Bullish on Madrid

It is impossible not to love a city where people live out a vacation every day of their lives – at least a fair semblance of a vacation. Picturesque; historic; action-packed when you like it to be action-packed; laid-back and idyllic when you want your hours to tiptoe by, Madrid is a city where you live, not just exist.

And how can you not enjoy a city where there are more tapas bars per kilometer than there are sari-sari stores in the Philippines; where you can drink the most refreshing water straight from the taps, and where there are as many Mango and Zara shops per corner as there are Giordano and Bossini outlets in Hong Kong (get the picture?).

"Trabajamo para vivir, no vivimos para trabajar. (We work in order to live, we do not live in order to work.)"

That, said our Canadian-born tour guide Jacqueline Pangman, is the motto of Madrileños. My husband’s sister Elvira Ramirez, who went to Madrid 27 years ago to study and in the course of her studies met and eventually married a gracious Madrileño, Jesus Prieto, agrees totally.

Almost every day after work, Elvira, a foreign investment banker at the Banco Urquijo, and Jesus, an executive at Caterpillar, meet up at a tapas bar. She has a croissant and coffee, and Jesus, maybe a gin and tonic and almendras (almonds). They know almost everyone else in the bar, from the waiters to the middle-aged teacher in the nearby table checking her students’ test papers over a glass of melocoton (peach) juice.

Others are having a glass of wine by the bar in the entrance that looks like a sushi bar, except that inside the glass shelves on the bar are not California maki but a mouthwatering array of tapas like chistorras (a kind of slender chorizo), quezo manchego (cheese from La Mancha), or anchoas en aciete de oliva virgen (anchovies as wide as our very own gourmet tuyo floating in virgin olive oil). Tapas are small portions of appetizers (what we Filipinos normally call pulutan or pica-pica). In most bars in Madrid, the first round of tapas is compliments of the house.

Spanish red wine, especially from the Rioja region (their equivalent of France’s Burgundy), is excellent.

From student, banker to teacher, people do not rush home after work. They unwind and recharge at a tapas bar (unless there is a football game and Real Madrid is playing). The dirtier the floor of the bar (littered with napkins, cigarette stubs, toothpicks, etc., a pile of rubbish that is a status symbol of how well the bar is frequented), the more popular the place is.

And so at the end of the day (or during their extended lunch hour, from about 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.), the Madrileños stop and enjoy life’s little pleasures.

Our guide Jacqueline said she is often asked if Spaniards ever work. She says about the only fixed hours are from the banks, which are open from about 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The rest operate on "ish" time, as in five-ish, seven-ish, ten-ish, and so on. No one is a slave to the clock.

For instance, when a Madrileño meets a friend or even just an acquaintance or a colleague on the street, he will stop to chat. Not just the usual "how ya doing," as the Americans say without expecting an answer. But a real exchange of pleasantries.

It is the Madrileño’s staunch refusal to be a slave to work, his appreciation of time as a gift to be savored, not monitored by the minute, that makes one believe that in Madrid, living well is what life is all about.

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And living well for them means also dying well. The fascination and enduring attraction for bullfighting of Madrileños (and Spaniards in general) is so deeply ingrained in their national fabric as the threads in their mantones.

Near one of the hotels we stayed in during our two-week tour is the Plaza del Toros, where bullfights are held regularly. It is a profitable spectacle, for some 30 million people buy tickets every year to watch the bullfights. Every year, some 24,000 bulls die in the ring. Our guide Jacqueline says that in Spain, "bullfighting is an art, not a sport." To underscore her point, she reveals that news about bullfights is found not in the sports section, but in the arts and culture section of the newspapers!

Bullfighting is a risky business, but a lady matador Ortencia Sanchez used to be paid one million euros a year (about P75 million). She quit, not because she couldn’t take the gore, but because she couldn’t take the condescending attitude of her male colleagues. Bull-headed, eh?

As for the matadors, thankfully, only 10 to 15 of them are injured each year from the deadly sport, I mean, art. There are very few deaths, perhaps because there are doctors whose only job in the world is to specialize in injuries sustained by the matadors at the bull ring.

I was thrilled to have bumped into a matador in the lobby of our hotel. The matador, perhaps no more than 20 years old (they start at 17), was wearing traje de luces worth 10,000 euros.

Now, he wouldn’t want that to be stained by blood, would he? Maybe that’s why the matadors often win?

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Now aside from the parks and the cathedrals, and the picture-pretty Plaza Mayor (the main plaza, dotted by souvenir shops, cafes, bars, portrait painters, the ultimate hang-out place in the midst of 18th century architecture), it is the museums like the Prado and Queen Sofia Museum that make Madrid one big celebration of life. At the Prado, which reputedly has the best collection of paintings in the world, one can feast on the genius of such masters as El Greco, Velasquez, Goya, even the Dutch Rembrant. At the Queen Sofia, you can revel in the works of more modern painters like Picasso.

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Life in Spain isn’t perfect – church attendance has dropped to seven to 12 percent, although the country is over 95 percent Catholic and is the home of the Opus Dei movement. Last year it had the lowest birth rate. It is second only to China when it comes to the number of smokers. And when it comes to women smokers, Spain is numero uno. There are no non-smoking sections anywhere in public places in Spain (although the government is considering a stronger no-smoking campaign next year).

I felt safe in the streets of Madrid, and found the gypsies there were no match to the alertness of the Pinay.

I love Madrid because it showed me how to live life better – Mango for my body, an overload of Goya and Velasquez for my mind, magnificent churches for my soul and yes, tapas y vino for all of the above.

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