7 Questions I Still Have After Living in Madrid for 10 Months

In keeping with the theme I’ve had going – 7 Things I’ve Learned from Living in Madrid for 10 Days and 7 Things I’ve Learned from Living in Madrid for 10 Weeks – I have a special edition of this post to commemorate the 10-month mark.

Instead of focusing on things I’ve learned, I want to focus on the questions I still have. Questions that, apparently, almost a year in Spain could not answer.

1. Why are Spanish pillows so long?

My bed in my apartment is small (it might be a child’s bed, I’m not sure), but my pillow is long. I’d say it’s 75% longer than your average pillow. The pillowcases are even longer. The pillowcases are the same length as my entire bed.

Related question: Why are the pillowcases always open at both ends?

2. Why can’t you take metallic balloons into the metro?

Go into any metro station and a sign with a cute gold star balloon awaits you – with a big red “NO” symbol plastered in front of it. There are a lot of things I wonder about this situation. First, are non-metallic balloons allowed? If so, what’s the issue with metallic balloons, specifically? I feel the need to point out that when I went to London a couple months ago, I saw someone with a metallic balloon on the National Rail Services train from Gatwick to Victoria Station. Same concept as the metro, basically?

Also, I need to know whether there was a particular incident that truly warranted this announcement being posted on every door of every metro station in Madrid? Is it that widespread of an issue? Do the metro staff live in perpetual fear of metallic-balloon-wielding mobs converging upon stations like Alfonso XIII and Duque de Pastrana? Honestly. I want to know.

3. Why do Rodilla’s napkins always say “Madrid Horse Week”?

Rodilla is a Spanish restaurant chain that’s famous for cheap, tasty, sandwiches. (Incidentally, rodilla in Spanish means “knee.” Not sure that’s related.) They’ve also got coffee and reliable WiFi. But the main question I have about Rodilla is not the name it shares with human anatomy. No, I want to know why its napkins ALWAYS say “Madrid Horse Week.”

Seriously. I’ve been to multiple Rodillas around Madrid, so I know this isn’t an isolated phenomenon. From my limited research, Madrid Horse Week is Spain’s largest equestrian event, annually in November. Is Rodilla a sponsor, or did their CEO attend and pick up enough napkins to stock all the Madrid stores for years?

4. Why does my bus always show instructional videos of how to make various gelatinous desserts?

 

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A post shared by kiwilimón (@kiwilimon) on May 26, 2019 at 4:03pm PDT

As you may know, I take a public bus from Buitrago del Lozoya, the pueblo where I work, back to Madrid a few times a week. Since this is a 1+ hour ride, the bus generously features a TV screen in the front to provide its passengers some entertainment. It’s always tuned to Kiwilimón, which is an instructional channel for how to quickly and easily make different recipes.

I sleep most of the time on this bus, but every time I’m awake – and I mean EVERY TIME – they’re showing instructions on how to make some sort of gelatin. After conferring with my friend Sarah, who doesn’t sleep on the bus, she confirmed that gelatinous desserts are featured on this channel by a disproportionate amount. I just checked out their website and they have 250 Gelatin Recipes. Does that not seem like overkill?

5. Are they even working on Gran Vía?

Gran Vía is one of Madrid’s metro stations. It was opened in 1919 and is one of Madrid’s original 8 stations, on today’s Line 1 and Line 5. The entire time that I’ve been here – 10 months – it’s been closed! Luckily it doesn’t really affect me because I can get to the Gran Vía area without that stop. However, renovations started on August 20, 2018, and the station was supposed to reopen on April 13. We are now three months past that, and the station is still entirely in disarray. I know this because when a station is “closed,” the metro still passes through – it just doesn’t stop. It just looks like a disaster in there. There’s dirt and dust and tarps everywhere. And no signs of anyone actually working.

6. Why does every bureaucratic process turn into a wild goose chase?

I get that bureaucratic processes aren’t fun for anyone, ever, no matter where in the world you are. What I don’t understand is why every time I’ve needed to take care of legal stuff, I’ve ended up visiting no less than three places to find out where I need to go. The worst was when was registering for my Tarjeta de Identidad Extranjera – foreigner ID card (TIE). I needed to collect one paper from a public registry’s office. When I got there, they sent me to the police station across town which supposedly carried the form. I went there, and when I asked for the paper they looked at me like I was crazy. They made a phone call and sent me to another public registry office. I rushed there, because it was about to close. When I got there, 2 minutes before closing time, they told me the paper is now only offered online.

Three locations were also visited when: I applied for my visa to visit Russia; and most recently, when I applied to renew the TIE. Everyone is quick to point to somewhere else as the correct place to go, and when you get there, they tell you to go somewhere else.

7. What is so funny in Piso 3ºA?

A quick lesson in Spanish ordinal numbers: the 3º is like how we would say 3^rd – “third” in Spanish is tercero. Anyway, I live in Apartment (Piso) 3ºB, and my bedroom is on the side of the apartment that shares a wall with 3ºA. Almost every day, I hear my neighbor – who seems to live alone, because I never hear him talking to anyone else – burst into a fit of maniacal laughter. He laughs like he’s never heard something so funny in his entire LIFE. Except an hour later, he will laugh like that again. And then again the next day, and so on. Friends who have visited can attest to hearing this. And while laughing is far from the worst thing you can hear in the apartment next door, it’s another reason I sleep with the fan on every single night – need that white noise to keep it from waking me up!

At some point I decided to start trying to record it, so here’s an example.

 

Though I’m leaving Spain for the summer in a few weeks, I’m excited to be spending another year here! Hopefully I’ll find answers to these questions in el año que viene.

Does anyone have any conjectures for the answers to these questions?!

-Cathy

Originally Published on July 8, 2019.