Ok, these observations had to be put off a long while. I wanted to make sure this was observations and not a rant against the city. So, with that, these are true observations that I have spent two years observing and would swear to in a court of law with my hand upon a bible.
1.) My first observation of Madrid is the subtle beauty of the city. People outside of the country always hear about Barcelona, which sits directly on the Mediterranean Sea and known for its architecture. Then there is Seville which has the fusion of Christianity and Islam. Madrid however tends to grow on people. Seeing the city at night all lit up, you can’t help but fall in love with the place street by street a little at a time. There, I promised myself I would say something nice before I get to the nitty gritty about Madrid. Now to the PEOPLE of Madrid.
2.) People from Madrid are called Madrileños. Well, Madrileños are RUDE. I am not some ignorant American who has never traveled making this statement. I know how large American’s zone of personal space has to be and how sickeningly politically correct we are. I know what I am talking about. People from Madrid are RUDE, in all capital letters RUDE. They are so rude that if my mother was not going to read this observation I would call them something else… Anyway, I have decided to narrow their rudeness down to just the Metro. I use the metro daily getting to and from my classes so it is the environment I have observed the most rudeness.
2a.) Ok, most large cities have metros. For people who live in Boston, NYC, London and Paris you know about the rules of riding a subway. When the metro stops and you are waiting to get on, you move to either the right (or left in London) and let everyone exit before you attempt to enter. Well, someone forgot to tell the Madrileños. People here who are waiting to get on the metro all bunch up around the door of the metro…when it stops and the doors open it’s like the metro car becomes Macy’s having an 80% off of everything sale. The poor people trying to get off get bum rushed and flung back into the car if they aren’t paying attention. My first time heading into work, I thought someone famous was in the metro with me from all the people waiting and jostling trying to be first to the door. Then I had a second thought…LYNCH MOB!! So I stepped back just in case. Brotha can’t be too careful these days. Of course with the rush of people flowing in, I couldn’t get out and missed my stop. The people waiting to get out, once the doors open, they act like its Saigon in 1975 and they have to catch the last helicopter before the communists take over the city. I have never seen people exit a metro so fast in my life. The reason for all the chaos you ask? Just plain old rudeness. All the people pushing to get on the metro are fighting for seats. For seats! They are almost killing people to be able to sit down. I have seen grown men my age knock women over carrying small children to get to a seat, old women giving elbows to ribcages for a spot and two old men almost come to blows with two young women all over seats. And when a person who really needs the seat gets on the metro? EVERYONE acts like they reading a book, newspaper or asleep so they won’t be expected to get up. Damnedest thing I have ever seen in my life. I once saw a pregnant woman with her arm in a sling not get a seat on the metro. Madness I tell you. Oh, and let’s not forget about the people who are rushing to get off the metro. You think they are in a fit to get off so they won’t get stuck on the metro right? WRONG. I thought that was the case until I saw them still running once they were clear of the crowd. They run to the elevator. Now, running for the elevator is not that big of a deal. I personally don’t understand why they run for the elevator, and if they miss it, WAIT for it to go all the way up, and then come all the way down. Every metro station has escalators. I understand not being able to walk up stairs, but escalators do it for you! I never take the elevator and I never just ride the escalators, I walk them. I always make it to the top before the people who take the elevator. One day I decided to just ride the escalators to see how much faster the elevator was….I still beat the people to the surface! They fight to get on an elevator, squish and shove to be crammed in a small box, and it’s slower than just STANDING on the escalator to the top. I don’t get it…. And my last observation on Metro rudeness is…If all the seats are taken on the metro, those left standing all cluster and crowd around the door. Even if the morning and evening rush hours are over, people stand RIGHT in front of the door. I mean it is hot and the windows are fogged up, but people will not move down the length of the car to thin things out. I just don’t understand. It’s like they are a pack of llamas and there is safety in numbers.
