It's Thursday. How did that happen?
The first wave of Christmas decorations appeared in Madrid this last weekend. Accompanied by seasonal weather, holiday lights shining softly out from store windows in the first gray, cold days of December. A few major stores had already installed some fairly massive displays (most notably el Corte Inglés), but if they'd thrown the switch on them before Saturday, nothing had caught caught my eye.
The city slung up the first of the street decorations, festive lights stretched across streets both narrow and broad. Not lit yet that I've seen, crews continue stringing them up. At some point they'll give them the juice, nighttime Madrid will become brilliant and gaudy. (In a tasteful yuletide way.)
El Corte Inglés, guilty of sprawling expanses of holiday lights/decorations at its many large stores, has erected one humongo display along the side of its flagship store in Sol -- 'Cortylandia,' a variation on the standard Toyland theme. Huge, castle-like, covered with lights, dotted with drawbridges, turrets, doors, banners flying, happy holidays creatures, music and long spoken passages booming out. Adding up to a bona fide spectacle that attracts big crowds during the evening hours, sometimes overflowing the side street/pedestrian way that abut each other on that side of the store. It is one overblown motherfucker of a Christmastime department store extravaganza, one whose scope and ambition I admire, though I will admit that I can't take in more than a few minutes of it at a time. (Cheesy? Whooeeee!) And that's okay -- a whole lot of other people get a kick out of it.
I enjoy passing by, though -- hearing the amplified voices, getting a brief eyeful of light, color, motion, all on a grand scale. Watching children transfixed by it all. (The photo below, second from the left, comes nowhere near doing it justice.)
The genuinely cold weather has forced the locals to pull out winter garb, everyone sporting heavy jackets, nice cloth coats, puffy jobs of the North Face variety. Leg warmers have made a sudden comeback, gloves and scarfs have appeared, along with boots or warm shoes. Looking seriously like December, and provoking loads of complaints, the Madrileños not generally being a bunch who pine for real winter weather. Compared to northern Vermont, these are not trying conditions, but I try to keep that sentiment to myself. They don't need some jerk from the States inflicting a shot of perspective on them.
[Above, from left to right: (1) la Calle de Arenal, looking toward la Plaza de la Puerta del Sol (Madrid's central crossroads); (2) a partial view of Cortylandia (the bugger being large enough that it would not fit it into one image); (3) Gran Vía, looking west toward la Plaza de Callao, where the avenue veers to the north; (4) the main pedestrian way between Sol and Callao, one of several that form a network of carless streets in the city center, a fine place to shop, get some café or people watch.]
I've been back in Madrid for slightly more than two weeks now, and have gotten into the habit of carrying my digital camera with me most every time I head outdoors. A major change in m.o., me being one who's preferred not to appear tourist-like in any way, shape or form. There's something about this high-tech bugger, though, that's made the leap a breeze. It slips into a jacket pocket unobtrusively, not showing until I pull it out. Easy to operate, easy to transfer the phots to my laptop. I'll be walking somewhere, notice something, pull out the camera, stand there for a while. Take a shot or two. Stand there some more, staring, aim it again, shoot some more. Some people take no notice. Others make a point of walking around me rather than through the shot. Others stop and wait. I'll finish quickly, say, "¡Gracias!", they'll resume course, calling out a cheerful, "¡De nada!" I'm not sure it could get more civilized.
In fact, my second or third day back in the city: me around the corner from here, shooting a doorway [entry of Nov. 21, first photo]. Street and sidewalks so narrow that I had to cross the street and crouch up against the wall to get the entire image. I'm squatting there, happily working away. A UPS truck swings around the corner, I hear it slow down. I look up, I realize the driver has stopped to allow me to finish what I'm doing. A UPS truck came to a halt, bringing one or two vehicles behind it to a halt, to let me get a photo. Looking like the last thing he wants to do is screw up the shot. I motion for him to go by, give him a wave of thanks. He waves back, drives on. The other drivers pass, no one appearing bothered at having stopped for the guy with the camera.
Just about made my day, that one moment.
We often get a bad rap, we humans. A lot of the time, though, in a lot of ways, I think we do all right.
rws 10:38 AM [+]