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Tuesday, April 29, 2003 There are times I find myself walking around the barrio -- taking care of errands, getting a newspaper, maybe stopping for a quick espresso -- in a state of such contentment that it feels a little startling if I stop and think about it. Why, you might ask, should I feel so goddam content? Well, let's see: it's springtime, the weather's friendly (sun and clouds trading off today), the air feels good on my skin, there's a nice breeze blowing. The construction noise across the street is more than manageable today. The city's nicely greened up, the swifts are everywhere, cutting through the air above the buildings at amazing speeds, at times swooping down close to street level, their high calls echoing all around. More and more lovely Spanish women are sporting easy-on-the-eyes warm weather outfits (woo-hoo!!). The city is packed with an amazing variety of humans, providing endless opportunities for fine, fine people-watching, not to mention loads of serious entertainment. The local food is great and reasonably priced (and in fact someone bought me lunch yesterday). There are times when music seems to be in the very air, and a lot of it just feels real damn good. Blah blah blah. And I hang out in the middle of it all, writing. Yeah, I could get used to living like this. (Er, wait -- I already have, ‘cause I am. HAR!) This last Sunday was the Madrid Marathon, involving something like 10,000 runners. And yet the scene was so peaceful here in the neighborhood -- not that far away from the event, really -- that I had no clue anything was up. I heard nothing about it on the TV, saw nothing about it in the paper until the day after. Strange. On the other hand, the Pope (el Papa!) is coming to Madrid this weekend, and a portion of the populace is all astir, readying for a quick shot of Catholicism, something that's ebbed in Spain these last two decades. It's a visit with political ramifications -- before the incursion into Iraq, the Pope summoned Aznar, the head of the current government, to an intimate sit-down and let him know the Church was dead set against the invasion. Aznar, a practicing Catholic, used the photo opportunity then ignored the Pope's admonishment. Zapatero, the head of the Socialist party and a highly visible presence in the intense conflict between the vast majority of the population and the government re: the war, will be meeting with the Pope during His Catholicness's swing through the city and Aznar's political party, el Partido Popular is not happy about it. The PP doesn't seem to have much interest in flexibility or a style of communication that might lead to genuine consensus (as opposed to everyone else caving in to their agenda) -- their response to events these last few months, whether to the sinking of the Prestige and the resulting massive oil spill off the country's northwest coast (and the government's astonishing refusal to acknowledge the situation, much less take constructive action during the crisis' first few weeks) or the whole Iraq thing has been an aggressive, relentless display of invective and character smears aimed at the opposition parties. I am aligned with no political party, here or in the States, and have found the in-country political cabaret strange, engrossing, at times hilarious, at other times anything but. Municipal elections will be taking place on May 25, campaign season is well underway, and the PP has been actively cranking up the level of their inflammatory rhetoric while the opposition has so far taken the high road. It should be an interesting month. In the meantime, I'll be curious to see how huge a deal the papal visit will be. Sunday morning, there will be a mass performed at la Plaza de Colón, a 12-15 minute walk from here. I will not be attendance, but will be checking its effect on the rest of the city center. Meanwhile, I recently had to book a couple of flights, and in the process found out that my travel agent here -- Guadalupe, a charming, kind, smart, pretty woman with a great attitude -- is going to be leaving the travel agency in two short weeks. I took the opportunity to get her to go to lunch with me yesterday, a move that (a) gave me the opportunity to get to know an extremely nice person a little and (b) gave me a couple of hours of conversation in Spanish, something I haven't had anywhere near enough of in recent weeks. She turns out to be from Extremadura, in Spain's southwest, which means she not only talks quickly, she doesn't pronounce the endings of many words, one of the notable characteristics of the folk in the south of the country. Which meant I had to concentrate like you wouldn't believe at certain moments. I'm aware that I often have a tendency to write about my Spanish-speaking skills here as if I can barely get out a decipherable "¡Hola!" -- a serious exaggeration of the actual deal. Really. Honest. Considering I knew next to nothing of the language when I first arrived, considering I've gone back and forth between here and the States since then (spending eight months of last year back in Vermont), considering I spend substantial portions of each day writing and therefore thinking in English, that most of my email is in English, I've done great. I found myself coping well at lunch yesterday. Making mistakes, sure -- part of the cost of choosing to live without a roommate so that there's no Spanish spoken in-house apart from whatever spills out from the radio/TV. But doing fine. And connecting with a person who might be able to steer some intercambio action my way. (Intercambio: when a Spanish-speaker studying English gets together with an English-speaker studying Spanish to make conversation, talking half the time in Spanish, the other half in English.) We'll see. An interesting person, BTW. Guadalupe has known her husband since they were 15, started going out with him when they were 19, got married two years later. They're now in their late 30s, still happily married, with a 16-year-old daughter Guadalupe describes as outrageously, almost alarmingly tranquil, low-key, easy-going. I heard some great stories, an example being the one about going to the Barajas airport to pick up a young Mexican couple who flew in for a visit. On arrival at the airport, she discovered that the Mexican couple had brought along seven other people, all of whom were expecting to stay with G. and her husband. Nice folks, apparently, but, er, well, it turned out to be a visit on a whole different scale than the one G. had been expecting. Nine people. But I blabber. So I'll stop. There's homework to do and food to eat. Later. rws 1:34 PM [+]
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