Christmas is in a bit of a transition period here in Spain. From what I gathered from interviewing my students, only about half of the families exchange gifts on Christmas, while the rest follow the Spanish tradition and wait for King's Day on the 6th of January. Several of my students do both, which to me seems like cheating. Really though, I suppose we could all use more days to exchange gifts on. However, here the real holiday seemed much more to be Christmas Eve. Even the metro closed early, as I would discover just in time.
I had been meaning to take pictures of the lights for several weeks (note my prior post on Christmas) but I finally managed to overcome vacation laziness to snag a few in the Goya shopping district. Technically Goya and Las Ventas, my neighborhood, are all part of the Salamanca district, which is the reason people tend to make funny "ooo rich boy" noises when I tell them where I live. Still, just like in almost every other neighborhood, El Corte Ingles maintained the most dominating light display. The giant snow flakes actually drip in real time.
The streets were almost completely empty. I'd never seen anything like it in Madrid before 3am, so I jogged into the metro, just in time to see my train leaving. A voice came on saying that the last train had just left, but it really meant was that one more train would come in 12 minutes. The metro in Madrid has spoiled me. 12 minutes feels like a really long time to wait.
But wait I did, because it was time to celebrate Christmas Eve Spain style: by drinking and eating with friends and family. My family is scattered throughout the world this Christmas, and I had already eaten, so I opted for the only options left to me. Actually, I did eat a bite of sandwich at about 11, and an entire sandwich at 9 that morning, so maybe I only really missed out on one part (albeit a big part of Christmas). The "chinos" were still open, for the most part, the little stores that sell dried food and alcohol and are typically run by...
It was a pretty typical Christmas, really; music preference competition, discoteca, shots, 9am sandwich as a night cap. I was a little surprised to see so many people still drinking at the bar at 9, but not really. At least one person in the bar had the good since to be asleep.
Feliz Navidad
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