The Galloping Gimmies

Day 50

Monday

Sometimes I reckon the weather in Malaga to be a privileged child, raising a fit when winter weather nudges the warm weather aside for colder, darker days. And so it’s Monday and Malaga doesn’t like the “frigid” 50 degree weather and so it brings out its rain clouds and tears into the land with sheets of rain. I’m no longer hostile to the abrupt turn of the weather as I was before. I’ve come to appreciate how efficient the rain makes me. I walk where I need to go, I don’t worry about impulse shopping or procrastinating window shopping, I’m all business when it’s wet.

It seems that only 50% of my students share this sentiment of rainy day efficiency because in all of my classes at least 10 students were absent (and the biggest class I teach is 22). Any teacher with a day of experience would have thrown in the chalk and declared it a movie day, not wanting to have to re-teach the day’s lesson to all the clearly un-intrinsically motivated pupils. But as my school does not have central heating, it obviously does not have TVs in every classroom, so I teach.

On my walk home I laughed at the new crosswalk light they’ve put in by the Corte Ingles in an attempt to control rampant pedestrian traffic. It’s a friendly little green teenage boy with baggy pants and hunchbacked swagger who is schlepping it in place. When pedestrians should be wary that the time is almost up for them to cross the schlep becomes a frantic spasm, the green boy becomes a strobe light of panic. I laugh and wait for one more round just so I can remember how I should look right before I get hit by an impatient car.

But all this matters little because in Spain the ONLY thing of importance began at 9pm. The Madrid Real vs. Barcelona Fútbol game. The other American teachers and I went to one of the clubs that had been converted into a game viewing bar of sorts to check out the big deal. I held strong to my Barca ties, the newest member of the team being David Villa, my heart throb of Valencia’s futbol team when I was studying there. My roommate, ever my opposite was beaming in his Madrid jersey, confidant that he’d be patting me on the back saying how Barca tried its best, but couldn’t muster enough to beat the best team in the world. 2 hours and 5 goals later I was laughing at my roommate asking if he wanted me to wait for him while he changed out of his jersey in the bathroom before we went out in public. It was a rousing game, with even better headlines the next day, chronicling the trouncing of Madrid by Barca.

And I wonder- why is football or baseball America’s pastime?? I can’t say I agree with Spain on anything, but that futbol is the superior sport I’ll fall in line behind.