What I wrote yesterday about not being sure what I'd do with myself during this long, long weekend? I've been sitting here wondering how I could ever have seen that as a problem.
Several days' worth of free time -- just the thought has me feeling obnoxiously content.
The barrio -- normally alive with the sounds of people, vehicles, businesses opening on a weekday morning like this -- lay quiet this morning. Not the quiet of boredom -- the quiet of peace, of citizenry home in bed, of a slow start to a relaxed day. The kind of morning in which staying in bed until 9 (bare minimum) happens easily, naturally. Stepping out into empty streets slightly after 10:30 revealed a cool morning, sunlight filtering down through high clouds. A few souls wandered around the plaza down the street, all looking as if they hadn't expected to find everything -- news kiosk, cafeterÃas, grocery shops -- dark, doors closed. A 50ish Spanish woman and her two daughters -- brandishing a Madrid map, appearing a bit desperate -- caught sight of me and rushed over, asking if some towers they were seeking might be situated here in the neighborhood. "Torres?" I asked, they nodded in response, hope fading from their eyes as they studied my expression. I shook my head, said I didn't think so, they looked at each other, turned and flew back down into the Metro.
I made the hike to an open news kiosk, picked up a paper, gravitated toward a nearby cafeterÃa -- the only one open for blocks -- for the morning caffeine fix. Then took a walk into the city center.
Stores along the main drags did business -- not as many as on a normal day, but enough to provide energy, movement, life. The center is currently awash with French and American tourists, many getting the idea that Easter weekend might not be the best time to investigate Madrid if one is looking for things to do.
On the other hand, two nights ago I spoke with a Spanish woman who works as an English language tour guide in the Royal Palace. She complained bitterly about the flood of furriners that passes through the Palace during Easter week -- the Wednesday through Saturday before Easter apparently provide the year's heaviest tourist traffic, she was not looking to forward to enduring it. It may be that I connected with her at a bad moment, her half of the conversation consisting heavily of complaints, principally about (a) this week's workload and (b) the ongoing obnoxious comportment of el Partido Popular, the right-wing party voted out of office a year ago, who have not accepted their defeat and find reasons on a daily basis to spew aggressive, at times venemous, rhetoric -- the only reliable source of hard-core ugliness in the present Spanish political scene. (One of the issues that currently has them upset is the removal of Madrid's last remaining statue of the defunct dictator Francisco Franco, followed by a like removal in the city of Granada in the wee hours yesterday.)
I counseled ignoring the political silliness. Not sure she bought it. Ah, well. We'll see what she has to say next week, once Easter 2005 is history and things have settled down in the Palace.
On to the day.
*************
Clothing store window, Madrid:
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 8:07 AM [+]
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