Madrid life and American life

Sunday shoppers and walkers at the Tirso de Molina metro station plaza

 

Last week in Spanish class we were asked to answer the question "What was a memorable occasion or particularly memorable day at some point in your life?" I recalled a certain night in, I think, the early 1990s when I went out with friends to a restaurant in Japantown. We were animated and talkative and some of us got a little beatific on sake. It was just a wonderful, sociable night.

Now, for the last two months as I've been here, I constantly pass by restaurants, cafes and bars where people are mostly having that kind of night. They raise their voices, they laugh raucously at jokes, they have a great time together. And as I walked around the city the evening after that class -- alone, as always, since I don't know anyone here -- I realized: that night thirty years ago that I found so memorable is like two or three times a week for people here. It's just part of life in Madrid, and in other Spanish towns and cities.

Of course, I'm sure some people stay home and work, or surf the internet, or have no friends. Just as in San Francisco there are restaurants and cafes filled with chattering groups of people. But it's woven into the fabric of life here, so much that there's a common phrase for it -- salir por la noche ("going out for the night").

Is anyone masked in these packed Madrid bars and restaurants? No, except for the staff. That includes me. When I was in San Francisco, as restaurants began this year to be filled again, I never ate inside a crowded restaurant because COVID. Here I imitate the people of Madrid and go maskless everywhere. (Except public transportation -- you have to wear a mask to get on a bus or enter the subway.) I can't explain why it suddenly became OK for me to be in crowded places unmasked.