A License to Entertain

I step into a random car on line 5 (green) of the Madrid metro and lean against the opposite doors.  There are just three stops until I get off the train. All’s calm; people seem to be minding their own business, it’s a Saturday during lunchtime (aka 3pm.)

But then, at the next stop, a large man trundles into the car.  He’s pulling some kind of machine behind him.  We did not have to wait long to find out what it is, for as soon as the train starts moving again, he flips a switch and brings a microphone to his mouth.  Music starts.  He begins.  It’s a Bon Jovi song.

Yes, this guy is singing karaoke on the metro.

Needless to say, I don’t think that this “gentleman” went to Conde Duque cultural center this week, where Madrid is holding its first-ever auditions to determine who gets to busk in the downtown area.  There are only a certain number of spots available, and the judges are looking for quality with an idea to prevent excess noise.

Street musicians will not be allowed to play during siesta time (3-5pm.)

Not that this will prevent karaoke man from hopping from car to car in the metro.  But it may give authorities their own license to ask him, not to mention the plethora of accordion players with no training, to see a busking license and maybe give us a bit of rest.

According to El Pais, many of the musicians applying for licenses this week were talented people out of job in a down economy.  People who are looking for ways to make money.  So, with this in mind, if you hear something nice on the streets of Madrid, please give.  Better yet, listen and then give.

Tale of Two Federal Cafés

There is this great coffee place in Barcelona called Federal Café.  Well, in truth it is a breakfast place that also serves lunch and smoothies – so it is an eating/coffee place.  If you want delicious coffee – and only coffee – in Barcelona, you should really go to Satan’s Corner, where you order at the window from the sidewalk and then drink your coffee elsewhere. Anyway, back to Federal.  Right off the bat, Federal Café got me very excited because it is run by Australians and the space is three floors – the third being a small, no-frills terrace – and they have green smoothies on the menu.  And breakfast quinoa. And baked eggs with all kinds of fixings.  And excellent coffee, including flat whites which are apparently becoming a thing, even in Spain.

There’s a nice big community table right on the main floor and all sorts of morning reading material – from El Pais to Wired (US edition!) – and the clientele is a mix: couples, small groups, and individuals with laptops.

Really, visiting Federal Café on carrer Parlament cemented that love feeling for Barcelona that I was (guiltily) harboring.  Guilty because Madrid is Madrid is my home is Madrid.

And so, what luck to discover that the guys behind Barcelona’s Federal have opened a duplicate in Madrid.  Arriving to the Madrid Federal Café on a rainy Sunday mid-morning was a happy occasion and the place was hopping.

• Wooden and white, clean-line interior?   ✓
• International magazines?   ✓
• Big communal table surrounded by smaller tables; wide counters at the windows?   ✓
• More or less the same menu?   ✓

But something was off.  The staff seemed unprepared for the number of people walking through the door.  And although they all seemed like very nice individuals, that unpreparedness made everything seem a bit hectic – so that the waiters and waitresses were rushing around like madmen – unable to see an arm raised in request or to make eye contact when delivering a dish.

And this hectic energy put me into a bit of a critical mood.  It felt like the wait for menus was too long, and so was the wait to order and then to receive food. The people at the neighboring table looked uncomfortable and that made me uncomfortable and then I became annoyed at them (perfectly nice strangers!) for making me uncomfortable; and the parents across the room weren’t doing anything to stop their toddler from running in between tables scream-crying.

Although the menu promised to afford me a similar experience as in Barcelona, the food fell flat – with baked eggs that were over- and under-cooked at the very same time.  If breakfast had been as delicious as I had anticipated, the bill would not have been worth batting an eye at.  But, oh, I batted at it.

Maybe it was the rain.  Maybe the rain drove more people than expected to try the newly opened café.  Maybe the rain made the environment just a tad gloomy and heavy.

The thing is… if I had never been to Federal Café in Barcelona, I would not have had all these ill feelings towards this one in Madrid.  In a café in Spain, it is not uncommon to wait for some time before a waiter takes your order and, sometimes – in all countries – the food does not live up to the menu or the restaurant’s interior design.

These two Federal Cafés are meant to be copies, however, and so it only makes sense to expect the very same quality in Madrid as in Barcelona.

More than likely, Madrid (i.e. , Madrid Federal Café) will find it's way.  So I will certainly give it another try.  Who can resist the allure of international reading material, breakfast quinoa, and flat whites?  But it might not be for a while, and my return will definitely have to coincide with a sunny day.

Sometimes the copies need just a bit more help than the originals.

Federal Café Barcelona: C/ Parlament 39

Federal Café Madrid: Pl. de las Comendadoras 9

Madrid's Mess

Despite research that shows a disorganized environment can lead to creativity, I can’t do a lick of work with a messy desk (or a messy desk in the adjoining room.) Yes, it could be a matter of procrastination – that old, well-worn excuse that something else more pressing (like paying the bills, doing laundry, knocking off small items on the to-do list) must get done before tackling the big task at hand -- the one that will actually sing with significance upon completion.

