What a treat: we got to spend a few days in Madrid, an elegant yet careless, old fashioned and easy going, proud but welcoming, southern place with French, Austrian, and Arabic influences. The people were friendly, and the pickpockets we had been warned of by tourists from Austria must have been on vacation. We met friends of relative F.'s, an international bunch of happy, energizing people in their thirties, talked politics and culture, ate simple food: Spanish omelet made with firm, waxy potatoes; goat cheese, Iberian ham, green olives, served with plain white bread, country fare, tapas. The yellow peaches were so rich in taste and so juicy that our preteen daughter exclaimed, "I have been waiting to eat this all my life. It is like in James and the Giant Peach." In three days of wandering we noticed more colorful shoes on feet and in shop windows than I have seen in decades; we studied architectu...
Culture, Lifestyle, Politics: An Immigrant from Austria Explores L.A. and the America Beyond It