Discovery

My first image of Spain (July 2) was through the airplane window as we began our descent, a hundred or more miles out of Madrid. The patchwork landscape seemed every shade of brown—café con leche and terracotta and arena—dotted with olive green trees arranged in regular patterns, suggesting orchards, and occasional pools of a shade of aqua more blue than green. The landscape recalled a favorite book from childhood, Ferdinand, about a gentle bull who only wanted to sit and smell the flowers. I must have passed over his field, the one with the big cork tree and the yellow flowers and the bee who stung his nose and made the men think he was fierce. I also thought of wine—the land looked like wine and olives. Not lush, not tropical nor mountainous desert like Mexico and Central America, but serene and tempered, cultivated, aged.


On the taxi ride from the airport in Madrid, I gazed at the big ugly buildings—so many of them looked like cardboard boxes with windows—modern. And then there were reminders of “home”: a bright multi-storied billboard on the side of a grey building advertising The Simpsons movie. Some aspects all big cities (or cities of any size) have in common, it seems. I expected to pass a Wal-Mart, a McDonald’s, a Starbucks, more and more ugly U.S. imports, but as we began to get closer to the center, Madrid seemed to emerge. Sidewalk cafes, plazas, monumental buildings that look like museums (and are museums or maybe banks and other buildings of commerce.) We passed in front of the Plaza de Colón, with its huge Spanish flag and tall thin statue—as if Christopher Columbus were performing a circus act on his mast. Here we turned and arrived at my home for the month, Los Recoletos.

Something seems vaguely ironic about staying so near the plaza dedicated to Christopher Columbus. I’m thinking of the replica Niña moored in Corpus Christi bay, and the ambivalence with which many Americans (in various parts of the Americas) feel about Christopher Columbus and his so-called “discovery.” Of course, the arrival of Europeans and the subsequent waves of colonization, migration and immigration changed the course of world history, and especially the history of the Americas. What would have happened if the lands where I live had been left to the indigenous people? And what do I call this relationship I, as an American, have with Spain? My ancestors are from the British Isles, not the Iberian peninsula. Yet, I have lived almost all my life in Louisiana and (mostly) Texas, where the histories of colonization are not English, but Spanish, and where Mexico is more than a neighbor. I am American and when my land looks back to Europe, it looks to Spain. So, here I am standing in the Plaza de Colón and looking out from this Spanish perspective: I have discovered Spain!











A few culture tips: it does no good to wait for the door to the elevator to open. If you can see light through the glass, open the door and step in. The elevator awaits you, and its interior metal doors will close when you push the button for your floor. When you go to the grocery store, especially if it is a small neighborhood grocery store near the universities, don’t pick up the produce with your bare hands, even if you intend to buy it, take it home, wash it and eat it. Put on the plastic gloves by the plastic bags and then hand the plastic bag to the produce man, who may not smile at you, but at least he will not chastise you in an eloquent outburst of Spanish for handling the tomatoes and plums with your germy hands. He will weigh your fruit for you, tie the plastic bag and hand it back to you to take to the checker. By the way, you can buy delicious gazpacho in the grocery store by the jar, the way we buy spaghetti sauce. The cheese and wine are outstanding and cheap. You buy your metro pass for the month and also stamps in the tobacco shops. The crosswalks chirp to aid the vision impaired, who I learned have a very strong lobby, but there are so many stairs in metro stations and other public spaces, mobility impaired people are at a definite disadvantage. What else? Well, I am not sure what the hot and cold water handles on the wall of the bathroom are for. . .there are controls for the bidet, the sink, the shower. . . but these at the height of the towel rack in the middle of the wall? A hidden sprinkler system? The hot water heater? (No, I have not tried them.)

Today, Saturday (070707) is the first day I have been able to get out and explore the old city a little, as everyday from morning to night has been filled with classes and readings and jetlag. The jetlag lingers, unfortunately, because, well, every day has been filled. . . . But this morning we had a guided walking tour with an exceptionally good guide, a Spanish professor from Suffolk University-Madrid. (Get out your guide book now. )

We met at the top of the Opera stop on the Metro and walked to Plaza de Oriente, which is on the west side of Madrid, but the east side of the looming Palacio Real. In a big patch of shade, our guide gave us a concise history of Madrid, up through the reign of Philip V and then the not-too-happy reign of Joseph Bonaparte. We walked to the Palacio, where we heard more of Spain’s rich history, bringing us up through Franco and then the current royal family, an emblematic monarchy. Our walk took us to the cathedral adjoining the Palacio, but, finished in the late 1990s, it is apparently not a landmark of any interest. That the current prince married a television anchor woman, though, suggests a new era, however, perhaps one in which one of their two daughters will inherit the throne one day, or perhaps there will be no throne one day and, as in the U.S., sports stars and entertainers will be pop royalty.

Not too far from the cathedral, we came upon a small square fronted by a statue dedicated to those killed by a bomb thrown by an anarchist missing his target, the king and queen. In this small plaza, we saw a rare example of medieval architecture in Madrid, a stone and brick tower with arched windows and Muslim characteristics. We learned that those who knew how to build in medieval Spain were Muslims, and so even the Christian churches suggested Muslim architecture.

Turning into the narrow winding street beside the tower, we came to a wooden door, which we learned was the entrance to a convent of cloistered nuns. During certain hours of the day, the convent allows visitors to enter and purchase sweets made by the nuns, only the nuns are not visible to their customers. Through a window in a wall you communicate your order and leave your money on a turning wooden carousel, and the nun returns your order with your change. So, I can tell you because, later, after the tour, my new friend Brenda (from Brownsville) and her daughter Meghan and I returned and bought some delicious almond flavored cookies from a nun with a sweet voice, hidden behind the wooden window.

But, that is later, continuing on our tour—we rounded the corner to another small square where we heard the story of Lope de Vega, his daughter who became a nun, and Calderón de la Barca.

We soon passed into the Plaza Mayor, where we imagined the bullfights on horses, the Spaniards leaning from the balconies all around the plaza, and the sun going behind a cloud. And so we passed on through another street and then into the Plaza Santa Ana, with its statues of Calderon de la Baca and Lorca on either end. Here we learned of the Calle de los Huertos, a street inscribed with quotes from Spain’s famous writers. And so we discovered, after plates of paella de mariscos and a pitcher of sangria. In the early afternoon, siesta time, the street was relatively quiet, and so we enjoyed a leisurely stroll from one end to the other, stopping to read the plaques on the wall and the words on the street. What a discovery for a poet sojourning in Madrid.
Here on a wall in the middle of the street was the poet, nun, illegitimate daughter of Lope de Vega. Was she the only woman on the entire literary street? What did she write? No words of hers were emblazoned in brass letters on the pavement.

So few remnants of Spain’s medieval culture in Madrid, so little evidence of women’s presence in public spaces.

It was from here we went to the Monasterio de Corpus Christi de las madres Jerónimas, knocked and waited and gained entry and communicated through a window of wood and exchanged some money for almond cookies, wrapped and packed in a white box. Jerónimas? St. Jerome? Not exactly a lover of women, in my book, at least. This must be why Spain is a great place to transcend.

So, we gathered our blessed cookies, our cameras and backpacks and headed for the Metro, to travel to the last stop, Campo de Campesino, the extensive royal hunting grounds just beyond the Palacio Real that became a park in the 1930s. It was a long ride. We climbed the steps out into the late afternoon sun to discover a park of sandy paths through the short green brush, punctuated by clumps of lavender in bloom and green rosemary, the tips thick and tough with fragrant oil. After a look about, we retired back to the subway station and boarded Tres Olivos to journey back to our stop, Colón.