Madrid’s Summer Metamorphosis

It’s September.  Is it possible that Madrid has more stores and restaurants and bars than when I left for my weeks-long (that’s right) August holiday? Walking down one street and then the next -- in light of/despite/thanks to the economy (choose your own adventure) -- there are more boutique clothing stores than I remember, new food stores and cafés at every turn.

And it’s not just the stores that have popped up out of nowhere during the summer.   Apparently August is store makeover month in Madrid.  The bar-café-restaurant on my way to work went through an overhall and was full of workmen not customers until this week; the coffee shop a few blocks away (with arguably the best coffee in Madrid) knocked down a wall for a much welcome expansion; while the international food shop in my neighborhood changed nothing but it’s name and color scheme.

Why not take this as an example of how we too, as individuals, can start fresh?  September offers us the opportunity – whether we’ve had the summer as a relaxing holiday or not – to review and renew.

One method is to let go of the to-do list.  Now, thanks to our modern day obsession with lists, removing one’s sweaty grip from around that neat little Post-It or complicated excel spread sheet is quite frightening.   The to-do list tells me, well, what to do.  I don’t have to think, remember, or prioritize.  I just have to do exactly what my list tells me to do and I am worry and think free.

Couple that with the strange, immediate sense of purpose that comes from being busy, and a problem kicks up.  There’s so much to read, to cook, to watch, to listen to, to create. To do.  There are so many things to add to the list (and it's oh so easy), so much to check off of it.

As I walk around Madrid these first weeks of September, I am starting to think that this is the perfect time to question the to-do list: to pull out all the chairs and counters and light fixtures and take a good look at the interior.  Only then can we see what needs to be repainted, rebuilt, expanded, or simply put back as is.

I am ready

I step out of my office, blinking in the Madrid sun. You look like you’re ready for vacation, a colleague says to me.

I happened to be wearing head to toe black, so clearly she is talking about my face. To my face.  She is correct, of course. My outward appearance is doing a stellar job of expressing internal affairs.

Unfortunately, it is still June.  An entire month stretches before us, like some lazy sunbathing cat, before we reach our final destination: August.  That famed Spanish holiday.

At least I must not endure it alone.  My co-workers certainly suffer the same malaise.  While employees in the US can elect when to take a day or two or three from work, we in Spain are pretty much told when vacation is.  There is time away from the office during Christmas and New Years; there is Semana Santa and a scattering of Saints’ days.  And finally, there is glorious, mouthwatering August.

Some of my colleagues may wish that they could do vacation America-style.  A couple days here and a couple days there – spreading vacation time out over the course of the year.  But I’ve seen it both ways and I’ll take August, thank you very much.  There is a clear difference between checking email every once in a while throughout a vacation and forgetting your mobile has email capabilities at all.

And so, here we are in not yet July.  Suffering from it’s almost summer but it’s not syndrome.

Of course, with my colleague I pretend to be unaffected by a need for vacation.  I could work forever more.  And there’s so much to do!  Good thing it’s not yet even July!

Surely she is convinced, what with all my excitement.  That is, until I turn exuberantly back towards the office and slam-crash into the sliding glass door of the building.

Lunch that Works

I remember the days when I’d be pleased to escape the office and eat a sandwich over a plate rather than the keyboard.  Thirty glorious minutes, sometimes even a luxurious 45! Things have changed for me because – as has been trumpeted by the siesta stereotype – Spain’s lunch window is traditionally from 2-4pm.  Yes, that’s right: two hours in the “afternoon” when the rest of the world is considering a snack.

It’s not that all Spanish workers rise from their desks and go eat somewhere for two hours, but this time in the day is generally respected, much the way Americans honor dinner hour.  No meetings are scheduled (well, lunch meetings), no emails sent nor phone calls made.

The Spanish lunch is, ironically, very good for productivity. Many people, I suspect, use (part of) the time to work uninterrupted. Maybe we are all at our desks working away and taking advantage of everyone else being at lunch.  These two hours might surely please Jason Fried, coauthor of the book “Rework,” who thinks that the constant commotion of the modern office ruins everything.

It is also good for living.

One day, my colleague suggested we eat at a cafeteria he’d just discovered that serves great paella.  The only thing, he said, is that it is about 15-20 minutes’ walk from the office.

I balked.  Couldn’t we just go down the block and grab a salad to go?

But he looked so excited that I agreed.  Partly because he is nice but also because living in Spain has helped me notice that sometimes I act like I have no time for anything.  (We Americans do busy quite well).  And in reality, there is always time to be had.  It’s just that we choose, even if by plain acquiescence, a self-imposed busyness.

