Summer 2017

David found himself again pressed against the backpack of the man in front of him, the nylon impressing against his arm as he tried to make his way through the crowded streets. He stumbled upon an incredible day to arrive in Madrid as protests and celebrations broke out in the streets. At first, his travel seemed like a breeze taking the series of trains over the Pyrenees into Spain and onward to the capital city. Now though, that breeze seemed stifled by the unexpected adversity which all but seemed to bring an unforeseen suckerpunch to his “thought to be” European retreat.

Train riding over the course of the past two days into Madrid, his old high school basketball duffle bag in the overhang above, he was first struck by the beauty of the golden countryside. Olive groves and mountains sprinkled about the great Iberian peninsula’s landscape. Throughout the grand array stood small villages with churches springing up on hillsides. They reminded him of the grain silos and water towers he saw all too often spread across the flatlands of the heartland American plain.

Except here, the age of Spain, similar to France, seemed to be evident amongst those coarse settled towns and streets. It seemed as if the buildings in each town had stubbornly rooted themselves, like he noticed trees would often do along the mountainside on his family trips to the rocky mountain terrain. The towns of the Iberian countryside seemed to refuse for centuries to give an inch. Each building seemed like boulders that had dropped themselves in deep water, falling hard and fast and sitting at the bottoms of the ocean, unrelenting and unwilling to give way. What may be the foundation on the dark of the ocean floors now was brought to light to him on the Spanish terrain. Each town held tightly to the land. Yet, in a glimpse, it seemed as if the land had also learned to hold tightly onto each of them. As if the land needed the towns and its spires and the hope and history they proclaimed.

Each village seemed to not simply fit with its surrounding landscape or to naturally be a part of it, but rather to stubbornly proclaim its permanence. The parish spires were different than the trees he had so naturally come to see dispersed amongst Oklahoman farm valleys on back highway drives to his grandparents in Texas. Each spire didn’t seem natural, but they seemed to have earned their place amongst the countryside even more so than the old red oak trees that survived the great agricultural progression of the heartland.

Those trees sat in creek valleys and were left unscathed in Oklahoma by the hundred years of planted rows of wheat. Compared to the red oaks though, these churches were even older, and surely they were determined not to go anywhere soon, despite the progression of a culture’s desire to uproot western society. These churches had learned their staying power amongst history’s ebbs and revolutionary dismays. It was evident their deep rootedness was most assuredly fought for time and again hundreds of years before, and it was evident they were still fighting, by their stubborn sunken faithfulness and aspiring hopefulness amidst a dreary time to be a Christian in the world today.

Pressed against the nylon backpack of the protesters in the thousand-filled crowd in front of him, David remembered those steady churches. A man on a makeshift stage in the middle of the Plaza del Sol was yelling. The man, in his early thirties, had long brown braided hair and a goatee. David noticed how common he looked to everyone in the crowd with his light blue dress shirt and slacks. But his words said something else, rousing and inciting all his attendees. Something about freedom from oppression and tyranny.

Red, yellow, and blue flags; along with purple banners were raised amongst the mass of the crowd. Somewhere off in the distance red and blue sirens and the sound of breaking glass and incited anger seemed to ring out against “the establishment.” How did David find himself here caught in such a nighly charade? What forces were moving amongst him, pressing on him like the nylon? Just like the fabric on his skin, was its leaving its impression on his interior whims? How did his first Spanish day, turn to such disarray? David then recalled the moments which transpired over the past day . . .

Nothing in the United States was nearly as old as Spain, but by European standards, Madrid was a rather young city. An eighteenth-century metropolis with baroque buildings, twists, and turns which spoke to the imperial pride and prejudice like era of colonial European days. David’s travel by train, eighteen hours long, departed Lourdes in the midday Saturday sun. After a few connections in France, an overnight at San Sebastiano, an early morning Mass, and a final six-hour trek; David arrived at the Madrid Chamartin station around late afternoon that Sunday.

Navigating the Madrid underground Metro connected to the train station seemed simple, but David knew it would be the first test of his month in Spain. Already at the main terminal, he went to the ticket office to get one of the infamous month-long metro passes spoken about at his university’s study abroad Q&A session on Madrid. It was the number one recommendation of another student at his Alma Mater who had spent the previous fall studying in the city at the same University through a similar but longer academic partnership than his program.

