María Luisa, 73, has been in line for an hour at Doña Manolita to buy her lottery. "I don't like to take the turn as in the butcher shop, I like to wait." As every year on Constitution Day, without exception. "Not one failed." And then? Some churros with chocolate. "If it is in San Ginés, the better." A few centimeters, Chema, 75, snorts while a child pulls the sleeve of his mother's sweater and asks for the millionth time how much is missing. "By now, son, what else am I going to do what to expect. We have been married for 53 years."

You will be wondering from what point in Spain Maria Luisa and Chema pilgrim each year for this traditional Christmas tournée . "We are from Chamberí for a lifetime, from here to the side," she quickly solves the riddle by showing that provincialism in Madrid does not understand its origins.

Chocolate with churros, squid sandwich, walk through the Puerta del Sol and the Plaza Mayor and Christmas Lottery for the family. That is an essential pack of every good provincial, regardless of the place of origin, that boasts the bridge of the Constitution in Madrid between squeezes and a mixture of perfumes, with better or worse luck, of the thousands of people who invade the center From the capital. And we all carry that touch inside.

And two streets below, Lucia's eyes, five years old shows with her fingers, see a different world. "Look, mommy, listen, listen." And mommy - also called Sara - listens as the elf spins to the rhythm of the tune of Cortilandia, that we are all humming in our minds while the little girl jumps on her father Oscar's shoulders. "If we leave it, revolutionize all this alone," he says with a smile until the show is over and the exit squeezes return.

"Pussy, we've already lost Joshua," you hear a mother surrounded by a considerable group of minors. "What's here, mama," replies one of the elders. And the colleague flies over the second. "Don't move from my side, I said." Joshua is one of the children who could wear the identification bracelet that the Municipal Police distributes in the center so that the children do not get lost. "I don't know what we have," says an agent on the corner between Sol and Arenal Street.

An Arenal street that is filling more and more as one approaches one of the mecca of Madrid's winter: San Ginés. "Maria has kept the couplet of San Ginés and there is no one to take her out of there," Quique points out with the girl hiding behind her coat waiting for her ration of churros with chocolate in one of the queues of the multiple stores that They occupy the apple. "Well, I like Valor more, that you want me to tell you," two gentlemen discuss immediately ahead.

If one strolls a few meters ahead in the direction of the Plaza Mayor, you will find the Postas Brewery, where there is no longer a soul in an already small place and the squid smell permeates every corner. "Neither chocolate, nor hosts, where the good squid sandwich is," Juan argues, chewing on a piece, just arrived from Albacete. "My wife is out there shopping, I know," he concludes while grabbing his friend Emilio: "Come on, let's go to the Plaza Mayor." And there they both get lost in the crowd.

It is precisely in that same main square where Edurne, even more Basque than his name indicates, tries to take a picture of his three teenage daughters who prepare before the Christmas tree with their reindeer hats, as if they were in full Fashion Week "Not one good, eh," scolds Leire, who orders to repeat while dozens of people sneak into the camera and that mother tries to take her picture with her index finger, as the good parents manual says.

And, after all that tour, there are Maria Luisa and Chema, in their same tail. "It's almost our turn," she hopes. "Good thing, because I'm hungry," he grumbles. Oh, Madrid, what would become of you without provincialism.

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