Visitors

María and Claudia have been here a few days now. Their collective luggage swarms my bedroom and I move into the living room. They sleep late and recount their Spanish travels to Cathy and I. In the meantime, we do our best to show them around our fair city, although after the second day both Cathy and I are at a loss as to what to do next. Luckily both girls seem content with watching movies and eating at the outside cafés that have only recently sprung up across Madrid. The weather is on our side; after weeks of traveling through the dirty South (of Spain), Claudia and María are amazed at the balmy breeze of the capital.

We take them to a flamenco-ballet show, which is a very weird combination of two utterly different dance styles. After having seen a true flamenco show two days before, Cathy and I sort of believed that we were going to become two dance aficionados, theater-going critics with discerning eyes. We nearly fell asleep during the show, as good as it was. While leaving the theater, out of earshot of our two visitors, Cathy whispered, "I think I'm quite done with dance for a while." I hastily nodded in agreement.