Snow

Despite what your ideas of Spain might be, and what mine were, it snowed a whole 4 inches here (a few weeks ago, my posts are still on backorder). Yes admits the palm trees and white washed walls there was snow in Majadahonda. Granted we're a little outside of the city, slightly to the north and in view of the snow-capped mountain range where Madridites go skiing, but still 4 inches of snow, even in Majadahonda, is apparently unheard of. I felt like a little kid when I woke up late looked up at my skylights only to see they were covered with snow. In an instant, my reflexive inner delight took over, it was like waking up to snow at home, thoughts raced fast to the hope of school being canceled, the possibilities of walking and building out in fresh snow. I raced to my skylight and pushed it open, so as to revel at the sight of outside. I heard shouts and looked down to see two boys having a snow fight outside my apartment building.

Instinctively I dressed quickly, donning boots hat and gloves and grabbing my camera. This was an event not to be missed, the reactions of these Spanish suburbites to this bombardment of snow. Here street cleaning is a 24 hour job, it seems like there is no time of day when you can step outside and not see a person in a neon green and yellow jumpsuit cleaning up every butt and piece of gum that has fallen to the sidewalk. It was no surprise then that the people who normally pick up wrappers and leaves were hard at work on a Sunday morning trying to manage this new type of litter. I had laughed to myself earlier in the year when a dusting of snow called for a dumping of salt, so much that the salt on the sidewalk was a much bigger nuisance for much longer than the snow ever would have been. This morning there was not salt in sight, but there were shop owners trying to deal with the snow in any way they could, including sweeping.

There were also, a plethora of children outside. This, as I have said, is a normal Sunday occurrence. Sunday brings out the people, even in colder temperatures; you’re likely to see a lot of people outside on a Sunday. Here too it was the case, but I soon became confused, because there were children in costumes, which is not an average Sunday occurrence. So as I walked further and further down the wide sidewalk street that is the center of the suburb, I couldn’t help noticing more and more children in costumes. I figured it was children dressed up for carnival, I had heard there was activities for the children in Madrid on Sunday, because as it happens this snow event happened the day after the carnival that I just wrote about.

I assumed, wrongly, that the children were on their way to Madrid. Apparently I had underestimated Majadahonda. At the end of the sidewalk street people were gathered with their children, waiting for something, and not far off I heard music playing. My innocent query to see the children in the snow had been answered with a mini parade and the joint joy of seeing the carnival in Majadahonda in the snow. Everyone was in rare mood, for one reason or the other. Children threw snow at their parents, and the parents just smiled and threw snow back (where as parents in climates that receive snow more regularly are less tolerant to such attacks) children all along the street were making snow men, this one using palm leaves for hair. A rare sight indeed.

For icing on the cake, the music drew closer and a parade of jester like carnival characters poured forth onto the street. They became the new target for the snowballs, but like the parents they seemed to be delighted by it rather than upset. It became part of the act. The small parade delighted the children of Majadahonda who had come out in their boots and costumes. And the morning spent with the people and in the snow delighted me. Just being out for an hour in the wet snow my feet got wet and cold. It felt good to return to my warm room and hang up my things wet from the snow. These simple actions and feelings came welcome and familiar. They brought me back across the Atlantic, for a fleeting second or two over the course of this morning; I might have easily been there as here.