“To go to bed at night in Madrid marks you as a little queer. For a long time your friends will be a little uncomfortable about it. Nobody goes to bed in Madrid until they have killed the night. Appointments with a friend are habitually made for after midnight at the cafe.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

“After the cafes of Paris with their exquisite wines and creamy fromages, crepes and steak tartare– screaming Adore me!– Madrid was these store-bought hunks of unyielding cheese and brick-hard baguettes, consumed in leafless Buen Retiro Park.ll Madrid, dressed as it was, tasting as it did, prideful as hell, didn’t care what you thought about it on your junior-year backpacking trip. That was your problem.”

Michael Paterniti, The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese