Snow is not something we get very often in Madrid, not at all. Last snowfall I remember was sometime in the winter of 1999 and it was just an afternoon of snow. Sure we were let out of school to play outside but in a few hours the snow was gone, and we were all back home, soacking wet with a very sore throat (lots of screaming plus very light coats have that outcome)...
January 9th 8 am and I get off the bus to go to class (Oh joy!) as I step out I feel something cold lightly touching my face... After two days of temperatures below zero it has started snowing in Madrid, and it keeps snowing for more than ten hours. By 10:30 am, the time of our coffee break (I am going to say coffee break because it sounds more adult-like, but we have breaks every morning, just like school kids), the street is covered in snow, I am wearing my very thin red shoes and Ale is wearing high heels, us madrileños really know how to cope with bad weather... just crossing the street is quite an adventure and the preassure is increased by the fact that one doesn't want to trip and fall in a street full of the people she's been seeing everyday for the last six years.
January 9th 8 am and I get off the bus to go to class (Oh joy!) as I step out I feel something cold lightly touching my face... After two days of temperatures below zero it has started snowing in Madrid, and it keeps snowing for more than ten hours. By 10:30 am, the time of our coffee break (I am going to say coffee break because it sounds more adult-like, but we have breaks every morning, just like school kids), the street is covered in snow, I am wearing my very thin red shoes and Ale is wearing high heels, us madrileños really know how to cope with bad weather... just crossing the street is quite an adventure and the preassure is increased by the fact that one doesn't want to trip and fall in a street full of the people she's been seeing everyday for the last six years.
Barajas Airport
(Photo: Javier Beneytez taken from elmundo.es)
(Photo: Javier Beneytez taken from elmundo.es)
We make it to our cafe, the one we go to every day, sometimes twice, or three times, breakfast, beer before lunch, lunch, coffee after lunch, coffe after class... En fin... Back to ICADE just to find out spanish bureaucracy is just as slow as I remembered, plus everyone is worried with the snow outside, parents calling warning their kids to be careful with the car, streets covered by a thick white sheet (thick for spanish standards at least!), there is no salt left to avoid the snow from turning into ice, people slipping while they walk, fifteen times more emergency calls than a normal day, Barajas airport closed, one thousand flights cancelled 400 km of traffic jams... Ahh Spain is different!! But this time we have an excuse, it hasn't snowed like this since 1977, and we are not ready for it.
Cibeles (taken from ABC.es)
The bus back home shows me a side of Madrid I had never seen, I feel like I'm in a post card. El Paseo de Recoletos is covered in snow, the goddess Cibeles gives me an odd look as I pass by her, her lions are covered in snow, she is covered in snow and the fountain is completely frozen. I pity her, outside in the cold while I watch everything from a bus with heating. Not romantic at all, but very cosy at the moment. My memories drift back to a morning in late november, when I woke up to a very white Philadelphia and a beautiful Locust Walk covered in snow, I should have taken pictures then, I should have taken pictures of Madrid yesterday... but I lost my camera in a Bolt bus, and my telephone had no battery (just my luck) so all I have are memories, memories that get blurrier by the minute.
Paseo de Recoletos (Photo: EFE)
Off the bus and I walk home trying not to fall, yet again. I successfully make it with my pride unharmed but my shoes are soacking wet, my feet are freezing cold and black. Yes, black, it seems the shoes tainted them, and there is no human way of taking that black away... I could be a Siksika at the moment... But I am not. I am a Cat, and we cats are not used to snow, even if some of us go skiing from time to time.
I take a two hour nap and when I wake up it's dark and still snowing. My sister and I meet Maria and Daniel for dinner. We go bar hopping to the most traditional/popular/old/us
Una ración de gambas a la plancha, croquetas, tortilla brava, calamares, bacalao and some cañas later we head home. It is amazingly easy to get a taxi for Madrid standards as the city has decided to rest for once on a friday night.
Saturday morning and Madrid is surprisingly white still, the low temperatures have kept the snow on the trees and the roof tops. From my 13th floor window I see cars covered in snow, people still walking carefully to avoid the ice and lots of small columns of white smoke, every house has the heating on, shops have sold more heating devices in the last two days than in the whole winter.
-5º Celsius, Madrid is not used to the cold, and nor am I.
*** Siksika: Black feet Indians. http://www.accessgenealogy
Cat (Gato): People from Madrid. From what I've read online, the name dates back from the XI century, when the troops of King Alfonso VI reconquered the city climbing its walls, just like cats.
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