3.) My last bit of rudeness, but this just may be a cultural thing. People here in Madrid have no problem passing gas in public. They don’t do it loudly, but we all know the silent ones are the deadliest. For some ungodly reason, they choose to fart on metros or trains that are FULL of people. Now, the main staple of Madrileños diet is ham, eggs, potatoes and chorizo (a type of sausage). Maaaan, talk about STANK! The first time I was on a crowded train and someone farted I thought someone had literally shat himself. I automatically had the “Goddamn!!” face. You know the one where your lips get all fat and try and touch your nose and your eyebrows get all scrunched down in the middle…Work with me here people! I can’t draw a picture for you, but black people know what I am talking about. Any who, I had that face. It smelled so bad it gave me a headache and made me mean. You know how real bad smells you can’t get away from just make you angry. I was afraid to breathe because I thought the smell would get on my tongue and I’d taste it. Looking around, everyone else acted like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. I thought I was the only one that smelled it. So I figured I had dragged my hand through shit on the handrail and had touched my top lip. However, one day my flat mate and I from Turkey were speaking about it and he said the same thing. So I am not crazy! Spanish people let out some hideous smells on crowded public transport, but the other ones pretend they don’t smell a thing.
4.) One of the most surprising things I have noticed in Spain, not just Madrid is that Spanish people can NOT dance. I know, I know, you must be thinking I am wrong. It’s the truth though, I swear! I figured, Puerto Ricans invented Salsa and Meringue, Cuba has the Mambo and Brazil the Samba. But if you notice, all those dances are from LATIN America, not Spain. Yes, Spain has Flamenco, but it is not the type of dance where you can do your thing to in a club. Spanish people don’t even dance as well as white people from the United States. I mean, white people in the states are surrounded by Latin and black people so they get rhythm my osmosis or something. You can’t imagine how dishearting it is to be at a concert and the entertainer tries to get everyone to clap to the beat of the song, and all the Spanish people start out ok, but then do that clapping faster and faster thing until they have to stop. I thought only white people did that?? How can these be the decedents of the same people that in Mambo Kings??? Obviously it’s the African blood.
5.) That brings me nicely into my next observation…Music in Madrid (i.e. Spain) is AWFUL. Music from Spain is the worst I have ever heard in all of my travels. Now, let me clarify something, Spanish music is NOT Salsa, Meringue or anything like that. That is LATIN music. Also, Spanish people for some reason are quick to distance themselves from that type of music. I personally think it is because they look down on non-Spain Spanish people. What they consider Spanish music is not Spanish at all. It’s Rock and Pop, which is from the U.S., but they sing in Spanish. That is like someone from Sweden using Salsa beats, but singing in Swedish calling it Swedish music. No, it doesn’t work like that. All the clubs play that cheesy techno music that was dead 10 years ago at least. If you are lucky they play that…most likely they are playing 80’s rock music, AC/DC, Metallica and Black Sabbath. There are a few Hip-Hop clubs in the city, but they are always wall-to-wall with people. Since Spanish people can’t dance it’s like going to a contest for people trying to act like fishes, entirely too much flopping around, jerking and twitching for me.
6.) Another observation, is that here in Madrid, they dub everything into Spanish. No matter the movie or television program they dub it into Spanish. When I tell people from Madrid that in the States we dub nothing they don’t believe me. It’s a Spanish film, then get ready to read when you go to the movies because it will be in Spanish with English subtitles. People who saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the theatres? Yo’ asses read during the entire film. Here? No. They even dub the parts of the movie not meant to be dubbed! For example, you remember the old Rambo movies? You know how when the Russians spoke in Russian they put what they said in subtitles? Well here they don’t. They dub it in Spanish with the voice over people trying to speak with a Russian accent. Now the funniest thing I have ever heard is a Spanish Russian. But the BEST has to be when they have martial arts movies and the Spanish voice over people try and speak like they are Chinese. It’s bad enough in English, but in Spanish it is just plain wrong. They dub so much here that people have no idea what Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Brad Pitt or anyone else famous really sound like. The guy who does the voice for Tom Cruise recently did a voice over for a car commercial here in Madrid. How about people were seriously going around talking about, “Hey, did you know Tom Cruise drives a Honda Civic? Oh yes, he is doing the commercial for them on TV.” An entire city of people (6 million) truly believes that Will Smith is fluent in Spanish after watching I, Robot….
