Goodbye, Madrid

I’ve been putting this post off, just a little bit. Because goodbyes are hard and they’re a little sad, no matter how much you say, “It’s not goodbye, it’s ‘see you later’.” Which I’m hoping this is. But I still spent 10 months in Madrid. I fell madly, madly in love with this city and my chest constricts every time I see a list like this one and I didn’t really expect that to happen, you guys. I should have, but I didn’t. So, after Seville I went back for a week and visited places I’d loved before and went to a few new places (which have been added to my Madrid Guide) and got to say good-bye to the city that I’d walked through at 06:30 to go catch the Metro, that I’d walked through with friends on my way to dinner, to football, to a movie, to Retiro, to everywhere. Madrid swept me off my feet and it was beautiful.

A Weekend in Madrid

Last weekend was spent in Madrid and I was so very, very close to hugging a building. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed this city until we were driving into it and there were signs for Conde de Casal and Mendez Alvaro and it felt like coming home, which was both terrifying and wonderful at the same time because it’s not, not anymore. In less than a month, I’ll be flying from Madrid, with pitstops in Reykjavik and New York, Montreal and Calgary before finally, finally landing home in Regina. But ah, Madrid.

Vacaciones Cocktail Bar

It was the tile that caught my eye at first. Bright blue and light brown flowers against the white, a sharp difference from the concrete outside. Of course, it took me a couple of weeks before I finally made my way in, a coffee date with Rebecca after yoga one Sunday. And, even as Madrid’s in the centre of the country, about as far away from the ocean as you can get in Spain, but Vacaciones feels like you’re sitting just out of sight of the beach, the bar on the corner of the street catching the breeze as it floats by and families walking by, the lights bright overhead, sun coming in through the window.

Naif

My favourite restaurant in Madrid was, hands down, Naif. There was just something about it. The exposed brick walls, the light fixtures, the low, stuffed sofas. And then there was the food. The food.  There was always trying and sharing and making sure nothing was left over as we spent the afternoon eating and talking, drinking coffee as we checked our watches to see how much time we had left before we absolutely had to leave.

I Walked Around Madrid

There’s something about knowing you’re going to be leaving a place that pushes a person to go and do and see, just to make sure that they’ve done it all. Funny how, in the ten months I was there, I still had things on my list (not one written down, of course, an invisible one I had tucked away in my brain, filled with both the tangible and the abstract) that I felt I still had to do. I don’t know if I actually managed to finish that airy list, but over my last few weeks, I did a lot. I walked, I met with friends, I made a conscious effort to take more pictures, try and capture Madrid,  get as many collected snapshots as I could before I left.