Leaving trip on Sunday morning, and although not too early the city has that forlorn, as science fiction film in which the inhabitants of Earth have disappeared and only stayed a few: the bar where breakfast waiter, who is also an oven, and a customer who comes to buy a loaf of bread or coffee as it passes slowly Sunday newspaper pages and in the AVE station in Seville few travelers do not seem to have that rush so annoying and contagious for those who boarded the train during the week. 
Now I brought the notebook and pen, just in case, but I also promised that during these three days I will not write, just take notes, take pictures and walk about the places in Madrid where my move characters. I have to visit a few places, the rest is improvised. Until not too Madrid years I was excited, I confess, but little by little I learned to enjoy the city, despite the bustle of many streets, although it has never ceased to seem upset, I have come to find stimulating.
I can not remember how many times I went through Madrid or between autumn 2009 and spring 2010. Many, and I think the last time was the day I closed the book fair in Retiro. So did a couple of months he started to write my new novel, and had written many pages in the AVE, leaning over the table, the talks concentrated to repel annoying people on cell phones, looking from time to when the view out the window. 
I have looking forward to Despeñaperros. The past few weeks I've been writing several chapters that happen on a train between Madrid and Andalucia in January 1950, exactly sixty-one years before now, and seeing the cliffs and the wild landscape of Sierra Morena for me is like traveling past but also within the pages of a book that so far only exists in my head and my notebook and I keep as a treasure. Everyone who looks through the window is not me, but any character that has accompanied me since the spring and will continue to accompany me for a few months.
When is very close to reach Madrid see a shantytown. I call attention to a huge SUV and a luxury tourism sheltered under a sunshade. Shakes the contrast. I wonder if in some of these huts will also have plasma TVs and laptops. However the TGV travels so fast that the landscape changes quickly. After a moment we arrived at Atocha station, and as I am one of those guys so weird people who like the cold, on the platform and begin to feel more active, wanting to move or do things, like every minute was full of limitless possibilities, the same delicious sensation coming to a city that is not yours without further obligations to whatever you like do at all times. 
As it is Sunday, as we left the luggage at the hotel we get a walk to the flea market. We went through the market in San Miguel, where he had been an evening for over a year, but today you can barely walk because there are too many people. It makes your mouth water with cabinets full of food, with the smells: a squid, to kebabs, to beer, wine, octopus, to vegetables to meat hot off the grill. 
In America, the bars have stoves in the street so that people can smoke without going cold. Businesses say that these devices have been exhausted. They are open all stores the center, but some of the museums that I have to visit are closed for construction or not open until Tuesday. Gran Via, in the direction of Cibeles, the sky is so dark, the storm is inevitable. And it starts to rain while some neighboring streets crowded a moment before, now are empty. 
We went to the theater to see Les Miserables , but the only places left are of reduced visibility. I am very complacent for these things, so I prefer not to enter. Better to keep walking around the city. Although rain or cold.
Tomorrow is another day.
© Andrés Pérez Domínguez, February 2011
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