Madrid's artistic signs o' the times

It's sort of easy to get lost in Madrid — not Venice-level lost, but regular old-European-city lost. Still, the street signs here make it a pleasant experience. Most corners have nine- or 16-tile square artwork that not only tells wanders where they are but shows them.

Isabel II is the only queen regnant (female king) in Spain's history, although the eldest daughter of the current king is in line to be the next.

Some feature little scenes, like this one from Calle del Salitre (the saltpeter area, which apparently is where slat was processed).

 

We saw the sign, and it opened up our eyes. (You're welcome for that.)

Many of the streets are named after saints and feature religious iconography. Others depict what the area looks -- or looked like.

It's no coincidence that the medium is ceramic tile. That's a big deal in Madrid and in Spain, generally, where Arabic ceramic artists came starting in the 8th century. It gave rise to a big industry, and many of the country's treasures include ceramic artwork. 

At the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace), for instance, we saw an intricate ceramic-top desk that leaders use for signing the most important documents. (Sorry, we couldn't take photos in that part of the Palacio.)

Classic double signage.

Not so classic double signage.

Streets used to only have nicknames from people who lived in those neighborhoods and were officially listed as Manzana (block) and the number. That must have sucked to navigate.

For much of it's history, Madrid was a place that Bono might have sung about: where the streets had no names. (Hat tip to the Making of Madrid site for that one — and the history lesson.) Finally, in the 18th century, the government began assigning blocks and numbers — for ease of taxing residents, of course. In the next century, one of Madrid's mayor named plazas and streets after events, key people and some of the unions or guilds that had influence, like the salt refiners. 

And apparently the naming process has continued to be an ongoing discussion in city politics. For reasons not entirely clear, one plaza had been named after former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which became a political issue in 2015. 

Even if we didn't know where we were, we knew where we were.

‘Filth’ makes for a surprisingly great taco, and other Google Translate fails

It looked so inviting. And it featured a version of "The Last Supper" with Salma Hayek in the spot of Jesus (seen on the wall behind the people at the bar). 

We tried a tiki taco place in Madrid’s Santa Isabella neighborhood for dinner. It seemed somewhat overwhelming to order in Spanish, but Ryan persevered, and we're glad we did so. 

While waiting to order, we tried running the different tacos through Google Translate with unhelpful results.

Initially, based on three lazy quarters of college Spanish, I thought that pastor might be fish and planned to order that. But Google Translate reported pastor to mean “shepherd." Ryan said he'd rather not eat that. Recalibrating, I thought that might mean lamb, but it actually turned out to be tenderloin pork. Naturally. 

Suadero came back as “sweater,” but it actually meant leg of pork. Lengua came back as “tongue,” so we skipped that one, too. Google translated the last option on the menu, Cochinada, as “filth.” Not the best selling point. 

We ultimately decided to try three different tacos: “tinga de pollo” (a.k.a. chicken); calabacin (a.k.a. zucchini); and nopales (a.k.a. cactus, which we learned from the menu because Google Translate was totally wrong and said it meant nothing. Not "nothing" — just no ). 

Elizabeth laughs at me. Or perhaps laughs in relief that we would get food. 

You order drinks when you get to the head of the line outside. Once you're in the restaurant, you order the food at the cashier where the "rules" of engagement are posted. 

This restaurant has “rules” which we messed up once. We thought “returning to line” meant we could buy more tacos after we were seated by rejoining the cashier line. It didn’t. We had to leave the restaurant and go to the back of the line outside the place. But since we already knew how to do it, we ultimately waited in line again (“de nuevo”) because the tacos and drinks were that delicious.  

It was sooooo worth it. 

We did slightly better ordering the second time through, though the cashier was definitely laughing with us, if not at us, as we went through again. And the filth taco was the best we had of the bunch even if we're still not sure what, besides a roasted/smoked pork, was in it. 

And that's what a "Google Translate filth" taco looks like. 

Chasing rainbows in Madrid

Our arrival in Madrid coincided with the city’s Fiestas des Orgullo, or Pride Celebration, which it claims is one of the largest in Europe. 

The celebration includes several concerts, a few competitions, and a demonstration on July 1 to demand equal rights for all families. Among the 12 demands are agile and homogeneous adoption processes, the development of equality policies for women’s couples to compensate for the double pay gap, and textbook representation for all families. 

This accounts for the impressive number of Pride decorations that we’ve seen so far. 

Even American establishments are getting in on it. The KFCs and McDonald’s we have passed have all featured decorations of some type. The Starbucks have been mostly silent (at least from the outside), perhaps dealing with the same mixed policies in force in the U.S. 

Many smaller, independent stores have decorations, whether they involve draping flags on their mascots or they are using this week to show off merchandise in a variety of colors. 

Even larger Spanish chain stores added colors to their displays: 

Most impressive are the buildings that have added light accents for this week, such as this one.