I enjoy walking around my neighborhood and seeing the various restaurants and specialized shops. It can almost be the equivalent of site seeing. Additionally, I live in a neighborhood that hosts one of the most popular shopping malls in Madrid, El Corte Inglés. It reminds me of Macy’s store and in particular, the Macy’s in New York City given the large size of the mall and its many levels. It is titled as a tourist attraction due to the wide variety of foreign brands and high prices. However, I think, the mall caters to Spaniard’s taste as well or interest in foreign brands because the mall is always full. There are other smaller, Spanish clothing shops just across the street.
I like to visit El Corte Inglés even if I do not plan to go shopping. Walking through the mall reminds me of shopping when at home. As I walk in, I smell the many fragrances, and then the clothes section is towards the back. The escalator divides the two sections of the first floor. The very structure of the mall reminds me of a typical mall in the United States.
Additionally, El Corte Inglés even has a supermarket! I cannot imagine a Macy’s having a supermarket in addition to all it already sells. The entire lower level of the mall is dedicated to a supermarket. It is just below the first floor. The candy section is my favorite part, which displays a wide range of chocolates, and hard and soft candy. This section is so big that there are two cash registers to cover the area. One specifically for buying already packaged candy and the other for ordering selected candy from which customers would like to have just a slice or piece.
Though there is many to see, in my neighborhood in particular but also generally speaking for the entire city of Madrid, I suggest using the bathroom before exploring the city. This is something I did expect. Public restrooms are rarely seen, in the sense that a public place, restaurant or shops, do not have bathrooms. Granted because most of the shops are highly specialized, I do not expect a shoe store or candy shop to have a bathroom; however, I do expect restaurants to have a bathroom but that is not likely. There is a great wave of relief when I notice that a restaurant has a bathroom. Unfortunately, if you are roaming the city in need of a bathroom, you are only permitted to us the public bathrooms in a restaurant if you sit and dine. At times, a fast food restaurant may allow customers to use the bathroom without buying something. Thus far, I’ve had to do so in a sneaky way.
So where are the public bathrooms in Madrid? The picture says it all.
