Day 16: ¡Adiós, Madrid!

MADRID, Spain -- Of course in my last hour in the library, I've found two or three books that would have been useful, but that I wouldn't be able to get my hands on until tomorrow. But this is my last day in Madrid, so it is not to be. I've gotten some research and writing done; I've been to a museum or two I had never seen before; I've purchased books, DVDs and a CD of curiously rockabilly '80s movida madrileña music with which to amaze and delight my students and colleagues; I have eaten six bowls of gazpacho; I have gone running in the Parque del Retiro three times; I have randomly run into three people I knew at Berkeley; I have walked through the Puerta del Sol in the sweltering heat with a million rabid rebajas shoppers at my heels; I have watched insipid Spanish television; I have been here for the National Tribunal's final report on the 2004 Madrid bombings, for an ETA attack in Cantábria, and for the capture of ETA commandos in the País Vasco; I have seen the oldest Plaza de tientos (see photo) in Castilla la Mancha, where the toros más bravos used to be put to the test; I have purchased empanada at my favorite panadería in Malasaña; and I have observed the sociology of personal fan-use by women on the Metro.

It's been a gas, Madrid, but it's time to go.