On MADRID

January 6th
Today I was legitimately hanged for the first time. The odds were stacked against me, as the word was six letters long, and two of those letters were D, which I did not try until I had already placed a shoe on the foot of the poor dead man I was trying to save. The cruel dictatorship’s reign of terror continues, try as might to stop it with my powers of vocabulary.

On MADRID
Speaking of longtime dictatorships, here’s some fast facts about Madrid:

1) Madrid is the third largest city in the European Union, bigger than Paris, France (and Paris, Texas).
2) In Spain, they call counties Autonomous Communities. Madrid is in the Autonomous Community of Madrid.
4) Originally, Madrid was known as Ursaria, which means “Land of Bears”.
4) The town motto of Madrid is, “On water I was built, my walls are made of fire. This is my ensign and escutcheon.” Presumably one would say this while displaying the town escutcheon (and ensign). A rule of thumb that applies to any situation, really.
5) An escutcheon is a different thing depending on the context you’re using the word in. In heraldry, as the Madrilenos are using it in the above motto, they mean the shield in a coat of arms, which in their case depicts a bear trying to knock down a strawberry tree. On a boat, an escutcheon is a plate on the stern of a ship with the boat’s name on it, i.e. the H.M.S. Strawberry-Eating Bear. In a doctor’s office, the escutcheon refers to the male or female distribution of pubic hair. As in “Mrs. Johnson, your escutcheon is a bushy as a strawberry bush the top of a strawberry tree! Lucky there are no bears around.”
6) The capital of Spain was moved from Seville to Madrid in 1561 by Philip II. Take that, Seville!
7) Madrid was the first city to have its civilians targeted by bombs dropped from airplanes. As depicted in the painting, Guernica. (The lesser-known painting Madrid is a picture of cows quietly eating grass in the town of Guernica.)
8) Madrid is sister city to New York, but partner city to Paris. Big difference. You see, Madrid loves New York (and wears a T-shirt to prove it), but it has sex with Paris.
9) In the Soviet Union, they call sister cities brother cities.
10) Apparently, Terminal 4 at Madrid’s airport is really something to see.
11) Drinking in public is a popular pastime for the youth of Madrid.
12) Madrid is the world centre of bullfighting! That makes sense.
13) The fans of Madrid’s poorer soccer team, Atletico Madrid, are known as The Sufferers, or The Cubs Fans.
14) Madrid’s subway system is the second largest in Europe now, after London. (What happened, Berlin?) Its subway lines appear to have been created haphazardly in broad, looping strokes.
15) My sister recently spent time in Madrid, but I do not recall her mentioning anything in particular about it.

There you have it – the jewel of the Iberian Peninsula. The closest I have personally come to Spain is Portugal, and I have also worked in a bank in a Portuguese neighbourhood in Toronto. I had the impression the people there did not like me. The Portuguese women would fight amongst each other to be the one to get the Portuguese-speaking teller, backing away from me and pointing at each other, like children trying to avoid going off the high-dive. Perhaps someday I will have an understanding with those who speak foreign tongues. But right now, we both have a deep-seated fear of one another.