WeekendConclusion: Domingo, 3 May

Time is running and I've fallen behind. My subject is the third day of the month after three such Sundays have passed. Recollections pile up like books without a librarian. Below me the same person who bangs on piano keys for hours each night is watching television with a megaphone attached to the speaker. Outside cars rush past like an irregular mechanical surf that occasionally whistles and growls. The bus lane makes the terrace door vibrate in its frame. The full foliage of the five-story maples lining the street provide shade without blocking the light. Like the view I took this afternoon gazing down Castellana toward Colón. A wide boulevard with raised grass paths on either side, partially arched over by maple trees the entire length of the stretch from my vantage point to the plaza. This grand corridor beneath such clear blue skies. My last student today, a lovely woman with an excellent command of English and a vibrant passion for Spanish culture, told me to pay more attention to the Spanish sky, especially over Madrid. She told me to look up the next time I find myself in Barcelona, where she said I would realize there are few skies as pure and blue as Madrid's.

...

I woke up around mid-day on the couch that has become my second mattress in this city, in a room awash in sunlight reflected off the white plaster wall only a dozen feet across the patio of my freinds' Tribunal apartment. Juan and Christine were down in Murcia for a music festival, but Natalia was about to wake up in the other room and offer to cook some breakfast. Slow eggs and chorizo went down well with toast after the long day before, and we slowly came back to life over dirty plates and cups of café - hers the full con leche, mine the less milky cortado - from the Café Cotidiano downstairs. A clean, well-lit cafe on a narrow but very busy street. They have wonderful pictures on the walls. Some are of Madrid but others are in Paris or elsewhere but all of them are lovely and I would like to take some of my own like them to have whenever I do leave this place.
After breakfast Natalia declared her intentions to remain indoors for the duration of the day, but having been outside already I was anxious to clean myself and feel satisfied by nightfall. I never feel satisfaction after an entire day indoors. Sometimes it feels necessary and sometimes it feels comfortable, but never satisfying. So I walked back through Malasaña, eyeing the tarnished streets of calle Palma and Noviciado and revisiting scenes of the merriment from the night before. You can always tell it's a weekend morning in that area by counting the plastic vasos tubos on the street that people buy for 25 centimos in the Chinos with their botellon supplies of rum, coke, wine, and beer and things. It had been a long night for some.
Back at the flat I just started to clean things up a bit when my phone rang with a strange number on the screen. It was Cam, a new friend from the first party on Friday.
"Hey man how was your night?
Oh yeah, that's cool man. Hey listen, what are you doing today?
Well how would you feel about going to see a bullfight?"

It was one of those times (which always seem to be on the rise along the course of Spring) when a fellow has to admit he's got no reason to say anything but yes. So long as it's not too expensive.

It was somewhere around 3 and the corrida wasn't until 6 so I had time to relax and have a quick shower before heading out toward Las Ventas up Northeast way. God, I'm telling you that TV is loud. But at least my casera and her daughter are still out and I can sit in the salon without our TV joining the chorus. Along the way on the 5 I got a message from Cam. He had bought the tickets already and was waiting beneath the bronze statue of glorified torreros out front. Apparently the price was right. So I found cam and with some time to spare we went over to TRu's flat around the corner from the Plaza de Toros, picking up some beer and candy along the way. There we sat and had a smoke while they recalled their bullfight and spun tittilating tales of pomp and ceremony. But we didn't want to miss the opening acts they told us, so we made our way back to get our seats.

In through the massive iron gate and up up and up we went until someone finally gave an approving look and ushered us to our third tier bench. Travis had assured us that there was nowhere in the bullring, despite it's size, that was too far from the floor below to catch a good show. I doubted that very much, but he was right. The view was spectacular and so was the show. I'm not going to attempt an ernest description of such an event, but I will say that I left the ring satisfied. I left it feeling a little more aware of the traditions of this foreign land. And I left wanting to learn a lot more. 3 torreros, 6 toros. Some where not so well matched, and their intercourse was something more vulgar and forced. But others put on a visceral ballet, with at times terrifying grace that could leave you reeling. At the risk of being judged a bastard and a beast, I will say that I liked what I saw and I want to become more familiar with the deadly dance. The old woman behind me would call out cheers or jeers and I would wonder what it was that she was seeing that was lost on me. People would stand a clap, sometimes for obvious reasons but others for seemingly no reason at all. But it was not a thirst for blood as some might expect. It was an appreciation for spectacle. A romanesque gathering that brought on a newfound appreciation for the strange Spanish love of everything Toro.

And this was just the first fin de...