Where Has the Metro Lady Gone?

Here's a little sample of a typical morning for me here in Madrid.

7:30 - Phone alarm goes off.

7:35 - Phone alarm goes off again.

7:37 - "Tricky" phone alarm goes off, the one I set at an odd time the night before to remind me of the importance of things like showering before work and breakfast.

7:37 - Inner debate on the necessity of things like showering before my morning class and having breakfast.


7:42 - "Tricky" alarm goes off again. It's difficult to tell if it's getting lighter outside. Outside my window the light appears just as grey as before reflecting off the building opposite. In fact, no matter how much sun there is outside this is the same shade of grey it will be all day.


7:43 - Shower or breakfast. Never both.

8:05 - Proceed to metro station with a brisk pace. As the practice here seems to be to take up as much space in the sidewalk as possible, this requires a good amount of people dodging. A group of four in the appropriate formation is impassable.

8:10 - Arrive in metro.

Metro Madrid brags constantly about itself. There are still numerous posters up from its fall ad campaign, which shows among other things the Statue of Liberty on her knees staring, dumbfounded, at the metro entrance. There's also one with the Sphinx doing the same thing. I've never been in New York's or Cairo's subway-- I'm not sure if it's really furthers their cause by taking a jab at Egyptian infrastructure (no offense to Egypt, but the ad did come out just after the terrible rockslide)-- but it's true that Madrid system is pretty incredible. A three minute wait is rare in the morning.

One stop to Diego de Leon and then I switch trains, then go three more stops and I'm in Nuevos Ministerios. The trip takes almost exactly 25 minutes, during which I sometimes plan lessons, read, and of course listen to the variety of musicians performing in the halls and trains. Normally these musicians stick to one post, where they arrive punctually and leave at a set time, to be replaced by the next.

For the past 6 months I've listened to the woman sing in the hallway of Diego de Leon. I could hear her sad, droning voice as soon as I got off the train. She had four songs before Christmas, five after, two of which were Sinatra covers. One, my personal favorite and the one that just so happened to have the least amount of words could liven up my entire morning with its Eastern European beat, but unfortunately I only heard it once or twice a week out of the thirty others.

Last Monday she was gone, replaced by a young but scruffy violinist. I can't help but wonder what happened to her. It could be that she went to search for the missing verses of Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps-- she only had the chorus, some filler, and part of the intro-- or maybe she moved on to bigger and better things. I'm not saying that I didn't respect her efforts, but sometimes her voice in the morning made me want to throw something at her, just not enough to throw the only things available to me that she would have wanted: my phone and a few coins. Many people in Metro Madrid make a killing selling tissue paper; another friend of mine has talked excitingly about her plans to earn a living doing gymnastics (not stripteases, she insists) on the hand rails in the train.

She probably has it right. I've never seen a "gymnast" in the train, and the most original efforts seem to be worth as much as the most talented.

So like I said, I respect the metro lady for her efforts. It can't be easy being a semi-talented (talented in her punctuality and dedication, anyway, if such a thing is possible) metro performer doing unoriginal things at a generally unfriendly time of day. I hope things have gotten better for her. Maybe she's doing great, singing her heart out to appreciating passersby at a more appropriate time, like from 11pm to about 6am, when people in the metro are a little more primed for her performance.