He found an office manager who spoke a little English and took a photo reminiscent of his DMV driving days when he was fourteen getting his farm permit to drive his grandfather’s truck on the ranch. Only this time, David had more scruff on his chin, his hair was a little more mangled from two days of travel, and his shirt was wrinkled after being stuffed away in his duffle bag the past week. He had only brought a week’s worth of clothes to wash and re-wear during his time in Europe. Travel light was the advice at the Q&A session back in February. That’s the advice he took. After all, how much more would he actually need?

The manager reached across the kiosk to hand him the quickly printed red card along with his photo ID. David grabbed them quickly, careful to put his ID back in his duffle bag as he proceeded to navigate the long studied and Google searched maps of the Madrid metro. The routes of the Metro he had printed into a travel folder since April, a personal project he took on to put off studying for the drudgery of his spring final exams. The whole spring semester David had been anticipating a life of adventure without homework and tests and long nights in the basement of the engineering school’s newly renovated complex. He had known by memory since April the stops he would need to take and had scoured internet street view maps to view the streets he would have to navigate through the city. Now was the real deal, now was the time to put all his preparation and exam procrastination into action. He zoomed down three connected lines and popped above the street level two blocks from his flat in the Chamberí district of the old but young Spanish city.

The actual reality of Madrid then fell upon David in a way pixelated images and searches couldn’t communicate. The May heat weighed down upon the buildings. The traffic bustled through distant streets, the passerby chatter and city noise flooded the streets. By the time David got to the flat, put his clothes in the closet, met his French and Canadian flatmates, and laid down on the bed at four o’clock in the evening; he was beat.

It only took another 10 minutes of lying on the bed and breaking into a hard sweat for David to realize that the flat had no AC. His senses coming to him, he opened the flat window and turned on the small metallic fan on his desk, plugging in the fan into the obtuse electrical outlet behind his desk.  Jumping back into the bed, he listened to the four o’clock bells of church towers chime throughout the city and tried to nap away the heat.

“I’ll just wait till the sun dies down and walk around to see the city tonight, when the evening breeze hits . . .” The thought mulled about David’s mind.

The church bells had barely struck four before David was fast asleep.

When he woke from his first Spanish siesta a few hours later at seven o’clock, David was not only ready to eat, but eager to move after the whole two days of travel. The journal entries David wrote the next day to remember the longest of all nights went as followed:

7:30: Flat to Restaurant 

Changing into another wrinkled pair of clothes, David went out to see the city at night. He had learned through the Q&A session that most Spaniards don’t eat till eight or nine and then are out and about all night. He was about to test that observation.

“I’ll just grab some dinner and see what is happening . . .”

When David jumped out of bed, he first noticed the flat was vacant, which told him his flatmates presumably were somewhere amongst the city’s life and streets. He walked out the door, ran quickly back inside to grab his keys and small drawstring bag, proceeded down the hall, shimmied into the small elevator, and jumped from the apartment complex’s entry door into the street.

Immediately he noticed his observation was proving to be true. Not only were his flatmates gone, but there still seemed to be stirring amongst the city on this Sunday night. People were walking all around both sides of the street, not unlike in the movies he had seen of New York City. Only here, the mood seemed more relaxed and less hectic. Looking up, he saw many people sprawled out on balconies throughout the few blocks to his north and south. David could see and hear the hustle and bustle of many in the homes up above. A woman doing laundry in one, a man reclined in another, music coming from what must be a party in another. The sun was still somewhere shining on the western horizon beyond the buildings towering above. The orange hue of the wisp-drawn clouds decorated the ceilings of the streets and byways, like a tapestry their wisps stretched from building to building sprawled out amongst las calles.

David then proceeded to walk two blocks past his flat into a restaurant. The windows posting the food which awaited him inside. Paella he read, and immediately the Q&A session came again to mind. He walked in, sat down, and ordered in his best Spanish, thanking his high school choice to choose Spanish over the alternative seminars. The food came out on a cast iron skillet, sizzling like the fajitas meals of the Mexican restaurant in his hometown. Only here was not chicken and tortillas, but rather a dish full of rice and peppers, seafood and sausage. A feast for a king, and one appropriate for his first night in Spain.

