Remember what I wrote in yesterday's numerous duplicate entries re: the mellowness here – the lack of people, the relative tranquility? Turns out that tomorrow is Constitution Day (el Día de la Constitutión), a national holiday. Which creates a long weekend. Many Madrileños have apparently undertaken to turn it into a long, long weekend. Hence the decreased number of people on the streets and in the Metro -- loads of folks have fled the city in advance of the actual holiday, creating a Madrid that feels more relaxed and leisurely than normal. I like it.
Class today also proved to be a bit more congenial, a bit more laid back. In part because at least two of the four young German women were out most of last night partying and apparently engaging in amative pastimes. They showed for class late, nicely mellow and sleepy.
I add that bit about the amative pastimes because the two women put a number of questions to our instructor for the second leg of the day's classes -- a bright, vivacious woman named María -- re: colloquial terms for amorous activity. Which led to the disclosure of a whole poopload of terminology that could come in handy for those in search of something to spice up their conversational Spanish. For instance, a normal term for having sex is hacer amor (to make love). A slang term for the same thing: echar un polvo (as in "Anoche mi novia y yo intentamos echar un polvo en mi coche, pero no hubo espacio suficiente para bajar mis pantalones y en lugar de eso fuimos al cine" – ("Last night my girlfriend and I tried to make love in my car, but there wasn't enough space to lower my pants so we went to the movies instead.") Another slang term for the same thing: Echar un kiki.
So. A nice day, one that started out feeling mild with the slightest edge of coolness, but as the day progressed, clouds began trading off with the sun and the temperature edged its way down. By late this afternoon, the day had become distinctly cool, and by early this evening, when I emerged from the day's first showing of the new Harry Potter thingie (in English with Spanish subtitles), a cold wind had sprung up, the mercury had dropped substantially.
And the Harry Potter film? Hmm. Well, the kids do a good job, as does Kenneth Branagh. (Man, a flying car would be fun. Y un buen lugar para echar un polvo.)
************************
Notes from the trip from Vermont to Madrid of a few days ago:
Sunday, December 1: Woke up way too early, as often happens on days in which I'll be traveling, way too early in this case being 3:30 a.m. Read for a bit, then turned over and mimicked sleep for an hour, hoping my body would give up and drift off into unconsciousness. No go, though it was nice to lay there like that for a while, knowing what was coming.
Got up around 6, finished packing, blahblahblah. Snow fell all morning. When I left the house, the temperature outside hovered around 15 F. (Aiiieeee!) Which actually felt invigorating. Kit, the capable and extremely responsible person who'll be living in the house while I'm gone, drove me in to Montpelier where the bus showed up a couple of minutes after I got there. I was out there in the snow alone, waiting -- as soon as the bus driver emerged and took my ticket a crowd of other travelers descended on the bus like December locusts. I copped a seat by a window, next to a college-age woman wearing headphones and doing homework from a Developmental Biology textbook.
Out on I-89, the bus worked its way up the long grade that stretches south from Montpelier, the Green Mountains rising into view to the west as we gained elevation, Vermont gradually presenting a long, sprawling view of its central range, its north-south axis, in a cold, somber show of early winter beauty.