7.) Let’s just stay on the public media of Madrid for a bit more. I know people in the states are too hung up on nudity and such on television. The Janet Jackson Super Bowl titty is proof of that. I am not in the least bit prude, however, I have to say television here in Madrid has made me say, “What the hell!?” more than once. Once such incidences is the commercial for “Bring it up.” Now, that is the actual name of the product. I have not made this up in the least. Now let me explain the product. It is this clear plastic tape/cover that women can place on their breasts to actually, “Bring it up” so they don’t sag. On the commercial, which I saw at 1pm in the afternoon on T.V. had old women displayed topless with their breasts hanging down to their waists….they then preceded to pull up their breasts like they were raising a Venetian blind and secure them in place with this “Bring it up” product. I didn’t even react at first because I just knew I had not seen what I did. But the next commercial break? Sure enough, more titties using “Bring it up.” Another observation is for some reason, Spanish people don’t like being alone on television. There is never one host like Oprah, Jay Leno, David Letterman, etc, etc. They always have a table with at least 5 people sitting around it all trying to speak at the same time. There is a late night show, can’t remember the name and it isn’t important. What IS important is that every show, at it comes on about 11pm or so. Remember, in Madrid they eat dinner at 10pm most nights… So at 11pm, they have a show that comes on that has ALWAYS has a striptease act or people getting naked on the set. When I say naked, I mean NAKED. I saw three women perform their strip routine in a bed, touching and kissing, with the little runway strip on the coochie showing. You know what; maybe Madrid isn’t that bad at all….Guaranteed naked women every night of the week! On that same show, they were showing Porn from the 20’s and 30’s. One of the many hosts kept on saying, “Toma! Toma! Tomalo! Tomalo!” when it got to the scene where a man was trying to force a woman to go down on him. For all the none Spanish speakers, Tomar is the verb for take, so literal translation is “Take it! Take it! Take IT!” I couldn’t help it and fell out laughing.
Ok, that is enough for now. I am going to have to break these Observations up into two parts. I haven’t even begun to get started yet on these people. Hope this was worth the wait.
1.) My first observation of Madrid is the subtle beauty of the city. People outside of the country always hear about Barcelona, which sits directly on the Mediterranean Sea and known for its architecture. Then there is Seville which has the fusion of Christianity and Islam. Madrid however tends to grow on people. Seeing the city at night all lit up, you can’t help but fall in love with the place street by street a little at a time. There, I promised myself I would say something nice before I get to the nitty gritty about Madrid. Now to the PEOPLE of Madrid.
2.) People from Madrid are called Madrileños. Well, Madrileños are RUDE. I am not some ignorant American who has never traveled making this statement. I know how large American’s zone of personal space has to be and how sickeningly politically correct we are. I know what I am talking about. People from Madrid are RUDE, in all capital letters RUDE. They are so rude that if my mother was not going to read this observation I would call them something else… Anyway, I have decided to narrow their rudeness down to just the Metro. I use the metro daily getting to and from my classes so it is the environment I have observed the most rudeness.
