Legazpi
Normally, I am not big on joining FB groups or online chat sites. I honestly think there are way too many people spouting their opinions online already and these “help” groups are full of people asking questions a quick Google search would answer. Too often they have the gall to pose questions and expect others to give them detailed answers, because they’re too lazy to do their own research. My reluctance to join the Canadians living in Spain group on FB stemmed from that dislike though I have now decided to participate, even if only to see what the discussions are about. Plus it never hurts to know where one can buy good maple syrup, right?
The other group I have discovered is something that crossed my path one day (don’t remember exactly where) and after a bit of research, I decided to take the plunge and actually join. It’s not an exclusively FB-based site, it is an actual organization meant for women who travel and/or move to foreign countries, usually on their own, and need or want contact with others like them. After much hemming and hawing I figured why not? And this is how I became a member of the Girl Gone International organization, “[…] a volunteer powered global and local community on a mission to connect, represent and empower women who live and travel abroad.” There was even a group specifically for Madrid, though the women I saw posting seemed to be a different demographic than those featured on the home page of GGI. A little freaked out by the youth present on the Madrid page, I broke through my normal dislike of posting and asked if there were any ladies 40+ who would be interested in getting together. To my relief a few responded and I made a couple of dates.
The first one was an older woman, V., who thought she may be too old for me … all my friends who are older than me would, of course, laugh at that. When it comes to friends’ ages, I swing both ways. We had agreed to meet at the Legazpi metro station in the neighbourhood of the same name. I had been through here before when taking the metro to the Madrid Open but things look a little different underground. I haven’t been on a “blind date” in a very long time so it was fun figuring how we were going to recognize each other but in the end it was easy … it sure helped that she told me she was wearing all purple, i.e. easy to spot. V. is from Australia, but while she still sounds like an Aussie, she definitely hasn’t spent all that much time living there. Over a coffee I found out that she has lived in more countries than I could remember–with the exception of Canada, it seems–teaching English in all of them. It wasn’t very clear to me if Spain was her final destination but for now, she didn’t have plans to go anywhere else.
After the coffee, we wandered around Matadero Madrid, the former slaughterhouse complex that now houses a contemporary arts center. This massive complex is a set of neo-Mudejar style pavilions, built at the beginning of the XX century on the banks of Río Manzanares, and was the home of the cattle market and an abattoir until the 1990s when a radical change in its function came about and the whole place was renovated to house a range of venues, all devoted to art.
Unfortunately for us, however, not much was going on there yet, mainly because of Covid but also because they were getting ready for the Fiestas de San Isidro, the patron saint of the city of Madrid. In normal times this is the festival that makes Madrileños go wild, or so I’m told. As it was, there, there were going to be events spread out all around the city, but I wasn’t going to be at any of them because … well, Covid. The locals may think the pandemic is over but I sure don’t.
We didn’t have much of a plan for our walk so we just headed towards the nearby river chatting about all kinds of stuff, something that felt a little odd to me, to be honest … it had been a while since I had spent any time speaking English with anyone other than my family or friends in Canada, and face-to-face to boot! We crossed a very cool bridge and walked by a large shopping mall totally ignoring it. I have to say I’m getting very good at resisting any buying urges though not wanting to add weight to my suitcase is usually the best motivator. We continued east on the Usera side of the river, another working-class neighbourhood where V. lives, I think (she was a bit vague about that or maybe she wasn’t and I just didn’t recognize nor remember the area she mentioned). She seemed to know this area quite well, though, and we went into a Chinese produce store where I found baby bottle of Sriracha sauce, something I would have loved to have back in Valencia when I had a proper pantry. This was quite a discovery, too; as far as I knew Sriracha only came in one size bottles but now I know better and will be on the lookout in the future.
I have to admit I was quite lost by this point, but as long as there was a metro station nearby I knew I would be OK. After all, I had a second date I needed to get to. V. and I made plans to meet up again and have a proper Sunday dinner at a proper Irish pub. I left her at the metro happy I had made a new friend.
