Serious Partying

 

A walk through Madrid Río and the Festival con B de Bici

This is a post about how "the greens of summer...make you think all the world's a sunny day," so there are lots of photos and videos.

Selfie on a sunny Saturday afternoon, on the Arganzuela Footbridge(aka the "swirly bridge" or "unfinished bridge") in Madrid Río

What a lovely day.  I don't normally like selfies (so this blog will not feature many), but I think that in the picture above all of what is now the official "Saturday Hang Out Group" look as happy as we felt.  And the kind of happiness that comes from sharing a meal and a walk on a beautiful Saturday afternoon with friends is something that should be shared.



During the Fulbright orientation we listened to a lot of clichés about how Spaniards "enjoy life" and are "not workaholics" like Americans.  (Though actually, as fellow Fulbrighter Ruth pointed out over lunch today, Spaniards work longer hours and retire later than most countries in Western Europe.)  In any case, I tend to take the stereotypes about easy-going Spaniards with a grain of salt, but something that's struck me for years (really since my first Semana Negra in 2003) is how seriously Spaniards take parties.  I don't mean just that they party hard (though certainly some do), or even that they have lots of fiestas (though that's true too).  I mean that it was at my first Semana that I figured out something I've seen confirmed many times since, including at today's "Festival con B."  Namely, Spanish fiestas almost always have what you might call an ethical dimension.  Some of the more traditional ethical underpinnings of Spanish public celebrations are creepy as all get-out, but at their core they are serious.  (Yes, I'm looking at you Semana Santa, where people get cold beers and cotton candy while listening to music and cheering for graphically violent sculptural representations of torture and execution, and historical re-enactments of processions of "penitents" led to equally violent torture and execution....and then there's always the supposed symbolism of bull-fighting, where the bulls somehow are supposed to represent something other than steak in potentia.)  Some people take the general exuberance of these celebrations as evidence that the Spanish don't take things seriously (the "enjoying life" cliché), but I tend to have the feeling that on the contrary, the idea that public joy is a serious ethical statement is profoundly woven into Spanish culture.

The idea is perhaps most obvious at the Semana, where (as I once described it when I first saw it) the music and food and entertainment surrounding the rather serious political discussions can be summed up not as "if I can't dance you can keep your revolution" but rather as "if we don't dance, the revolution won't happen."  I suppose having spent so much time trying to imagine Madrid (and other parts of Spain) in some of their darkest periods for my books, I'm always acutely aware of the sunshine and the relative prosperity and plenty of the city now, but I don't think it's just my imagination that there seems (at least among what might loosely be termed the Spanish left) to be a sense (perhaps left over from the puritanical Franco years) that happiness is both powerful and subversive.

Hence the Festival con B.

 Of course there was a sound stage.







And of course there was a BMX track for kids.

The "mercadillo" of second hand bikes succeeded in tempting my fellow Fulbrighters.  (I rode a Brompton and now covet one, but can't justify the price tag, alas.)

But they weren't the only ones tempted

And of course there was a musical chairs game going one with loud eighties music (I suggested Emily and her new bike do the lift from Dirty Dancing when they started playing "I've Had the Time of My Life."  I only meant she should lift the bike, but I think she thought I was proposing trick riding, and refused, with some horror.)  There were tons of confetti tossed over the musical chairs contestants while they danced around what (when the crowd cleared) proved to be little bicycle seats mounted in the sand.  So the "sillines musicales" involved jumping onto a bicycle "sillín" to be properly topical

In short, the Matadero was wonderful, as it always is.  (Ruth, who lives right by it, and has done research in Madrid before) spent a lot of time telling us all the other activities that go on here, and gave special mention to the food trucks.)  But really, by the time we got there we had already had a lesson in how to have a happy summer day.

Ruth, Emily, and Christina arrived at my apartment just as I was finishing preparing the fresh filetes de perca that I had purchased at my local pescadería.  Someday I will learn not to buy vastly too much fish, but they were polite about the fish (though I still think it's missing something - "maybe some pimiento" Ruth suggested when I voiced my concern), and Ruth took some home for leftovers.  After a happy and hilarious lunch, finished off with the amazing and delicious little pastries Ruth had brought from bakery near the Biblioteca Nacional where she's made friends with the staff, and after Emily insisted (to my embarrassment) on doing dishes and discovered the dish rack that I did not realize the apartment had (oops, embarrassed on two counts), we all headed out into the sunshine, determined to walk as far as possible before getting on a bus to go to the Festival con B.  I took them  to see the wonderful view of the city from the corner of the Calle Zaida and Calle Jose Maria Peman.  Then we wandered downhill through the part of the neighborhood I call the "pueblo" that I think looks tropical (I have to take pictures and post them soon), to the Avenida General Ricardos, and then from there to the Puente de Toledo, where Emily (whose research is in Renaissance art) was enchanted and took pictures.  Ruth led us confidently across the bridge, and then back across the new "swirly bridge" (I looked it up and the official name is the "Puente de Arganzuela"), where of course we all stopped and took more photos

Then it was on to the swings which Ruth insisted we had to see.  And by see she meant "try." 

Then of course there was the shaking bridge, and the balancing logs and the other playground things, all of which we were all pretty sure were for adults, in spite of a sign that said "de 3 a 12 años."  They probably just lost a decimal point somewhere, and meant 30 and up.

It was late afternoon by then, and the siesta was ending (Emily had worried a little about going out during it, but figured that it would be over by the end of our walk, as indeed it was), and there was marvelous side-lighting, making the already beautiful Madrid Río even more beautiful.  (Christina is studying visual media for her MA program here in Madrid, and wants to be a film maker, and was sad that she only had her phone to take pictures, though she took advantage of that.)

By the time we got to the "Festival con B" and stopped for a drink and extra snack at the food trucks (not so much because of being hungry but because there were food trucks and picnic tables in the sun) we had discussed everything from Renaissance art to the male gaze and ways to discomfit it to vegan ink tattoos.  We left the Festival con B with Emily wheeling her new bike (which has fat wheels and a very stylish green paint job, as well as new shimano brakes, and was quite a bargain with warranty included), and said friendly farewells, with promises to get together again soon.  (There have been suggestions about walking along the river in the other direction to the lago in the Casa de Campo and renting a pedal boat on the lake, and also some thoughts about going to old movies and new dance performances.)  How nice that a few days ago we were strangers and now we are the "Saturday hang-out group."  May this be the beginning of a new Madrid tradition, in the best Spanish tradition of "serious play."

I walked back to Marques de Vadillo, but I admit I took the bus home from there because I was tired.  I had the slight feeling of a day at the beach, which I think resulted from being out in the sun all afternoon after forgetting to put on sunblock.  It was a cool, windy day (cool enough that on the walk home I started wishing for a light sweater when the wind blew and the shadows lengthened, though I'd say it was in the mid-sixties still), of the kind when one sunburns easily because one doesn't notice it.  But when I got home I was pleasantly tired and sun-kissed.  And there were the last two delicious little pastries Ruth had brought waiting for me.  That seemed like a good omen.  😊

The view from the Puente de Toledo at sunset, looking East