Local newspaper headline from last Thursday: "The long weekend will bring traffic jams and bad weather." A safe prediction, given that half the city tried to bolt at more or less the same time. Nasty weather never arrived, though, at least in Madrid. Until yesterday. The day dawned overcast, with a damp chill in the air. In class, Patricia (nuestra profesora durante la primara mitad) fretted about whether the weather report had indicated that the clouds would actually start behaving badly at some point. Mid-afternoon they started.
Rain fell into the evening, then into the night. A strange sight, considering that most of the Madrid's calendar year is rain-free. Looks kind of like London when it rains here, except for all the, er, Spaniards. And all Spanish-language signage everywhere. And some of the architecture. Apart from that, the city looks like surprisingly like London in the rain.
One other difference, now that I think about it: far fewer people use umbrellas here than in London. Here they just seem to carry on with whatever they're doing, getting wetter and wetter. The younger folks hunch up their shoulders, the older ones simply trudge along. Resigned. I suppose if one lived through any part of the Franco years, stoicism may come easily. (Or resignation.)
Took myself to a movie at a 9-screen theater up the hill from la Plaza de la Puerta del Sol, to the first showing of the day. One of the theaters that show foreign films in the original voice, subtitled in Spanish. Watched the latest Woody Allen film, "Hollywood Ending" (called "Un Final Made In Hollywood" here -- why they mix Spanish and English like that I couldn't tell you, but there there it is). Good film -- great story, funny, fine acting, an inspired twist at the end. Strong stuff, really (though I will confess it's been a while since I believed him as the guy who gets the young, beautiful woman -- this is why "Sweet and Lowdown" worked so well for me: he gave the male lead to someone else, to a fine actor who could pull it off). Afterward, making my way down the hill in the rain toward Sol, I walked behind a 20-something couple, arms around each other, talking as they went. A small, white-haired, bent-over elderly gentleman approached from the other direction -- no umbrella, walking quickly, expression a tad goofy. As he neared the couple, he pulled something from a pocket, began talking into it -- no different from the rest of Spain's cellphone-obsessed population. When he passed, I could see he was talking into a harmonica, not a cellphone. The young woman in front of me also noticed and began cracking up. Walking in the rain with her guy, her lovely laugh rising into the falling evening.