El Rastro Kicks Brooklyn Flea Market’s Ass

Location: Madrid, Spain

Sunday May 30, 2010

I met up with Sophie (rising senior at Wagner college and the sweetest girl you’ll ever did meet, one of those people that I react with, “Oooh, I want to be her bestie!!! Eeeee!!!” I think she’d be mad sketched-out if she knew though, haha), Ryan (rising sophomore at Harvard with the most perfect Spanish accent you’ll ever did hear), Isabella, and her friend from home who’s finishing up her studying(?) here for the semester to go to El Rastro, the biggest and most popular flea market in Madrid. It was bigger than I ever imagined. You can’t really see the enormity of it, because all the stalls are so close together with the sea of bodiesbodiesbodiesbodiesbodies. The stalls are set up so that it feels like a labyrinth. We just kept wandering on and on. Portland Saturday Market really ought to hype up their game.
We were very careful to keep our belongings very close to us, since people were bumping into us from all sides all the time. This was the reason why I didn’t get any pictures of the mad people and the mad wares, because I didn’t want to have camera out. What a great to place to find cheap jewelry or clothes or to “come across” someone else’s wallet or to “adopt” a kid who lost the hand of his mother. The role-playing at the IES orientation in the hotel a week and a half ago really got me paranoid about these things. Anything you want, you’ll be able to find it at El Rastro. There were stalls selling piles of clothes, 1€ a piece. There were lots of artisanal things and some stalls with “artisanal” things whose identical twins could be found at some other another stall selling “artisanal” things. Haha.

I bought a pair of fancy/fishnety-but-not black tights, like those you see on hipster Urban Outfitter-wearing girls who pair them with solid-coloured dresses or tank tops tucked into waist-high poufy skirts with vivid prints, for cheap. I also stopped at a jewelry stall with a table laid out with hundreds of rings. The deal was 1 for 3€ or 2 for 5€. I fell in love with a big studded faux-silver ring that I could wear everyday (it matches my watch!) and that kohkoh would love. I think I tried on every single ring to look for the second pair to get the 2 for 5€ deal. But I didn’t particularly love any of them. So I decided to get a 1€ faux-silver ring encrusted with a big fake pearl, which I knew I loved once I had it on. Why would I buy into their marketing tactic when I found two rings that I love for 4€?
Oh my, it was such an experience people-watching and looking at all the junk that people were trying to sell. I might go back to get some pashminas, but lord knows, I already have a lot of scarves. Perhaps I’ll pull an Angie-pie… I’ll have to see if I have another open Sunday.