2a.) Ok, most large cities have metros. For people who live in Boston, NYC, London and Paris you know about the rules of riding a subway. When the metro stops and you are waiting to get on, you move to either the right (or left in London) and let everyone exit before you attempt to enter. Well, someone forgot to tell the Madrileños. People here who are waiting to get on the metro all bunch up around the door of the metro…when it stops and the doors open it’s like the metro car becomes Macy’s having an 80% off of everything sale. The poor people trying to get off get bum rushed and flung back into the car if they aren’t paying attention. My first time heading into work, I thought someone famous was in the metro with me from all the people waiting and jostling trying to be first to the door. Then I had a second thought…LYNCH MOB!! So I stepped back just in case. Brotha can’t be too careful these days. Of course with the rush of people flowing in, I couldn’t get out and missed my stop. The people waiting to get out, once the doors open, they act like its Saigon in 1975 and they have to catch the last helicopter before the communists take over the city. I have never seen people exit a metro so fast in my life. The reason for all the chaos you ask? Just plain old rudeness. All the people pushing to get on the metro are fighting for seats. For seats! They are almost killing people to be able to sit down. I have seen grown men my age knock women over carrying small children to get to a seat, old women giving elbows to ribcages for a spot and two old men almost come to blows with two young women all over seats. And when a person who really needs the seat gets on the metro? EVERYONE acts like they reading a book, newspaper or asleep so they won’t be expected to get up. Damnedest thing I have ever seen in my life. I once saw a pregnant woman with her arm in a sling not get a seat on the metro. Madness I tell you. Oh, and let’s not forget about the people who are rushing to get off the metro. You think they are in a fit to get off so they won’t get stuck on the metro right? WRONG. I thought that was the case until I saw them still running once they were clear of the crowd. They run to the elevator. Now, running for the elevator is not that big of a deal. I personally don’t understand why they run for the elevator, and if they miss it, WAIT for it to go all the way up, and then come all the way down. Every metro station has escalators. I understand not being able to walk up stairs, but escalators do it for you! I never take the elevator and I never just ride the escalators, I walk them. I always make it to the top before the people who take the elevator. One day I decided to just ride the escalators to see how much faster the elevator was….I still beat the people to the surface! They fight to get on an elevator, squish and shove to be crammed in a small box, and it’s slower than just STANDING on the escalator to the top. I don’t get it…. And my last observation on Metro rudeness is…If all the seats are taken on the metro, those left standing all cluster and crowd around the door. Even if the morning and evening rush hours are over, people stand RIGHT in front of the door. I mean it is hot and the windows are fogged up, but people will not move down the length of the car to thin things out. I just don’t understand. It’s like they are a pack of llamas and there is safety in numbers.
3.) My last bit of rudeness, but this just may be a cultural thing. People here in Madrid have no problem passing gas in public. They don’t do it loudly, but we all know the silent ones are the deadliest. For some ungodly reason, they choose to fart on metros or trains that are FULL of people. Now, the main staple of Madrileños diet is ham, eggs, potatoes and chorizo (a type of sausage). Maaaan, talk about STANK! The first time I was on a crowded train and someone farted I thought someone had literally shat himself. I automatically had the “Goddamn!!” face. You know the one where your lips get all fat and try and touch your nose and your eyebrows get all scrunched down in the middle…Work with me here people! I can’t draw a picture for you, but black people know what I am talking about. Any who, I had that face. It smelled so bad it gave me a headache and made me mean. You know how real bad smells you can’t get away from just make you angry. I was afraid to breathe because I thought the smell would get on my tongue and I’d taste it. Looking around, everyone else acted like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. I thought I was the only one that smelled it. So I figured I had dragged my hand through shit on the handrail and had touched my top lip. However, one day my flat mate and I from Turkey were speaking about it and he said the same thing. So I am not crazy! Spanish people let out some hideous smells on crowded public transport, but the other ones pretend they don’t smell a thing.
4.) One of the most surprising things I have noticed in Spain, not just Madrid is that Spanish people can NOT dance. I know, I know, you must be thinking I am wrong. It’s the truth though, I swear! I figured, Puerto Ricans invented Salsa and Meringue, Cuba has the Mambo and Brazil the Samba. But if you notice, all those dances are from LATIN America, not Spain. Yes, Spain has Flamenco, but it is not the type of dance where you can do your thing to in a club. Spanish people don’t even dance as well as white people from the United States. I mean, white people in the states are surrounded by Latin and black people so they get rhythm my osmosis or something. You can’t imagine how dishearting it is to be at a concert and the entertainer tries to get everyone to clap to the beat of the song, and all the Spanish people start out ok, but then do that clapping faster and faster thing until they have to stop. I thought only white people did that?? How can these be the decedents of the same people that in Mambo Kings??? Obviously it’s the African blood.
