt served with a piece of whole fruit (pear, banana, nectarine), a small glass of jugo de manzana (apple juice) and cafe con leche (strong coffee and hot milk). I sit alone in a place some 2 million visitors a year deem worthy of pilgrimage, surrounded by richly-patterned history.

Last night I visited the Nazaries Palace, the most famous structure on the Alhambra grounds which include a fortress, the gardens and houses of the Generalife ("heneral-leaf-ay"), numerous watch towers, the Palace of Charles V, a bathhouse, some curio shops, the most-expensive Parador in Spain, and Hotel America. The grounds are enormous and confusing. Ticket sales are at one end, entrances at another, and you must be prepared to walk up and down steep inclines and many steps to experience the Alhambra. Explanations and signs are few and far between.

With a special ticket to enter at a precise hour, allowing only 400 people at a time, the Nazaries Palace is lit inside at night by strategically-placed spotlights, but it remains quite dark to give a sense of the mystery, the serenity of the still pools surrounded by delicate arches and box hedges, the magnificence of the scale of genius of Moorish architecture, and the fact that every square inch of the walls is decorated, carved with flowing Arabic letters and an endless number of geometric designs. During the day, although admission is still controlled, the whole of the Alhambra is overrun with tourists, giving it a somewhat Disneyland feel.

This was the palace of Ibn al-Ahmar who, in 1238, became the first Nasrid sultan and the only Muslim governor in the Iberian peninsula after swearing allegiance to King Fernando III and formed the Kingdom of Granada. By this date, the Muslim empire was in decline but Ibn al-Amar found an old fortress on the hill and transformed it into the most important legacy of Muslim Spain.

There was a lot of paranoia in the Nasrid kingdom and the palace was built to baffle, with designs of twists and turns and secret passageways, not only ostensible enemies but people within their own ranks. The kingdom fell apart after 1492 and the Alhambra fell into ruin. It was "discovered" and made popular by Washington Irving, Victor Hugo, Chateaubriand and others who made up fabulous romantic stories about it, which form the basis of much of today's popularity.

There is much more that could be written, and has been, about it. But, for now, enjoy the images...

Couchsurfing, Servas & Other Remarkable Friendships

Some people thought I was nuts to join Couchsurfing, but it has proven to be an exceptional way to meet local people on my travels, and I am overwhelmed by their generosity and openness to friendship. Before I left on this trip and shortly after joining Couchsurfing, we hosted two different sets of couchsurfing travelers -- two young women from Hamilton College in upstate NY who were traveling on a grant, and a young Frenchman who has been teaching in San Francisco and was exploring the western U.S. during his summer break. All were delightful house guests.

Couchsurfing.com is an internet project started by a couple of guys just 2 years ago. It now has more than 3 million participants worldwide. Based on Servas (servas.org) --which is a 50-year-old host-traveler organization built on the premise of building world peace one friendship at a time, of which David and I have been members since 1996 -- couchsurfing provides a less-formal, internet-based, self-regulating approach (through posted recommendations by friends and fellow couchsurfers you actually meet) to people meeting. As a host, you can offer a couch or bed or simply offer to meet for coffee or a drink (what Servas calls "day hosts").

While Couchsurfing tends to attract and serve mostly the twenty-something crowd, there are older members and I used the brilliant and simple website to search via criteria for those over 40. Following are some of the experiences I've had so far:

Photos: 1. "Chiles," a Couchsurfing friend, and me in the plaza at Los Molinos, where she owns a second-home in the foothills of the Sierras, an hour from Madrid.

I wrote her an email because her profile, with a beautiful photo of her laughing, said: When women are laughing, something good is happening in the world." She responded with a phone call to my mobile and an invitation to join her that day at her weekend home for lunch and a car ride back to Madrid. I took a train to Los Molinos and was met by her at the station from which we walked a few blocks on dirt streets back to her beautiful home surrounded by high walls, fruit trees, palms and a swimming pool.

Immediately, upon meeting this energetic and fearless woman -- she is passionate about riding her bicycle around Spain on the old Roman roads and purchased a plot of land on an island in Lake Nicaragua where she is in the process of building a 16-room hotel/retreat -- we fell immediately into conversation (in Spanish) about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. After a glorious day, we met the next, enjoyed another meal together and took her 83-year-old mother to see Woody Allen's new film, "Vicky, Christina, Barcelona", in Spanish. She and her husband are off on a week-long bicycle tour and we hope to see each other again before I leave.

Photo 2: Emecee at the Bilbao Guggenheim.

I had written to Emecee (at Couchsurfing) before leaving the states to ask about staying with her in Bilbao. She honesty replied that I was welcome although her apartment in the city was not central and not really suited for guests, although she liked to offer her summer place in the Pyrenees. I thanked her and opted to stay in a centrally-located hotel in Bilbao. I checked into my room and shortly received an unexpected phone call at the hotel.

