My Prince, My City
Saturday morning I pinballed my way across Madrid to make it to the airport. It’s usually a straight shot from my apartment, but not this particular Saturday. The metro station just outside my apartment was closed, which happens rarely and only for very good reasons.
“A bit of Spanish trivia for you,” I said to my two friends Matt and Chloe who were hunching under the weight of their week’s-worth of baggage from home in Minneapolis. “Why is CNN saying that today is one of the most significant days in Spain in the past century?”
Chloe smiled, as if to say, “That’s easy.” “The prince is getting married,” she said.
She was right. It only took us two extra elevators, a long hallway, and 7 escalators more, besides the two extra metro changes, to make our way into the heart of city to my apartment just in time to drop our bags at the door, slouch on the couch, and find the wedding on all channels.
As soon as the ceremony ended and the happy couple was in the back seat of a black Rolls Royce driving away from the Cathedral, we put our shoes back on and headed downstairs to the street corner to catch a glimpse of them in person. It was about 15 minutes and they rolled by, clearly visible from the back seat, waving and smiling, the crowd going bananas.
And that was it. We had seen the crowned Prince and his new bride in the flesh.
The entire experience seemed too easy. Growing up in Iowa, the state at the butt of any American joke about “the middle of nowhere”, the only important events that ever happened in my small town of 6,000 were the ones we created for ourselves, things most people probably haven’t even heard of like the Tulip Festival in the town next door, where we all dress up in Dutch costumes and eat poffertjes for a weekend. Or there’s the annual car show or the Dordt College Talent Extravaganza or the Unity Christian High School production of “Fiddler on the Roof” or the city slow-pitch softball tournament or the soup suppers, which are always fund raisers, and have the most delicious chicken soup and pumpkin pie, in my opinion.
No one else cares what we do in our town, in Sioux Center, Iowa. And I suppose, as a result, we’ve become content with our way of life too. It’s just difficult to to do something that’s, shall we say “national”, like visit the White House or see the Statue of Liberty or even visit one of our oceans for goodness sake, Pick any one of these. They’re all 20 hours or more by car, and for the price of a plane ticket to Washington, D.C., I might as well fly all the way here to Spain.
In the end, I have two observations to make. First one is I have to admit that although it’s a definite privilege to live within a Beckham’s kick of the Royal Palace in the heart of Madrid, part of me envies those Spanish kids who piled into buses early on Saturday morning to make their first trip into the “big city” just to see the Prince get married. I don’t know. I think experiences become more meaningful when a person has to work for them. I only had to flip off the TV and run down to the street to see the Prince and his bride. It seemed too easy.
Second observation: Because I come from a small town where we pretty much have to create our own fun, it’s easy to be selfish. We don’t need to share our tulip festivals or our soup suppers with anyone else. Who else wants them anyway? We have our fun all to ourselves.
Somehow I just can’t get used to the idea that Madrid is a capital city. The important things that happen in Madrid are really important to the whole country. So I have to learn how to share.
The Prince may have gotten married in my neighborhood. But really, the whole country was watching. Even my Dutch friends were watching the wedding on their TVs in Amsterdam. I’ve never had to share my city with any one else, so I’m not sure what that will mean. But I don’t have a choice.
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