The tube here is like no other. It has long lean carriages which you can see from one end to the other. I mean the entire length of the train. The seats are plastic and although marked are undivided by a barrier meaning you often get closer to your neighbour than you had wanted to as it screams around a corner. Hola, sorry I just seem to have landed in your lap, apologies about that.
Today I saw two huge English guys that wouldn’t have been out of place in Lock Stock. Pock marked faces, skin heads, leather jackets and a few scars. They were reading the learned paper known as ‘News of the Screws’ and decided to sit next to one another. Like a cartoon their shoulders, hips and knees were wedged together so much so that they had to stand up together on the count of three to get de -wedged! Very funny.
Then there’s the beggars and buskers. You thought it was bad in London. Here its been taken to another level. There are some class acts. Three young guys with accordions. Singing, dancing and joking as the train skirts at speed around the corners, off balance but still playing. The real comedy of it all was they plonked down two large speakers for extra value and volume. Then the lady in fake furs with bright red lip stick and a karaoke yellow microphone attached to a speaker that is wheeled behind her like a suit case. Mobile karaoke. I think it could catch on? She can make some really strange shapes with her mouth and howls like a wounded crack fox who’s had about 50 fags. I requested Keane ‘Somewhere Only we Groan’ but she didn’t know it!
The Metro is cheap travel but generally smelly in parts. Some sewers must be always over flowing at my tube station where I change trains for university in the mornings. No one runs for a tube here. Or very rarely. Its just not the done thing and they have a special habit of pushing in front of you then walking at the speed of a snail.
The other thing about commuting in Madrid is that no one has any spacial awareness, not even of their own body! The carriage is empty but someone will come and sit immediately next to you. Or there is only standing space so they will come and stand on your foot. To be fair I haven’t exactly got the biggest feet. You have to stand pretty close to get my tiny toes. Perhaps it me? Maybe its a secret form of Madrid greeting. Perhaps its like initiation into the gang? Either way its annoying and painful!
One thing that is great and would never happen in London is that the tube driver will wait for you and sometimes even open the doors again for you! Now that is a good service! But please remember its not the tube its the METRO!
