Hope in the kindness of strangers should not be lost. That is what I learned after Friday evening touring the Plaza Mayor and Plaza del Sol here in Madrid. All week our group had been trying to find a good place to get authentic tapas in Spain. Tapas are sort of like American appetizers, but traditionally the Spanish order a bunch of these little plates and share them around the table for their meal...both delicious and community-building!
We decided to try the Plaza Mayor and found a little pub on a street right off the Plaza that had a lot of charm and character. The host was extremely welcoming and grabbed our Betsy Ross flag and led us to our table. We each ordered an entree and a plate of tapas to share with various culinary delights, including fried prawns, crab pate, chorizo, and blood pudding. Some of our group was brave enough to try everything on the plate...I was not. As we were finishing, we heard a lot of commotion in the street outside the window. Crowding around, we saw a group of demonstrators, which made all of us very nervous. The host sensed some panic, so he came over to calm us down and assure us that it was nothing personal against us Catholics. Some people in Spain are protesting the cost that ensued from hosting World Youth Day. He told us that we should not be scared; if we walked out calmly and stayed together in a group, we would be absolutely fine. His attention to our needs really meant a lot to us.
The commotion died down as we left, but security was tight on every street we entered. Right before exiting the Plaza to find a Metro stop, someone in our group saw an advertisement for a little shop selling churros. Now, I had been raving about trying Spanish churros since we got to Madrid. When I was in high school, I saw Samantha Brown eating churros and hot chocolate in Madrid on the Travel Channel. Spanish hot chocolate is as thick as Hersheys syrup, and you are supposed to dunk these fried strips of dough into it to soak it up. When I saw Samantha enjoying them, I swore to myself that one day I would do the same. Someone told us we would not be able to get them in the summer, so I did not have my hopes up, but seeing this shop, everyone knew we had to stop. We exited with our bag of twelve fried donuts and liter of thick, rich chocolate and promptly spilled the chocolate all over the street in front of the store. One of the waiters saw what happened and led Sarah inside to give her a new bottle on the house. Once again, our spirits were lifted by the generosity of a stranger looking out for us.
We loaded our group on the Metro bound for a station near our hotel and rode in the crowded train with people from all countries chanting for their homeland and for ¨Benedicto!" As we left the Metro with a few women from Spain, we came to a halt where the turnstiles were roped off with police tape. The women with us, sensing some confusion and probably more than a little bit of stress, offered us directions in English to get back on the Metro to a station nearby. In the midst of a stressul, anxiety-ridden evening, it was so nice to have people around us who were helpful and sensitive to our needs in a strange city. Knowing this kindness was one piece of preparation for the vigil, but you will have to read our next blog to find out more about that adventure.
Posted by Kate
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