I left the city four times in the first 2ish months I was here, and each time I was relieved upon arrival home.

On the flight back from a weekend adventure in Mallorca, I found myself dozing off to the thought of
Back home.
Back home.
Back home.
Back home to Madrid.

I don’t know how this city does it, but it crawls under your skin, fills in gaps where something else probably should have been, but wasn’t.
That is so vague and unattached, but I really can’t think of a more concrete way to phrase what this capital city feels like.

Sollér in all its magestic, ancient, tiny-street glory (with terraced fields full of wild flowers and backyard orchards full of lemons and oranges– something that prompted me to utter the sinful phrase, “Prettier than central Texas in spring,”) I still found myself sighing in joy the next day as I climbed onto the beloved metro in all its easy wonder.

 

Not even the wonders of a little Mallorquin village could lure my heart away. Goodness knows everything in me screamed, “You want to live in that tiny crumbing house on top of the mountain, looking out over the majesty that is all those yellow flowers,” which is factually the truth– I would want to. “You want to climb down the stone steps and wade into that wee pond,” again, true. But I am more Madrid than I think I could ever be ~random mountain house in the Mallorquin mountains~. You know?

Madrid is a trap I don’t want to be freed from

Maybe its because I am not a quiet person, I could not really thrive in a quiet place.
Madrid is the third largest European city– it couldn’t be quiet if it wanted to. Sound like somebody we know?

(a freaking incredible orchestral quartet set up in some fancy neighborhood, but which I don’t know)

Madrid has much it is willing to be obvious about, things it is willing to throw in your face, but if you actually pay attention, give it time, it has a lot of little things it plays close to the vest (is that how that phrase goes?). Again, does this sound familiar?