Whirlwind first 48 hours...

Well let’s see if I can keep this up, because everyone always says how hard it is to keep a blog.

Last Sunday I moved to Madrid for the summer. Here I’m going to put up scribbles and anything that strikes me about my time here, about the city, about the people.

So Madrid is probably not the first to come to mind on the list of great European capitals. But while it lacks the self-conscious chic of Paris or the urban swagger of London, it’s sheer vibrancy more than makes up for it. I’ve been here one week, and already I’m intrigued.

It’s a city that defies classification. Sure, it has grand old buildings, tourist-ridden pavements and all the cosmopolitan little cafés you’d expect from a capital city. But it’s also distinctly lacking in the ‘world class landmark’ department. And for me, after having lived in Paris all year, I have to say I find the ‘concrete grid’ effect rather uninspiring too. I also can’t work out if I think it’s filthy or not.

But my whirlwind first 48 hours made for an appropriate introduction to what really matters here – the madrileño way of life. There was the kamikaze taxi driver, weaving through lanes of motorway traffic at 150km/h like an Alonso wannabee. There was the obligatory awkward first meeting with suitably exotic flatmates (in this case, Brazilian) – only to be partying like an idiot with them a matter of hours later. And then there was the 250,000 people pouring out of every bar and club onto the Gran Vía, dancing in the street ‘til the sun came up, because Spain had won the Euro 2012 football championship.

A well-timed first night in the city, then. But look around you and you realise something: the economically crippled, woe-ridden Madrid of the international press couldn’t be further from the truth. A chat with a local revealed one insider’s view: Spain has never had a great economy. But it does have a lot of welfare – it’s a country that tries hard to be fair, after having spent half of the last century being distinctly unfair. That this “system” – to our eyes impractical and over-inflated – stays intact is more important than yet another ominous headline in the FT. “So there’s a crisis... that doesn’t mean we can’t be happy.”

She was right: there’s no woeful staring at the floor from the people I see in the street. Okay, so my neighbourhood is anything but what you could call ‘difficult’ – but the sheer numbers last Sunday evening spoke volumes of Spain’s insatiable quest to party. Some will no doubt say this characteristically relaxed attitude is in part responsible for the current situation. But that’s a socio-economic debate for another (more qualified) blog – and to be honest I don’t want to add another voice to the ranks of online doomsdayers.

What struck me most about last weekend is how much Spain needed that victory – it needed an excuse to celebrate and defy the media negativity. For me there’s something admirable in it all: we British would do well to chill out a bit.

Less rambling and more scribbling to come.

Spanish of the Day
un gato - a 'cat', but this is the term also used to denote pure madrileños - that is to say, people who've lived here for generations, which in a city of immigrants (domestic and international) is rarer than you'd think.

guiri - madrileño slang for 'foreigners'. Like me.