What can I say about night sounds? It connects you to the world outside, even when the room is dark, the ceiling fan is throwing down warm air and you are sort of thirsty.
From our cozy AirBNB apartment close to Puerto Del Sol, I hear the night sounds. All night long the Madrileños walk the streets, talk and laugh. An enormous outdoors party that fades in and out. I hear music, sound of glass breaking, huge laughter, high heels clip clapping and animated street conversations. I look at my cellphone. It is 2.12 am.
Madrid is a city of paseo, a city throbbing with life, a steady celebration of food and wine and people having a good time. Embracing life’s good things is the ordinary, the easy normal.
To me, it seems like Bourbon Street on a Friday night.
It was a warm October. The city was humming with a just-under-the-surface rhythm of fall that foretells festivities. In the evenings, crowds converged close to Puerto Del Sol. Jugglers hogged the pavements. Turbaned Indian yogis practiced rigged-up rope tricks. Street vendors pushed cheap handbags and cloth dolls at my face. I dodged a couple of fortune telling ladies and ducked into the El Corte Ingléss around the corner.
Mercado San Miguel
Next afternoon we walked into Mercado San Miguel, the market close to Plaza Mayor. An open market, built in 1916 and now renovated and modernized. I stepped inside the glass and iron structure with ornamental ironwork skirting the exterior and atop the ceiling. I walked down a long central aisle with stalls on both sides. Glass cages on counters gleamed with rows and rows of bite size food, a rangoli (an Indian art form of colored patterns) of moist colors, creamy drippings, whorls of shapes. I was in a food fair. I almost clapped my hands and shouted out. Colors sucked me in, cream and chocolate called out my name, fish eggs in neat peaks made my eyes goggle. I stood next to the counters, almost transfixed. The market had put the Imobulus (Hermione’s freezing charm) spell on me.
But my mind was racing.
I am here to eat but what do I really want to eat? I am in such a happy place, I am surrounded by fresh food and a crowd of people with glowing faces, this gorgeous food will slowly descend from the pink plate of my tongue to my core, where resides along with love for food, my ability to enjoy all the lovely things that this world has to offer…..
“What happened to you?” My husband stared at my face.
“Oh, I feel spacey, this place makes me incredibly happy and grateful. Can you believe this place? Such gorgeous food!”
Good looking food is so beautiful….
Shrimps in a perfect curl
Okay – lets eat.
We stood in line. The crowd was thick. My husband opted for a counter that sold omelets and devilishly delicious potato steak fries. The olive oil beads glistened on the fries. The potato was so fresh I could taste the soil in it and I couldn’t stop eating those. A yellow glow hung over the long bar top.
I made a beeline for one of the busiest booths selling seafood tapas. I did jumping jack arms till I was noticed in the pushing crowd. I got tuna, cuttlefish and oyster tapas. I put each one in my mouth slowly and deliberately. The taste spread sideways like a dollop of fresh butter. The seafood dissolved and mingled with mustard, paprika, puree of sun-dried tomato. I walked down to the olive bar and ate plump green Spanish olives. I hovered over the cheese shop selling varieties of goat cheese. I peeked at the confiteria selling crepes filled with cream and dulce de leche, flans glowed in tin cups of dark caramel base. Perfectly ringed shrimp rested on avocado puree and baguette slices. Rows of tortilla española, the panacake like Spanish omelettes emitted steam. Stuffed clams with crisp exteriors came out of the oven and found place inside enormous steel and glass cabins.
I stood amidst all that. Sunlight fell through in slanted beams through the glass atop.
I felt slightly drunk and dizzy. What a happy place this is….
On our way out I said aloud –
“I think that is how it must be when you die and go to a food heaven.”
If you are Madrid bound and love being in a place of food, don’t forget to pay a visit.