It is already November, and shadows of the clouds have been covering the streets of sunny Madrid for days. I thought it would never be cold here. The scorching August and fiery Sept-ember had led me to believe in the myth of the endless Spanish summer.
In those last summer days, I would sit on the cool tiled floor of my bedroom, with the window opened widely, desperately searching for my hand-painted red fan. And then the jazz would come. The promiscuous notes of a saxophone always found their way into my room. When it was warm, the jazz band played in the bar downstairs, unknowingly serenading me.
But that was summer. It is autumn now and the city has transformed. Madrid in autumn becomes more pensive, more serious.
But not too serious. The bars are always full. Even now, at 1:23 a.m. on a chilly Thursday night, I can hear the voices of men and women chatting and laughing in El Cruz de Malta, the bar underneath my apartment.
Days of the week get lost in Madrid. Sometimes on Thursdays the bar is full of noise and on Saturdays it’s silent. You have fun when you want to, not when you have to. Going out and having a good time are not reserved strictly for Friday and Saturday nights. You can hear people enjoying themselves almost every night of the week, especially on nights Real Madrid has a game.
One night every year, called La Noche en Blanco (“The Night in White”), all of Madrid’s theaters, stadiums, museums, palaces and other public attractions stay open all night. The entrance to everything is free, and there are many concerts and performances that take place around the city. The slogan for this night this year was, “Better dreams come to a city that never sleeps.”
And Madrid never sleeps. That is one of the challenges of being a student here. You have three options: sleep, study or go out-but you can only choose two at a time.
I live by a variation of the motto above: Better dreams come to those who don’t have time to sleep.
Even now, in the cold, there is always something to do. November is jazz month in Madrid. Jazz brings back the warm memories of those summer nights spent with the windows opened. And as the seasons turn, and my stay here comes to an end, I realize that in these few short months, this city has become a part of me.
I started this column with the idea that I would convince some of you to take the opportunity to study abroad in Madrid. But I seem to be reminiscing; I’m being a bit nostalgic because I know I will miss this city, its lively streets, its noisy bars, its heat, its rain, its wind. I will miss the way it looks after me when I walk its streets.
And I will especially miss the way I can always hear a stray jazz note that can carry me with it, like the wind, up and over the streets, above the buildings and into the cloudy autumn sky.
Dorotea Lechkova is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences studying in Madrid, Spain.