Yet, we are also products of our environment.  When we look at beautiful things, like works of art, it is the same feeling as falling in love. Now who wouldn’t want that?

So, I’m going with the idea that my need for a minimalist, uncluttered workspace is akin to surrounding myself with beautiful things.  To feel like I am falling in love with the work.  Arguably, a messy desk leads to a messy mind and, sometimes, creativity gets in the way of getting things done.  Just as too many things on my desk means I can't find my pen and the tea cup gets knocked over onto my keyboard (voilà, another small item task: cleaning), too many ideas prevent me from doing any one thing.  (If you suffer from this, beware of the internet.)

And this is why I don’t suggest anyone visit Madrid these days.  Because, we are surrounded by garbage, quite literally, and it is so cluttered that it is difficult to get from point A to point B.  It’s ugly.  (Thankfully, it’s also a bit cold so the smell is not upon us… yet.)

The garbage is piling up in all areas of the city – from the corner of my street to Plaza Mayor to barrio Salamanca. It’s been going on since the beginning of November, thanks to a nice little labor dispute amongst workers and private contractors. What with all the crossing I do from one side of the street to the other in order to avoid the mountains of garbage, UP is particularly pleased with my walk logs.

So, it’s been a bit difficult to find the beauty of Madrid while we are in such a state -- and surely there must be some love lost with all this unpleasant viewing. Best to point one's face to the sky and only the sky, and see the blue.

Then again, it may be this simple matter of where and how we look around ourselves. Talking with a woman who just moved to Madrid this week from New York, and had also spent some time living in Buenos Aires, I was astounded to learn that she didn’t see much difference between the garbage or the beauty of the three cities.  So, there's that.

Let's Get Reading

Alice Munro arrives in Spain.

Flipping through the English version of El Pais last week (I know, I know, but, hey, it arrives inside my International Herald Tri… sorry, International NYTimes) a particular sentence caught my eye… “The situation with Spain is no better, at least compared with its neighboring countries: each Spaniard reads an average of 10 books annually despite having 100,000 new titles at their disposal every year.” The article was about the recent International Spanish Language Conference in Panama City.  Apparently, book publishing has joined the many industries that aspire to sales over all else.  “The strategy has focused on selling books rather than creating reading habits.”  Who needs customers anyway?

Lead to…. immediate panic over my own reading health.  The newspaper lamented the sorry state of Spaniards’ habits of getting through 10 books a year.  Did I even make that cut?

Luckily Goodreads shows that I am now on book #12, with two more months to go in 2013.  Spain would have to grudgingly fit me into its poor performing average.  But I’ll need to get going if I am to fit into the United States average of 15 books read each year.

Jack Dorsey of Twitter/Square commented in a recent New Yorker article that he saw the rise of platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine during his morning commute to the Twitter/Square offices in San Francisco: no one was reading magazines or books.  On Madrid public transportation, however, books still seem in high demand; a good percentage of commuters have one (or a Kindle) in their hands.

In fact, Madrid is full of stores selling actual, hold in your hands books.  Half a block away from my apartment is a wonderful international book store.  Walk in either direction from there and you’ll hit a bookstore focused only on philosophy and another only on art (each of which are tucked between very pleasant restaurants I might add.)

Not to mention the pop-up bookstores which suddenly rise out of the concrete, the used bookstalls leading up to Retiro, and now, with my great luck, the Spanishization of the American bookstore/coffee-shop. For example, at Tipos Infames, you browse books or have a coffee or a glass of wine at one of the small tables amongst the stacks.

The Great Outdoors

Benches in urban spaces are a great way to energize a community and get people outside -- and many cities are coming up with all sorts of cool ideas to persuade people to take a seat.  But here in Madrid, there is no need for the remodeled bench (though they are so beautiful they are welcome) because it is a year-round outdoor city. It’s October and Madrileños are still spending most of their free time outside.  Terrazas are still crowded with people eating and drinking and enjoying and the street below my apartment window carries interesting conversations into the late hours.

In fact, the weather is so pleasant, year-round, that Madrid has plenty of places to simply BE outside – plazas, both big and small, are found in every neighborhood and streets are littered with (old school) benches.  And what’s more – people actually congregate in those plazas (excellent spots for newspaper reading and letting kids and dogs run wild) and actually sit on those benches (for watching the world go by.)

Many of us lead busy lives, with every minute focused on getting us to a determined goal.  But Madrid has a way of reminding us that it’s okay to just sit and be.

Yet, even with an understanding of this mentality, I was taken aback when a colleague suggested that we have a meeting outside.  Now, I have grown accustomed to meetings outside the office space (in fact, there is an art form to having a meeting in the time it takes to drink a coffee)... but a meeting with absolutely no walls around us?

We didn't stand and discuss action items and to-dos.  We actually met at a bench, sat down, and watched everyone else whiz by while having the meeting.  It was a bit, okay, impossible to take notes, but we did come up with a few genuine ideas (often the point of a meeting) and were both agreeable to the other’s requests.  It must have had something to do with the fresh air – a free and healthy substance that tends to make people happier and more productive.