Nueve meses de invierno, tres de infierno...

'Nine months of winter, three months of hell...'

An old madrileño saying I heard the other day. It refers to the unforgiving climate I’m currently ‘enjoying’.

Europe´s highest capital sits 650m above sea level on Spain’s central plateau, from whence it is alternately frozen and baked each year. At the moment I’m experiencing the latter half of that phrase – the tres meses de infierno.

I’ve been here for 11 days now and I’ve yet to see a single cloud. It’s disorienting. Distressing, almost.

The week before I arrived, a heatwave trapped the city indoors, with temperatures still at 33 (91) at midnight. The July sun is something best feared, not worshipped. I’ve found it has this marvellous capacity to heat up the buildings, the pavements, the roads... so that by 7pm this concrete jungle literally becomes an oven, baking its unfortunate inhabitants from all sides. Coupled with the smells, the pollution and the other standard fare of any large city, it’s pretty unpleasant. (Though I doubt I’ll receive much sympathy from any drenched readers in the UK).

It would be frightfully English to write a post entirely about the weather – so that’s exactly NOT what I’m trying to do. It’s been interesting to hear different reactions from different cultures – the complaints and exhortations wafting past as I walk through the foyer each morning. Let me distil a few for you.

There are the Bulgarians, cruising along unfazed... the Taiwanese, overjoyed at the ‘dryness’ of the heat... the Germans, complaining about the pollution, the ‘glare’, the pollution again... the French, complaining generally... the Brazilians, still disoriented by the fact the days seem to go on forever (in Brazil the amount of daylight is uniform all year round)... and then there are the English, who, possessed at the mere sight of sunshine, frantically strip most items of clothing and hurry to plonk themselves on an available patch of grass like roast spuds in an oven. The madrileños look on knowingly, as the white slowly turns to pink.

Look at anyone who’s grown up in a hot climate and you’ll see they fear the summer sun, not worship it. In Spain, the siesta exists for a reason. Suffice it to say I won’t be hurrying to copy the baking Benidorm Brits anytime soon (I’d only turn a charming shade of pink anyway!)

Less rambling and more scribbling to come...

Just another day in Europe's most reliable urban furnace...

Spanish of the Day

hablar por los codos  - to talk a LOT. (Lit. 'to talk out of your elbows')

salir de cañas - to go out for drinks. A way of life.