Madeleine in Madrid (Spain)

Madeleine had got up to Grade 3 Spanish but felt she still couldn’t speak the language properly, so she thought a stint at the Amnesty office in Madrid might help.  She and I were both regular volunteers at Amnesty, and they have an office in Madrid.  Not being confident enough about travelling on her own, she asked if I’d like to go along, to which I readily agreed.

The trip was doomed right from the start, with me being late for the flight, first time ever.  We had to catch the next one some six or seven hours later, which got us into Madrid central well after the Amnesty people had knocked off work.  I’d been tasked with getting the air tickets, and Madeleine the accommodation, through the Madrid office.  She had failed to note down the details of where we had been booked into, relying instead on our arriving on time in Madrid and being taken to the hotel by the Amnesty colleagues.  So, at 9pm and in an alien city, we had to find somewhere for the night, wandering around, looking for signs and asking in our very limited Spanish all likely candidates.

The next morning, we set off for the Amnesty office along the long Gran Via.  Madeleine espied a sign in a restaurant window advertising a Madrid speciality and decided she wanted it, there and then.  I tried to put her off, saying we should be trying to get to the Amnesty office first, as we needed to go to our hotel before we lost our pre-booked room.  Besides, we were going to be in Madrid for ten days, so there was plenty of time to sample this speciality, which must be available at lots of other places anyway, but she was adamant about trying it at that very establishment and right then.  In the face of all this determination, I had to cave in.  

The restaurant had a revolving door and a normal door.  The latter was too narrow for Madeleine’s wheel chair to go through, so I had to go in and persuade the staff to dismantle the revolving door which, luckily, they most obligingly did, bless them.  

Within a few minutes of sitting down and consulting the menu, Madeleine pronounced she’d gone off the idea of trying out the Madrid speciality and ordered spag bol instead.  All that work dismantling a whole revolving door, for us to get in, and then again to get out, just to have spag bol in the end.  

(Madrid, 1992)

NB:  For those readers who need help over “spag bol”, it’s short for “spaghetti bolognese”, because it has become a common (as in “everyday”) dish to the extent of British people treating it as a standard easy-to-cook-yet-exotic meal.