This sweet woman, who has traveled extensively in India, took the Metro 12 kms from her apartment to meet me at the hotel that afternoon. We walked along the river past the Calatravas bridge to the Guggenheim. Our conversation (in Spanish) ran to travels, art, relationships. She spent the whole afternoon with me, enriching my experience of the otherwise busy, gray-washed and industrial-feeling city (despite accounts of how much it has changed in the past decade since construction of the Guggenheim).

Photo 3: Susana and Daniel with the Alhambra in the background.

Last November, after 5 days as a visiting journalist guest of the Madrid Chamber of Commerce, I spent 2 days in Toledo, a 45-minute high-speed train ride south of Madrid. (I will post about Toledo soon, as I have another special friend from there). On my last evening, I was in a small bar drinking red wine and eating tapas -- a marvelous tradition wherein a small plate of food accompanies each drink for free -- when this couple squeezed in, fellow travelers.

I made room for them and invited them to join me at the bar. For 4 hours we spoke non-stop, in Spanish. I had to often use my dictionary to find the right word in our conversations about politics, travels, philosophy and work (she is a family practice doctor, he's a social worker), but we persevered as they speak no English. At the end of our evening, they graciously paid for my drinks and food saying it was their pleasure as I was the first American they had ever met and they were surprised at how amiable I was.

They had told me I must visit Granada and, somehow, I assumed they lived there. When planning this trip, I contacted them via email about getting together in Granada and learned they live in Murcia, 5 hours' drive east of Granada. Although I was welcome to visit them, they said Murcia wasn't worth the trip. Instead, they came to Granada for the weekend and rented a hotel to play host and guide to me for two days. We had a fabulous time, and I will forever be touched my their friendship.

Photo 4: Juan, Ines and Anouk, my Servas hosts in San Sebastian.

Juan, who works as a salesman for IBM, his wife Anouk, a self-employed pharmacist, their daughter Ines and son Daniel (not shown) welcomed me to their large apartment on the hillside overlooking the spectacular Concha Beach. Anouk lent me her mountain bike and I spent a day exploring further and more easefully than I could ever have done on foot.

This gentle, ordered and widely-traveled Basque family ensured that my time with them, and in their fair city, was one of comfort, security and interesting insights gleaned from being a part of another's family.

There are others, not pictured, like Emma and Anoud, fun and hospitable twenty-somethings in Toulouse, who invited over English-speaking friends for lunch, took me shopping and to enjoy drinks with other friends at a cafe in an ancient square, gave me use of their washing machine, a comfortable bed and prepared a marvelous regional stew for dinner. Emma had spent a year abroad in high school living with a family in Colorado Springs. She and Anoud travel widely and had recently returned from Iran. We spoke of women's rights, world politics, career choices, relationships (the ever-present topic among women) and, as my first couchsurfing hosts, I felt incredibly lucky to have been so lovingly received by them.

I highly recommend Couchsurfing and Servas as ways to enrich traveling, to bring back not only memories of place but of friendships. For me, this is the most valuable reason to travel...and, when at home to be a host.

Bilbao -- the Guggenheim, Juan Muñoz

Juan Muñoz "13 Laughing at Each Other"

You have probably seen photos of Muñoz's 100 little gray-colored oriental men, each identical and arranged in groups, but in person it is an evocative, bewildering experience. Standing around in a grand room, these "beings" appear to be laughing, each with his own expression created solely by the tilt of a head, the gesture of the body, and I wanted to join in the conversations, imagining them without effort. But, intentionally, their size (about 3/4 human) and the formality created by their uniformity, prevents this. We can be nothing but observers, and in the observation we observe our own response, our own emotions to the situation.

This is Muñoz's brilliance. He challenges at every turn with the fact that there is no reply from his creations. He considers this a form of theatre. They stand or sit alone, allowing us to witness, to be provoked. Questions of safety and vulnerability, consciousness and self-knowledge are raised in each installation.

In a darkened diorama-like stage, at the far end some 20 feet away from the observer, two small clay figures sit on a bench. A recorded conversation of two voices, reminiscent of "Waiting for Godot," plays in a loop:
What did you say?
I didn't say anything.
You never say anything.
But you keep coming back to it.
What did you say?
I didn't say anything.
You never say anything.
But you keep coming back to it.

Muñoz was born in Madrid in 1953 and died on Ibiza in 2001. I know nothing of his life beyond the scope of his work well-represented in this major show. By manipulating scale and perspective, time and space, he intentionally sought to "contaminated" the encounter between observing and observed, excluded but drawn in.

It was good that I went first to Bellas Artes because the Guggenheim answered my questions about how late-20th century art is provoking thought and conversation... through experiential art. The building is not only a fantastic space, a monument to the ingenious and innovative use of materials (e.g., the glass is infused with atomic-sized particles which provide transparent protection from the sun; the titanium covering is the thickness of a tissue), but the work of Serra and Muñoz raise questions of perspective, the experience of time and space, the ways we interact with ourselves and our environment. It's mind-bending.