The Easter season began nine days ago in these parts, a massive number of locals bolting the city on the Friday before Palm Sunday, producing long, sprawling highway traffic back-ups and an immediate quieting of activity/noise level in the city. The days since then have grown increasingly quiet, sedate, with business hours so different, so out of whack compared with the 'normal' model, that I began losing my sense of the days of the week. To the point that by this last Thursday and Friday I found myself pausing at moments to figure out where, in calendar terms, we actually were.
Most businesses closed Thursday/Friday. Some opened up again for part of Saturday, though no newspapers published. City traffic thinned out, as has the number of people walking the streets, to where Friday and Saturday evenings barely resembled the Madrid I'm accustomed to. In this barrio, normally a weekend focal point of nightlife, streets and plazas normally alive with folks walking, standing in groups, seated at tables eating/drinking were practically deserted. At night, the contrast has felt eerily disorienting. The days, however, have felt relaxed in a way that's been a relief after the intensity of the last month. (A month ago this morning the city was jolted -- a word that hardly describes the actual experience -- by the bombings, followed three days later national elections and a drastic alteration of the Spanish political landscape.)
People with luggage and backpacks have been everywhere. The presence of French and American tourists has increased drastically, those languages suddenly far more common than normal. Beefed up security concerns have resulted in a much more visible (though surprisingly unintrusive) police presence, especially in the Metro where city cops have joined the numerous private cops for the first time.
Went down into the Metro last night, passing through a startlingly empty Plaza de Chueca on the way, past a couple of private cops hanging out by the turnstiles, watching the few who passed by attentively. A train pulled in, nearly empty -- the polar opposite of the norm for a Saturday night here. I got on board, took a seat. Across from me and a couple of seats along, two Spanish 20-something slackers -- one holding a half-empty liter bottle of beer, the other with a nearly full liter bottle of coke/wine (the color is the giveaway) -- sat, leaning against each other, both half in the bag, conversing in the Spanish version of slackertalk. A 30ish woman sat across from me, appearing unhappy about her proximity to the slackerdudes. They minded their own business, though, paying attention to no one but each other, so she remained where she was.
I got off at the next stop, the slackers exiting behind me, one responding to something the other said with, "Tio, eso es lo que me hace gracia." ("Dude, that's what I think is so funny.") I headed up to the street, passing a cluster of four or five private cops along with two city cops by the turnstiles. Wondered if the slackers would get hassled by the detex for public drinking, didn't wait to see. Ascended the stairs to open air and comparatively quiet streets.
Images from the Semana Santa (holy week) religious processions have become ubiquitous on local television channels these last few days, and Madrid has had its share of those processions moving through the city during the evenings. I made no effort to attend any this year after witnessing two last year. Compared with the spectacular processions I saw in Granada in 2002, the local version, well, had little impact.
And what have I done with myself these last few days? Er... surprisingly little. Slept late, read the morning paper (days it's been published) over long cups of a.m. espresso. Ate quite a bit (though you wouldn't know it to look at me). Watched people, went to movies. Wandered about with my camera, enjoying the city, watching people. Noted the 10-story ad for Pedro Almodóvar's latest, covering the front of a building on Gran Vía (except for the street-level cine, where the film plays).
And yesterday, unexpectedly, the sensation of being adrift in time disappeared, replaced by the sure feeling of a Saturday. Due, apparently, to Monday bringing the return of the normal work universe, rendering this a normal weekend instead of two nebulous days in a long string of oddly unstructured calendar entries. No more half the local population off swanning about the coast or the mountains, no more stores or restaurants closing because they feel like taking some time off. Back to earning an honest euro. Which has dragged everything else back to earth, nailing local life back into its more familiar, predictable framework.
Most everyone heads back to the city today, this morning's paper contained recommended routes for the returning throngs. Parking spaces that appeared in the neighborhood during recent days -- normally as difficult to come across as neutrino sightings -- will disappear once again as local equilibrium is restored.
Adrift in time no more.
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 8:46 AM [+]