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Sunday, January 05, 2003 Tomorrow, here in Madrid, is el Día de los Reyes Magos – the day of the Three Kings. Which means tonight and tomorrow are, in effect, Christmas Eve/Christmas Day Round 2, at least as important a span of time as Round 1. Or so some locals have told me. They could be pulling my leg (or my hair, as they say here) and I wouldn't know, being a furriner and relatively ignorant when it comes to this kind of thing. What I do know is that it's a major gift-giving occasion -- again, at least as important, if not more so, than Round 1. And apart from the brief pauses of Christmas Eve/Christmas Day–New Year's Eve/New Year's Day, gift-shopping has remained in high gear. Stores remain busy, helped, perhaps, by discounted prices that appeared immediately after Navidad. Today, the last shopping day of the holiday season – a day when most stores in this city are usually closed, locked and shuttered – any tienda in which a shopper could find anything that might be remotely appropriate as a gift is open and hoping for a satisfying, day-long visit by the Ghost of Christmas Spending. This morning, I managed to herd myself out of the house and into the gym around 10 a.m. When I dragged my bod back out into the street and down into the Metro around noon, the trains were full, energy was high. Clearly, the day had gotten underway and it was going to be an active bugger. And speaking of the Metro: the daily trip to and from the language school (in which I've been taking intensive Spanish classes during the last nearly-five-weeks) is a brief three-station ride. Usually fast, normally uneventful. This last Friday, post-classes, I made my way through the midday crowds to la estación Opera for the trip back to my humble dive, descending the concrete stairs into the station, through the turnstiles, up and down the various flights of stairs that eventually spit me out at the platform for the outbound Line 5 train, arriving just as a train pulled in. Hopped on the train, pulled out a book, the train got underway. Next station – Callao – the train stops, the doors open, people get on and off, everything normal, efficient, blahblahblah. Next station – Gran Vía. The train pulls in, slowing down substantially sooner and faster than normal, coming to a stop only halfway along the platform. And for a minute we just sit. After a bit, passengers begin looking around, curious. Someone notices that out on the platform – on both platforms, in fact, in both directions – people have moved toward the front of the train where they're clustered together, staring down into the track, some with hands over their mouths. People in the car begin getting up, staring out the windows, trying in vain to get a peek at whatever's taken place. This continues for 2-3 minutes, until the train finally jerks slowly into motion, completing its entry into the station. As it moves along the platform and comes to a stop, we see people loosely gathered around a bench where a couple of security guards have sat someone down and are standing over them. Someone had fallen, been pushed or jumped on the track, far enough ahead of the train that the driver was able to stop until the person had been pulled back up onto the platform. The first time I've ever experienced an event like that (I'm happy to say) after a couple of years living in NYC, nearly 20 years in Cambridge/Boston and now a couple of years here. And when the train pulled out of Gran Vía station, many of the faces in the car with me appeared distinctly more cheerful -- due, perhaps, to the sudden gift of a dynamic, dramatic story with which they could amaze and/or entertain friends/family/co-workers for days to come. Life. You never really know what's about to come around the corner. rws 9:42 AM [+]
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