So my colleague and I head out the door.  It’s 2:15pm.  The sun is shining and the air is crisp because the Madrid winter is clinging to April.  The twenty minute walk flies by.  And when we arrive, I see that my colleague’s new spot is the cafeteria at the bottom of the Fundación Juan March (calle de Castelló 77) – the very location that is hosting a Paul Klee exhibit (for free) which I’d been hoping to see.

Of course, some habits stick around...  I always seem to get the keyboards that have a taste for sandwiches.

Time to Cross the Street

Spaniards generally tend to be a loud, expressive bunch who don’t bother too much with personal space. When enjoying a tapa and caña at a bar somewhere, for example, it is not unusual to find yourself quite literally in the middle of a conversation.  One stranger on your left talking to the person on your right.  Lean forward or back to take a bite or a sip and the conversation floats around you, filling up any space you’ve left behind.

There’s no worry that you might overhear their conversation (excellent for practicing Spanish) or that you’d mind if they just drape their coat over the back of your chair or lean against the arm a little bit.  It’s been a long day and their friend is on the other side of you, after all, so they energy to speak a bit more loudly and project over you.

This is why the crosswalk situation in Madrid is baffling.

Take, for example, a group of people waiting at a crosswalk along calle Castellana, the long road that cuts Madrid in half.   Even on weekday mornings (aka rush-hour) there is no real jockeying for position to be the first to dart across the street and gain five, ten, twenty seconds over everyone else.

Rather, people wait calmly for the walk signal to turn green before crossing the street.  In fact, they do so a full six feet back from the road, with enough space between them that I can stretch out my arms and do a proper Julie Andrews twirls without crashing into anyone.

Of course, this means that as someone from the US Northeast, I can easily do my thing and weave around and between people and get to the front of the crosswalk.  I can dart across the street before anyone else.  I can win in the game of five, ten, twenty seconds.

But it all makes eavesdropping rather difficult.  When people are standing so far apart, it is difficult to (over)hear their conversation – which is a pity because I need to practice my street Spanish.  Not to mention, conversations tend to be more interesting on foot, when pushed by the urgency of momentum.

Scaffolding City

Smartphones and tablets are consuming.  Just walk down any street in any city and there will be dozens of people looking at the inanimate thing in their hand.  For good reason, of course: directions, historical landmark information, restaurant recommendations, immediate background detail to a conversation point.  Not to mention the smartphone can make calls, text loved ones/acquaintances/enemies, take pictures, record six-second videos, name the song you are whistling. We shouldn’t let the smartphone waste our attention, though, particularly in Madrid.  And the reason is more than that, with our nose to the screen, we might miss the Madrid blue sky, architecture, and people.

On any given day, Madrid buildings undergo a revamp of one kind or another – whether it’s exterior cleaning, a walkway being re-laid, or simply a store’s signage or entrance being repainted.  Heed is even paid to door hinges.

In fact, Madrid has me believing that to erect scaffolding is the easiest thing to do in the world. The structures grow around a building overnight, feeding for a few weeks before moving on to the next.  They are not unlike the algae sucking pleco in my childhood fish tank that simply. refused. to die.

So, here’s the real reason smartphones in the street are dangerous: the scaffoldings.  There never seems to be any signage that suggests pedestrians step around the scaffolding, no cones to alert of the dangers ahead.  If you are not watching where you are going, you could walk right into an iron pole or up a worker’s ramp, step on a tipped wheelbarrow, or slip on some sand that has spilled out onto the sidewalk.

For an American, this is an absolute horror.  The responsibility of pedestrian safety in the United States does not actually rest on the shoulders of the pedestrian.  A homeowner in Somerville, Massachusetts, for example, can be sued by someone who has slipped on the sidewalk outside their house after a fresh snowfall.  In fact, here in Europe, Americans are (fondly) stereotyped as ready to sue over everything.  (Things like the “Hot Coffee Lawsuit” do not help.)

So, when I first moved to Madrid, I fell down a lot.  It’s true.  The sidewalks are uneven; potholes may go unattended for days or possibly weeks; and scaffolding grows like weeds.  Pedestrians are simply expected to pay attention.

Naturally, a girl can only fall down so many times before learning a thing or two.  I now watch where I am going, and accept responsibility for where my own feet take me.  As for the smartphone, I do my best (to try) to check it only when standing still.  I’m not always successful, but I do have less skinned knees.