[continued from previous entry]
These last couple of days, Madrid has turned dark with overcast and rain. A shock, and so drastically different from what the city has enjoyed this autumn that as I sat and worked on an espresso and something to eat in the local plaza's cafetería, most of the rest of the clientele stared mutely out at the scene: low gray skies, rain coming down, people hurrying along, coats marked with dark moisture stains, shoulders hunched up. Literally half the people sitting at or near the counter stood facing the big windows that look out on the plaza, appearing either a bit stunned or sunk in unhappy thoughts.
It's that kind of weather. The positive notes: the rain is good for the parched earth of the central peninsula, and last night the temperature slid upward substantially, from well below zero to substantially above. A small blessing that I appreciate as I squelch my way down narrow local streets.
This turn in the weather has endowed this week with a strange sense of, well, strangeness. Making it feel like an extension of last week, unsettled and odd. One strangely positive part of last week's weirdness was the continuing fall-out from the brouhaha at the Iberoamerican Summit in Chile, where Hugo Chávez's ongoing love of hearing himself talk and talk and talk, could not restrain himself from repeatedly interrupting the Spanish President during his turn to speak, a show of bizarre behavior that included calling José María Aznar -- ex-President of Spain and pal to G.W. Bush, tossed out of power in the wake of the Madrid bombings in March ‘04 -- a fascist. Putting President Zapatero in the unaccustomed position of defending Aznar, which he did with poise, even as Chávez continued spewing verbiage out of turn, trashing protocol and acting like a half-bright child on an uncontrollable sugar high.
[continued in entry of December 4]
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Stringing Christmas lights in la Plaza de Chueca, Madrid:
España, te quiero.
rws 1:01 PM [+]
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