Lost and Found

One of my favorite things to do in a new city is to head out on foot and just get lost for a few hours. Usually the coolest things I encounter are a result of that process, not from executing some perfectly plotted surgical tourism strike. Normally I just start wandering in a random direction and keep twisting and turning, being alert for signs that the neighborhood is not safe, obviously. And when I'm tired I either find my way back on my own or, if I'm hopelessly lost, hop in a cab and give them the hotel address.

Madrid has been really fun in that respect. I walked for a couple of hours this morning and found what I swear is Madrid's Adams Morgan: it's a neighborhood called La Latina. Then I ended up in a theater district and found amazing patatas bravas and gazpacho for lunch...which is a really easy thing to accomplish in Madrid, of course. :) Then I found a park and monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus. Awhile later, I landed in the Grand Via, which is the shopping magnet. I got so turned around that I finally had to pull out a map to get to the Prado, and I was almost walked out before I even arrived, but it was such a fun morning. It gave me a better feel for some of the very distinctive personalities among the neighborhoods. And I got to do things like visit a regular neighborhood grocery store, pet people's dogs, and make small talk in broken Spanish.

Without some room for chance and spontaneity, I might as well be at home watching a Rick Steves show about a city instead of being there. But that's just me. It's a tradeoff for sure, because I will miss some of Madrid's big tourism draws on this trip, but I cant feel like I know a city until I've really walked it thoroughly.

This evening I made friends with an elderly Spanish gentleman who was strolling through the palace gardens. He spoke as much English as I spoke Spanish but we had a very enthusiastic and disjointed conversation about Ferdinand and Isabella, whose statues stood nearby. The statues were facing in on a drained reflecting pool and surrounded by knee-high hedges that were clearly intended as a polite "do not approach the sculptures" hint. But since we couldn't see the front of the sculptures and he was so eager to tell me more about F&I, my friend merrily hopped over the hedges and encouraged me to join him so we could get a better look. It was fun and I got great pictures that I would have been too chicken to take on my own. His whole face lit up when he talked about Spain's history, and even though we could only understand about a quarter of what each other was saying, I will remember that a lot longer than the names of the Goya paintings I saw at the Prado today.