5.) That brings me nicely into my next observation…Music in Madrid (i.e. Spain) is AWFUL. Music from Spain is the worst I have ever heard in all of my travels. Now, let me clarify something, Spanish music is NOT Salsa, Meringue or anything like that. That is LATIN music. Also, Spanish people for some reason are quick to distance themselves from that type of music. I personally think it is because they look down on non-Spain Spanish people. What they consider Spanish music is not Spanish at all. It’s Rock and Pop, which is from the U.S., but they sing in Spanish. That is like someone from Sweden using Salsa beats, but singing in Swedish calling it Swedish music. No, it doesn’t work like that. All the clubs play that cheesy techno music that was dead 10 years ago at least. If you are lucky they play that…most likely they are playing 80’s rock music, AC/DC, Metallica and Black Sabbath. There are a few Hip-Hop clubs in the city, but they are always wall-to-wall with people. Since Spanish people can’t dance it’s like going to a contest for people trying to act like fishes, entirely too much flopping around, jerking and twitching for me.
6.) Another observation, is that here in Madrid, they dub everything into Spanish. No matter the movie or television program they dub it into Spanish. When I tell people from Madrid that in the States we dub nothing they don’t believe me. It’s a Spanish film, then get ready to read when you go to the movies because it will be in Spanish with English subtitles. People who saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the theatres? Yo’ asses read during the entire film. Here? No. They even dub the parts of the movie not meant to be dubbed! For example, you remember the old Rambo movies? You know how when the Russians spoke in Russian they put what they said in subtitles? Well here they don’t. They dub it in Spanish with the voice over people trying to speak with a Russian accent. Now the funniest thing I have ever heard is a Spanish Russian. But the BEST has to be when they have martial arts movies and the Spanish voice over people try and speak like they are Chinese. It’s bad enough in English, but in Spanish it is just plain wrong. They dub so much here that people have no idea what Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Brad Pitt or anyone else famous really sound like. The guy who does the voice for Tom Cruise recently did a voice over for a car commercial here in Madrid. How about people were seriously going around talking about, “Hey, did you know Tom Cruise drives a Honda Civic? Oh yes, he is doing the commercial for them on TV.” An entire city of people (6 million) truly believes that Will Smith is fluent in Spanish after watching I, Robot….
7.) Let’s just stay on the public media of Madrid for a bit more. I know people in the states are too hung up on nudity and such on television. The Janet Jackson Super Bowl titty is proof of that. I am not in the least bit prude, however, I have to say television here in Madrid has made me say, “What the hell!?” more than once. Once such incidences is the commercial for “Bring it up.” Now, that is the actual name of the product. I have not made this up in the least. Now let me explain the product. It is this clear plastic tape/cover that women can place on their breasts to actually, “Bring it up” so they don’t sag. On the commercial, which I saw at 1pm in the afternoon on T.V. had old women displayed topless with their breasts hanging down to their waists….they then preceded to pull up their breasts like they were raising a Venetian blind and secure them in place with this “Bring it up” product. I didn’t even react at first because I just knew I had not seen what I did. But the next commercial break? Sure enough, more titties using “Bring it up.” Another observation is for some reason, Spanish people don’t like being alone on television. There is never one host like Oprah, Jay Leno, David Letterman, etc, etc. They always have a table with at least 5 people sitting around it all trying to speak at the same time. There is a late night show, can’t remember the name and it isn’t important. What IS important is that every show, at it comes on about 11pm or so. Remember, in Madrid they eat dinner at 10pm most nights… So at 11pm, they have a show that comes on that has ALWAYS has a striptease act or people getting naked on the set. When I say naked, I mean NAKED. I saw three women perform their strip routine in a bed, touching and kissing, with the little runway strip on the coochie showing. You know what; maybe Madrid isn’t that bad at all….Guaranteed naked women every night of the week! On that same show, they were showing Porn from the 20’s and 30’s. One of the many hosts kept on saying, “Toma! Toma! Tomalo! Tomalo!” when it got to the scene where a man was trying to force a woman to go down on him. For all the none Spanish speakers, Tomar is the verb for take, so literal translation is “Take it! Take it! Take IT!” I couldn’t help it and fell out laughing.
Ok, that is enough for now. I am going to have to break these Observations up into two parts. I haven’t even begun to get started yet on these people. Hope this was worth the wait.
Just back from break in Madrid, after less than two days my wife commented that the manners on the metro were the worst of any European city we had been to(and we've been to a lot).
ReplyDeleteWorse than the rows of able bodied people studiously avoiding eye contact as they play with their iPhones is the fact that so many of them are sitting in the seats reserved for the elderly and disabled.