There’s never a dull moment in Madrid. Walk through the Puerta del Sol – the central hub of downtown Madrid — and it’s like you’ve slipped into a Hieronymous Bosch painting.
I’m serious. The Puerta del Sol is goddamned Armageddon.
Women with deformed flipper arms sitting on blankets, begging. A guy with no arms running up to unsuspecting tourists and flinging his head back and forth, rattling the cup full of change that he holds in his teeth with a deafening fury, scaring his victims shitless. Destitute Africans at the entrance of the posh department store, El Corte Inglés, trying to sell you a charity newspaper about… destitute Africans. Gypsy mafias – entire families, complete with grandma and children – trying to separate you from your dinero.
Down-and-out men from every country imaginable turned into human billboards, yoked with neon-yellow signs that say in black block letters, “COMPRO ORO”. Hunched-over old ladies with terrible speech impediments, yelling repeatedly that they’re selling the very last lottery tickets. Transsexual hookers that look like they could snap your neck with one flick of their nail tips, ornamenting every few meters of Montera Street, which remains – ironically – the famous location of Madrid’s most prestigious bridal gown stores.
Yes, on Montera Street, you definitely get both sides of the virgin/whore coin, all rolled into one. Which do you prefer: Bridal gown? Or terrifying prostitute tricked out with a penis and Double-D knockers? Which came first: the wedding or the selling?
You walk through all that. All that human waste and misery… and then you turn a corner, and you see this:
Amidst the shit, these moments are there. It’s our choice if we want to stop and appreciate them, and let them fill us with something good.
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