Madrid, 7. de marzo 2008

Just to get this straight: Madrid is by far the best city I ever lived in and - moreover - the Madrilenians are as a group the nicest people I've ever met. Wow! Yesterday they really stole my heart and this morning, with a hang-over in metro Circular, they ran away with it.

Madrilenians are so incredibly positive, enthusiastic and friendly that it's hard not to like them. Yesterday we went for supper (cena) to a rather regular bar. Upon seeing the menu they concluded that tenia pinta de ser muy rico - it looked like the food was delicious. That was the menu. When the food came it was compliments all over. The food was good - truly - and at eleven thirty maybe even delicious but their enthusiasm about it made it so much better still.

Then I showed them on a metro map where I live. This is a regular metro map we're talking about; London style. It looks nice with all the different colours (there are 16 different lines) but it's a regular map. Once again their honest enthusiasm was without limits. For at least ten minutes we talked about how nice Madrid looks if its endless network of streets is reduced to coloured lines. And we looked for the biggest distortion in the city's lay-out caused by the desire to put all stations at equal distance. Alright, I love the metro, but their enthusiasm has made going by metro so much better still.

After supper we went to have some copas. This is a Thursday night we're talking about, around twelve thirty, and these are responsible people we're talking about. Job, apartment, late twenties early thirties. Professionals. So you expect a lounge bar or a fashionable café. You don't expect to enter a crowded Irish pub with loud Spanish music and enthusiastic dancing to Snap. And you don't expect four drinks (they're heavy here). But they love dancing and they love their copas and so around three you flag down a cab and we're jumping and screaming and looking like shit because all of us woke up more than twenty hours ago and worked at least ten hours that day. And they are great people but their enthusiasm about the night, about life, made them look like the most beautiful people on earth.

These are Madrilenians and they always smile. This is Madrid and in Madrid the sun always shines. And Madrid is the best city I ever lived in. And the Madrilenians with their positivity and enthusiasm and friendliness make the city so much nicer still. Just for the record: I wouldn't be surprised if I were to marry a Madrilenian girl and end up in a nice apartment in Salamanca and drink too much copas a little too often and be happy. Just so you know.