This has been on my mind the last few days. While I really dislike living here, Madrid has many aspects that I really like.
First of which is the walkability of the city. The main boulevards are pretty spacious and easy to walk, and here, pedestrians rule. Cars will stop for you at crossings unlike Vancouver where I'm thinking, "is this when I test out how good the health care system in Canada is?" or, "Today is a good day to die" before I step onto the crossing.
Public transport is very good as well, the metro is like 61cents a trip, and there are buses and local railways as well (I have not taken the local rail, only the intercity ones). I did find the metro somewhat confusing to use the first few days here, and the windows in the train are set pretty low, so I have to duck down to see which stop I'm at.
Groceries are also very affordable, and where I am, I have one super market between my home and the metro, and there are 3 supermarkets within 2 minutes walk. And if I want to go visit a fancy supermarket (El Cortes Ingles for example) there are 2 within a 15min walk. There are also several streets/areas in Madrid where lots of Asian shops congregate, so its easy to pop by to buy stuff. Unfortunately, I could not find any canned meats here (e.g. Maling canned meat). I can't decide if it's because of the abundance of fresh food here, or if its some EU law. I mean, Maling meat is NOT healthy, I can see why they won't want it here XD
Internet is fast and affordable. I'm paying 27eur a month for a 300mbp line, and for mobile, it's like 11eur a month? I remember when I first moved, I did not have internet and had to use my mobile as my connection to work and it performed flawlessly. The mobile lines also come with crazy download limits, and if I remember correctly I have some bonuses like 50gb data - which I've never bothered to redeem.
The water out of the tap is also, possibly, the best tap water I've had. Cool, very refreshing, no strange flavours. I think this is the first city where I never bought a Brita lol.
Will miss these, but as I mentioned in my previous posts, if work doesn't work out and life here doesn't work out, it's time to leave.
