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Madrid: the land of dangling ham shanks, ridiculous gallery security, and ironically delicious vegetarian food

If I never see another Iberian ham leg dangling in front of my face, I will be happy. In Spain, these delighfully cured pig legs (complete with a blackened hoof intact, mind you) are hanging in every grocery store, plenty of other smaller stores, and we even once found a store dedicated totally to their glory in a TRAIN STATION. I have spared you a photo of these, having decided to take none. My friend Katie and I nicknamed them “ham shanks,” and of course after the initial week of horror, you get used to it rather quickly. On the other hand, surprisingly, I have found Spain altogether more vegetarian-friendly than France.

I am currently working in one place for another week, a great bed and breakfast/organic garden close to Lyon, France. Since I am settled here temporarily for a bit of a breather before continuing the last 2 months of my trip, I am finally getting the chance to update the blog with the stages of the journey to date.  Looks like I may not have time to do the rest of Spain yet, but you will have to be content with Madrid for now.

My Spain itinerary, roughly:

• Madrid, 5 days
• Toledo, 1 day
• Cordoba, 1 day
• Sevilla, 2 days
• Granada, 4 days
• Barcelona, 7 days (2 days of which were spent on the east coast close to Barcelona)

I reached Madrid from London and whiled away a few days before Katie arrived to accompany me on the Spain leg of my journey. In Madrid we stayed with a German named Max and his daughter, in a small outskirt area called Pinto. Regrettably he suffering from a debilitating fever while we were there, so was not able to accompany us in our wanderings.

Overall, I am really glad we decided to come to Madrid. I had read several guides that said it was a boring city not worth seeing (in comparison to others), and after completeing our tour of 2 and a half weeks I have to say I disagree, and that it was a fun place to visit.

Observations about Madrid (and/or Spain in general):

• I soon came to learn that hardly anyone in Spain speaks English. Even where you would expect them to, such as information kiosks at bus or train stations. This forced us to use a basic, broken, guidebook-level Spanish which is of course a part of the growing pains of travel. In any case, I am now interested in learning it properly, since I thought it was a lovely language.
• Vegan desserts in Europe, are seriously lacking so far. Whatever happened to cakes, cookies, ice cream, etc; which can all be prepared deliciously sans dairy? Instead, every dessert so far has been … soy pudding. Gooey, gelatinous, totally unappealing. Sometimes they get creative and put a sprinkling of cinnamon on top, or maybe a few pine nuts. But, come on.
• Parks in Madrid were utterly beautiful. I never knew that cities could have such lovely parks - despite the fact that they are clearly manipulated by human hands, in a way it can be a sort of art. I had lots of fun getting lost in Madrid’s Park del Buen Retiro.
• Despite our visions of never-ending sunshine, Spain was surprisingly chilly until we reached Barcelona. In fact, in Granada we were so cold that we bought gloves! Of course this was amusing to J at home in Canada, who was enjoying his first game of tennis! At any rate, the heat finally came in Barcelona, coinciding with the beautiful coast.
• Since I have a Latin (French, Spanish, Italian) background (my father’s side is from France), this combined with my confident appearance to make me seem even more the local. I was asked many times for directions in Spanish, to which I responded, “Oh - Hablo Ingles, lo siento.”
• I have realized more and more how much impoliteness bothers me. In Spain, people can walk right into you, push and shove as they pass, as if you are an inanimate object and they never apologize. This really irked me.
• Agave plants (so that’s where agave syrup comes from), poppies (their floppy, pretty heads), little lizards, the “dry” visual feeling to the houses, equipped for the heat of Spain.

Museums:

The first museum I visited was before Katie arrived, the El Museo de arte Thyssen-Bornemisz.

There, I promptly fell in love with Emil Nolde’s paintings. While I had found his work intriguing when studying it in school, I have learned that there is nothing like seeing the real thing. It has been such a strange experience, to see all of the artworks I studied finally in person, full colour, texture and presence. Here is an image of his, Summer Clouds that I was transfixed by:

Here’s where we get into the really fun gallery security part of the trip. The next museum we visited together was the Museo del Prado. We decided to visit for the time the gallery is free, so we waited in an extra long line-up to get in.  The security was unbelievable - a bag scanner and a full body scan!  Everything went smoothly until they saw that we had fruit in our bags.  Specifically, we had a few bananas.  Fruit is specifically prohibited in the gallery, because we were, what - going to open up our bananas in the middle of the room and smear them on the paintings?  I guess it is possible!

Best experience here was finally seeing Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights altarpiece in person.  It was, well, breathtaking, as expected.

At the Reina Sofia, we saw a great retrospective of Picasso’s artistic career!  I learned a lot about his vision.  I also stumbled into a few other great contemporary artworks I really enjoyed… my favourite was a sculpture called Libros IV by Manuel Valdez - of course, no pictures allowed.

Food:

At a restaurant called Artemisia, I had the best meal of my trip so far - a delicious traditional paella made with not-so-traditional healthy ingredients such as brown rice and vegetables. Perfect blend of spices, an inexplicable taste that I will remember for a long time.

A favourite vegetarian fast food chain Katie and I discovered also in Barcelona.

Falafels! But not just ordinary falafel - these had an array of delicious toppings you could add. These falafels came with guacamole and hummus, to which we then added fried cauliflower, carrots, cous cous salad. It may not look pretty, and it is certainly greasy, but it beats McDonald’s hands down anyday! I hope this chain becomes international! Also, their fries were the best I have ever had - spookily so - Katie and I kept trying to figure out why they are so good and we decided that perhaps they have been cooked in olive oil, which is why they were so yellow.

And of course, no trip to Europe is complete without vegan gelato!

It really was as delicious as this photo looks.

At another veg restaurant, they served up a clever dish of brown rice mixed with curry flavouring, walnuts and raisins! I must try it at home. This restaurant was a great experience since of course no one spoke English, but we told one of the waiters that we were vegan and she sad down with us pointing out what we could and could not eat - it is amazing what you can understand in language through gestures, tone, intonation and eye contact.

Sights:

My top favourite experience in Madrid was El Escorial, a monastery in the mountains just outside of Madrid.

First, I visited the crown prince’s lodge in the royal residence of san lorenzo, close to the monastery.

Walking up the steep path towards the monastery, this is what I saw when I looked up:

Just entering the gardens from the interior. As I did the traditional monastery tour, I noticed that the architecture was structured so that in every room you had a gated view of these gorgeous gardens. It was so tantalizing that I could barely look at the medieval paintings hanging on the walls, I was so eager to get outside.

The Plaza Mayor:

Painting by a street vendor in the plaza:

On the metro a man suddenly breaks into song with his guitar… I think it is spontaneous but soon learn it is common for ‘taking donations’ from generous passengers. It was more beautiful when I thought it was innocent.

And there is so much more to say, stories to tell - how Katie and I ended up stranded outside the couch surfing house without a key, how I discovered the Palacio del Crystal (a gallery made of glass) in the park, etc etc. But alas, only so much space and so many more blog entries to write.