After taking off his old high school ball cap and saying a brief prayer, David dug in.  To his surprise, the shopowner noticed his murmured prayer in English and promptly began a conversation in his own broken English.

“Good?” he asked.

“Contento,” David replied.

Much more of the conversation David couldn’t remember except when the shop owner asked where he was from. After David replied that he was from Estados Unidos and then shared more, the shop owner in broken English belted out with an excited exclamation after hearing the name of David’s home state. As if a memory was triggered in his mind, the shopowner began to sing,

“Oklahoma! when the wind comes sweeping down the plain!”

“At least I’m not from Kansas,” David thought.

“Then he’d probably asked me if this place was anything like home . . .”

The rest of the night went as followed; metro stop to metro stop:

8:30: Finishing eating

“Classes start tomorrow but it’s just orientation, I can probably see more of the city tonight…” David’s mind raced through all of his night’s options and possibilities.

He closed his tab, paying with a 20€ bill and telling the shop owner to keep the change. He knew it was untypical to tip in Spain, unlike in America, but he wanted to show his gratitude in some way for the owner and the conversation. Something about the shop owner’s demeanor reminded him of the people he grew up around back home.

Like those churches in the towns he saw on the train into the city. This man too felt firmly planted. Upon opening the door and making his goodbye to the owner, he glimpsed a rosary hanging from the man’s right pocket. After walking out of the shop, he booked it to his right and proceeded up a block to his north arriving at a circular crossway intersection with a fountain in the middle. Looking across the crossway on the opposite side he saw his destination: A red-outlined, diamond-shaped sign with a blue rectangle in the middle with the word inscribed, Metro. Underneath, in black print read, San Bernardo.

9:00: San Bernardo to Opera - Red Line

The intercom voice rung aloud the name, and the signs outside of the metro that were first quickly zooming by suddenly slowed into view as the metro line came to a halt:

“Opera,” the woman on the intercom announced as the doors swung open in a seemingly coordinated effort.

David looked down at the map he gathered of Madrid earlier in the day at the Metro ID kiosk for one last time to confirm he was in the right place. El Cortes Ingles on a green pendant decorated many points on the map, along with animated icons of some of Madrid’s famous monuments.

“This is about as close I can get to the Palacio Real and the Catedral I guess.” David thought.

He tucked the map away, progressed up the flights of stairs amidst the Sunday night rush, and scanned his metro card to get through the exit turnstill. When he took the final step above ground, the Opera’s plaza opened before him. Upcoming shows decored the banners of the Opera house in his purview. Although, that was not to be his final destination.

Heading west along the left side of the Opera house and through an alleyway, David could see trees and hedges in front of him as the backdrop of the Palace came into view. Keeping left, he passed by statues of what looked like armed soldiers, and took a moment to read some of their names.

RAMIRO 1º. Muº. Aº. de 850 . . . ALONSO 2º. Muº. Aº. de 842 . . . D. PELAYO REI E∑ ASTU. Mu. Aº. de 737 . . . VVAMBA Mu. Aº. de 680 . . . EURICO Mu. Aº. de 484 . . . ATAULFO. Mu. Aº. de 415

The names David wrote down for reference, and would later learn were those of the Visigoth and Austrias kings which once reigned over the region. 

After noting the statues, David about-turned to the right to see the grand royal façade of the Palace in front of him. It towered above him much like the dual Basilicas at Lourdes and the Roman Château to their east, but seemed to stand more eloquently than the them. Its façade windows leaving to mystery what happened inside the mansion’s inner rooms. A man on stilts walked by him on the street wasentertaining some tourists behind him. As David walked along the Palace street way, the Calle de Bailén, He stepped into the Catedral and Palacio plaza, and noted an accordion playing, marking a celebratory end to the European day.

In the open plaza, he could finally see the sun as it danced across the western horizon, here on the outskirts of the city. David could see the clouds turn from orange to pink as the hour turned golden. As he sat on the Catedral de la Almudena steps, to take in the accordion music amongst the first moment of sunset, golden rays rested their light upon David’s face. With his eyes closed to take in the blanket of the sun, the black lamp posts, stretched across the Calle de Bailén flickered on one by one to prepare for the darkness of the night . . .

Source: Aelbert Cuyp / Landscape / 1635–91 / Dordrecht / Metropolitan Museum of Art / Public Domain