That time when I spoke with a drunk local in Madrid

Last year, as I was living in Denmark, I was going back to Milan on average every three months to see my family and my friends. When I met my best friend in March she asked me if I wanted to go on a trip with her. Hell yeah, I love traveling and of course I would do it with my best friend, who would not?

So we start to brainstorm and come up with a few ideas. Then we decided it was better to go online and put the airport of departure but not the one of destination. We found a good deal for Madrid, so we bought the flights and the apartment. It was done.

We arrive in Madrid and everything is perfect, I love the language, the city and the food. One of the days we plan to only have ice-cream (the one from Creamies) for lunch and nothing else. But we walked all the way there from Atocha, which took some time, so we were tired and wanted to have an actual meal. As we realize the street was full of cervecerias and restaurantes we just had to choose which one we wanted to eat at.

(The area I am talking about is Tribunal).

A local, good but cheap meal

One of the menus hanging out of a place listed a deal of seven euros and eighty cents. Included in the price we would get paella, bread, beer and dessert. As it sounds cheap to me I wanted to ask something to someone I thought was working there. As soon as I realized this person was only standing there because he was friends with the waiter I told him that I was okay and did not want to disturb, but he kept asking me if I had a pregunta (a question) for him. No, I did not. "Disculpe! ". Nothing, he did not stop and kept speaking to me. "I just thought you were working here! " I told him with my broken Spanish. From that time on, he did not stop talking. I believe my friend and I stood there for more than half an hour listening to this tipsy middle-aged Spanish man. He was funny, he gave us all kinds of advice and even showed us how people steal things in Madrid so that we would not be a target. Then he said that we needed to be on guard because "Spanish people cheat just like Italians". Funniest thing ever was telling him we were made in Italy. All of the sudden he changed the topic of conversation and started saying in Italian that he loves the language, the culture and that he plays piano and sings. Lol. He shook our hands and finally told us all we wanted to know, that the food there was good. He said that it was the best of the area because he lives there and knows everyone around.

I think it was just cool the way he approached us even though he did not know where we were from. It was funny because all he wanted to do was telling us to keep our eyes open, but he did not know we were Italians. We did not take it seriously, also because he put Spanish and Italian people on the same level, so we were sure he was just trying to be helpful. Then he told us all about the labor in Madrid, which according to him is not good, fewer jobs than before, still in crisis and so on. He took his time to explain everything and even though it was all in Spanish I understood all (Thanks Mrs Vargas for her Spanish classes! Lol).

I wish I knew what this guy's name is and I wish him all the best. Our trip would not have been the same without him giving us an insight on what life in Madrid is. Te extraño, España.

- Cristian

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