Dear diary,

We’ve just found the centre of hell. It is called Madrid.

This week Matt had to go on a business trip to Salamanca in Spain and I would join him as his lovely assistant / escort service / girlfriend. And so we took off on a sunny Sunday to fly to Madrid. The minute we set foot on the soil of this so-called metropolitan, things started to go really not so good.

First of all my luggage wasn’t there. Due to a problem at the airport in our home country my suitcase never made it to the plane. I know this wasn’t the fault of the people of Madrid, but it’s where I found out so I blame them anyway. I think I’m allowed to be shallow in a crisis.

After some initial pouting and swearing it was time to get a hold on my luggage. My suitcase was going to be sent with the next plane and would be brought to me as soon as they could. Nice service, however it meant we had to wait in line for two hours before we could fill in a form telling them the address of our hotel and the looks of my travel case.

Next we had to go to the station to travel to Salamanca by train. So we stepped into the taxi of some grumpy Spanish guy with a selective hearing problem. Of course we had said too much when we asked for “the station to go to Salamanca”. He thought we wouldn’t mind being brought to Salamanca by car. Thus, we were driven away while almost screaming and franticly searching in our language guide. “No Salamanca! The station. With trains. Estación, la estación!” Eventually the taxi driver gave up on his prospect of earning 300 euros in easy cash. However, not without charging us 5 euros ‘supplement’ for the fact that we requested a receipt.

After this debacle, we had to buy ourselves a train ticket. An easy task, I would assume, but in Madrid everything is an adventurous quest. So of course there were twenty office windows with only one (1!) open for service. The queue for this single office window consisted of approximately a hundred people waiting. But our train was to depart soon! Oops, sorry, mistaken, the train we wanted to board on was full. Just like the next two options. “Trens completos.” We had to wait for three hours anyway, so what’s the hurry?

In the meantime we had plenty of time to take a look around us. And what we saw will come as no surprise. The people in Madrid are ugly. And fat. Not in a jolly way, but in an unhealthy, greasy way. Their city is filthy. Everybody is soooo slow. Not just because they seem to have become lazy by the sun and their unhealthy ways of not having breakfast, but also because of the hierarchy and bureaucracy that appears to reign in this city. They all seem extremely untrustworthy. If you need them they don’t even try to understand you. “No hablo inglés,” they answer and they keep on talking Spanish reluctantly, not even slowing down or making gestures to explain what they mean.

When the medieval people described Satan as a dark haired, fiery man with a loud voice, I’m sure they had in fact met a Spanish guy. Probably nicking their money in some way.

Oh boy, what a metropolitan this is. Not. A rural, third world country town, nothing more. Sad fuckers. A journey that should have taken no more than 10 hours took us 16… It would have been faster if we had gone by car. Poor Matt is completely broken. Just like me.

Madrid is shit. What a nursery rhyme that would make.

Madrid is so shit
Everyone around here seems a bandit
Yes, it’s Satan’s pit
Madrid is really shit

All together now.

Thanks for listening. Night night.

Column published by Cecile on Monday, May 5th, 2008.

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