Madrid's vivacity lives on
By Liam Satre-Meloy
Madrid teems with party-loving bon vivants and the city leaves little to be desired, providing consummate vibrancy. Clubs and discothèques are as ubiquitous as the modish Madrileño mullet, and their pulsing light bathes nearby Moorish architecture in a ruddy glow.
Restaurants, cafés and bars begin to fill at five with people who are enjoying an after-work drink or snack; by 11, patrons spill out onto adjoining terraces and sit at tables lining the sidewalks. And the dining crowd only begins to thin out by 1 or 2 a.m. when the discothèques and the clubs get into full swing.
The traffic flows ceaselessly, forming a river of light that courses down Gran VÃa and bisects the pumping heart of the city, spreading rivulets of red brake-light glow throughout the arteries of Madrid.
The incessant coming and going is mind-blowing - an ever-changing sine qua non of a city that does not sleep. Some people claim Madrid is the party capital of the world - and I can well believe it is: Twenty-somethings swarm the plazas and their surrounding parks.
They wear tight jeans and large, opaque sunglasses, and they lay together, mounds of bodies, laughing and sharing bottles of beer. And they dance until the sun comes up.
However, Madrid boasts few stumbling college coeds or chanting fraternity men or beer-bongs. For Madrileños, drinking, dancing and socializing have little to do with drunken and raucous displays of over consumption, of recklessness; instead, Madrid's night-life becomes a vehicle for Madrileños insatiable thirst for life and expression.
At the center of the Plaza de España, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza sit atop horses, and look over a titillating fountain featuring jovial and naked women filling granite gourds. This scene - and the general aura gripping this lively city - is representative of an era that Spain has embraced for the last 35 years - an ebullient celebration of post-Franco liberation, individuality and romanticism. It is ineluctable, and dazzling, and it leaves few - foreign and native alike - untouched and unmoved in its wake.
An addendum: While I believe I have accurately conveyed the Madridian social culture, I would be remiss to suggest I've fully and "authentically" experienced its splendor. Numerous times since I've been here, I've been shamed by my need for more than five hours of sleep.
And while I have, indeed, twice been out until 6 a.m., I've arrived home an exhausted mess, and promptly slept the following day away. I've always thought my "partying" skills to be rather honed, but Madrid is stretching me in ways quite unexpected.
Junior Liam Satre-Meloy is studying abroad in Madrid for fall quarter 2006.