Here is some fancy looking building we walked past on the way to our morning tour. The tour itself was a bus ride. We saw some cool things but it was all very surface level views.

I was still running on gas station pastry so after the ride I set out to find groceries.

Matt tries to buy groceries in Spain

Attempt 1

• this place looked more promising than the gas station
• it was in a busy area so it was kind of expensive
• after my failure to respond, the cashier swapped to English

A note on Spanish fashion

Before departure, resources online and from orientations were very adamant about not wearing shorts, sneakers, or sweatshirts to avoid sticking out.

It’s too cold to comment on the shorts, but the other two points are bogus. Almost all people under 30 wear stylish sneakers.

After some reconnaisance, I swapped my bulky leather boots for simple black Nikes and my puffy coat for the slim fitting varsity jacket I brought.

A note on Madrid’s weather

In short, the weather feels just like fall in Boston.

Attempt 2

(I was still missing some necessities from the first shopping trip)

• this place was right around the corner from my residencia
• prices were probably half of the other place’s
• way more selection, like a smaller Market Basket
• peanut butter is near the candy, not the jelly
• where are the canned black beans??
• cashier didn’t resort to English with me

I’m very curious to know what locals think when they talk to me. The cashier asked something and I just awkwardly shook my head “no”. It’s entirely possible she asked something innocent like “Did you find everything you were looking for?” or “Are you having a nice day?” because she seemed amused by my lack of an affirmative response.

I’d like to believe that my outfit change contributed to this cashier’s persistence in speaking Spanish.

Exploration

The rest of the day I just walked aimlessly looking for interesting things.

Dogs (and the highlight of my week)

There are many cute doggos in Madrid. Unlike the US, dogs appear to be free to walk unleashed on the sidewalks. This lead to an amazing interaction with a little gray puppy. You refer to this diagram of the incident:

The little guy ran so fast, he skidded a few feet past me. The group of friends laughed about it and one lady said something jokingly to me. The only word I caught was “carne” so I can only imagine she was calling me “fresh meat”.

Centro

I wandered into the Centro district of Madrid and followed some golden streamers than caught me eye.

This led to a deeper than expected network of interesting alleyway shops. I felt sufficiently distanced from tourists here.

I do enjoy being spoken to in Spanish, all least it’s not totally obvious that I’m a foreigner. I though it was funny when a girl came up to me and handed my a pamphlet, enthusiastically talking about some retro fashion thing that was happening down the street. Since I didn’t have to verbally respond, she may never know that I barely understood a word she was saying. I did want to check out the event she was talking about but I couldn’t find it, and the time on the pamphlet suggested it had already ended.

Blog update

I’ve added support for commenting on posts and a newsletter that will send an email when I publish new posts (you can find the subscription page in the overflow menu, top right).

There’s been so much going on these past few days that I can’t fit more than one day into a post, but once classes start up I hope to reduce the frequency of posting. I’m pretty backlogged right now.