Well,I'm from Madrid and I live now in Barcelona. The last time I'have been in the city, a few weekends ago, I was reconciliated with a part of my life, I had missed something but difficult to explain. When I walked, looking the people, the skies, the last light in the afternoon with a refreshing air after the 40 degrees of the day, sitting in a wood bench in the street, I knew that this time I would want to let Madrid, that I would want waiting on a friend to speak, to walk. Well of course I am now in Barcelona.
seriously though, you wrote "I knew that this time I would want to let Madrid,...". did you mean that this time you would want to leave madrid? or that you did not want to leave?
if the latter, i know how you feel. i miss it even when i go away for just a few weeks vacation :cry:
Just love. I'm well here in Barcelona, or better, I try to be well here, I find many things here I don't like: "ombligismo" dressed up multiculturalism, or nacionalism. Really when I go to Madrid I feel I'm in home, and not only because I have an important part of my memories of all my life in this incredible city. Saludos
I was taken by your sadness and nostalgia. Your heart is in Madrid as mine is.
I boldly take it upon myself to offer some advice to you. At all cost, follow your heart and come back to Madrid to live. It might cost you your job or a cut in pay. Perhaps, if you are still with the love that drew you to Barcellona, you can persuade that person to come to live in Madrid.
I know I sound incredibly romantic but to let life go by not being "well" in Barcellona will be a horror to you when one day you wake up and your youth is spent. You WILL have heartbreaking regrets and then it will be too late and too sad.
I never lived in Madrid but I visited that city that captured my heart forever. This was many, many years ago. I spent my life not being "well" in the U.S.A., longing to be in Madrid but allowing people and circumstances stop me from returning. Thinking back, I say to myself, "What was I thinking?" I should have gone back to live in Madrid the city of my heart at all cost!
I will be returning for a vacation in the Spring of 2005. One day I want to retire to Madrid.
I play my Spanish music and I feel the hole that is in my heart just thinking of all the time that has gone by without LIVING in my Madrid.
My life here has been busy and good , filled with friends and family but I never feel "well" here in the U.S. My country has changed from bad to worse as far as materialism, education and "Multi-culturalism" which is a fallicy. Why is it that for years, the U.S. had locked (and still locks) their doors to Spain and other European countries who have skilled and educated people who wanted to contribute to this country. I could tell you why, but it would take three pages to vent.
Thank you Diana for your recommendation. Really I don't live bad in Barcelona, the city is pretty and interesting, and I meet wonderful people. Although I don't have here the strange feeling that join you with people and places, this feeling you can't explain easily because is a sum of many others. May be I couldn't find the particular soul of this brilliant but cold city. I should tell you that I don't regret of my personal decision, although also I should tell you that I have my family in Madrid and I go one time at month more o less, this is my small trap, my occasional way out. After four years, when I'm in Madrid walking and walking, looking and looking, this imperfect, sometimes chaotic but cosy city, under the July sun, or the April rain in a, for example, narrow street like Santa Isabel, near the Reina Sofia museum, or Bailen near the Plaza Espa�a square, and I discover the blurred horizon of the outskirts: Usera, or may be Campamento near the Casa de Campo, I feel I can go if I want, that the world is really open, an my heart too. This is not better or worse, is only a feeling, my own feeling and I'm happy in this moments. I'm sorry but I can't feel this in Barcelona. Miguel Angel
I've met several friends from abroad who completely fell in love with Madrid. They come here just for a few months and they left Madrid with tears in their eyes, saying me "I don't wanna come back to my country, I feel so happy here".
I was born in Madrid and maybe for that reason I didn't appreciate enough this city when I was a child. But some years later I learned to love my city through the foreigner's eyes.
There's a beautiful phrase which says: "Si a�n no has venido a Madrid, te falta algo. Si ya te has ido de Madrid, te falta algo". (It means something like: "if you still haven't come to Madrid, you miss something. If you already have left Madrid, you miss something").
Carpe Diem!!!
Posts: 26 | Location: Madrid, Spain, Europe, Earth, Milky Way | Registered: 13 July 2004
Miguel Angel's comments touched me :cry: - Diana's hit home with a vengence :cry: :cry:
It shouldn't be surprising that so many of us that have committments (primarily are so so very consistent in our advise of "If you can do it - go NOW because you don't know what will in your life a year from down the road".
Diane - thanks for giving a whole lot of us what might just be a wake-up call
Posts: 116 | Location: Charlotte, NC, USA | Registered: 03 January 2002
HI Diana. It seems as if we are two parts of the same mold, in terms of Madrid. You could have simply replaced your name at the bottom of your posting with the nic "TJGuy" since your posting echos my sentiments in an almost uncanny manner. I had an opportunity to live in Madrid when I was too young to fully appreciate what I was leaving and now I am having to make a nearly life consuming effort to return to Spain as soon as is practical. You should hang out on the board more often..you'll find you have a lot of "tribe" here!!!
y desde el club de los humildes rescatar aquellos besos que he tirado sin amar
"longing to be in Madrid but allowing people and circumstances stop me from returning"
This is so true in my situation. I lived in Madrid right after H.S(teaching english) for 1 year. I moved back to the US on a whim when a good friend passed away. My plan was to spend the summer with my family and return to Spain in 3 months. During that summer, I fell into a great nanny job, so my plan changed. My new plan was to work for a while and save all my money to move back to madrid for good. ... Since then i have fallen in love with the children i care for and my plan has once again changed. I now tell myself that once the youngest child goes to school i will leave the family and return to madrid. I am happy here, but i also am not "well" in the US. My memories of madrid and the people i met there bring me to tears almost every night still. Everything made sense to me after living in Spain, i became closer to myself. Maybe it is because i was so young when i first went to madrid and i really found myself there. Maybe it is something that everyone feels when leaving the city.
Posts: 4 | Location: Los Angeles, CA / Detroit, MI | Registered: 09 March 2005
Everything made sense to me after living in Spain, i became closer to myself... i really found myself there.
It's been 2 1/2 years since I moved home from my year abroad in Madrid. I was feeling particularly nostalgic tonight, not sure why. And I signed on to this forum just for memories sake. This thread finally let my tears fall that I didn't even know I was holding back. Like the quote above, I became ME in Madrid -- all of my senses experienced life each moment in the city. And while I know I have so much more of the world to see and my next plane ticket should be to somewhere new, I always am pulled to Madrid...
Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. -Miriam Beard
Posts: 12 | Location: Palos Verdes, CA, USA | Registered: 19 October 2002
- rent or buy a cell phone from me for your stay in spain, more info at 
- already have a cell phone, get a spanish SIM card for it at 
:jeje: 
