Full moon = Locos

Walking is my main form of transportation here in Madrid. Whether it’s during the day or at night, I’ve always felt safe walking alone in this city. It‘s not like Chicago where I refuse to walk alone anywhere past 9 PM. Even when there were gypsies living in their makeshift homes on the hill behind my house (I‘ve been told they‘ve recently been kicked out), I still had no problem walking alone at 5 in the morning on the barely lit path down to mi casa. Until now…

I decided to leave the discoteca early with Fatou on Friday night. She lives just down the street from me and I didn’t want to pay for a cab alone. In the end, we decided to walk home. I thought we were a bit farther than usual but it was only 4 in the morning - I wasn’t that tired yet. It was probably the strangest hour long walk I’ve ever done in Madrid.

First there were more weird drunk people than usual. Not just the usual twenty or thirty-somethings stumbling home, but creepy crazy drifters. Second there were a lot of guys hollering "guapa!" and whistling, which I also found unusual. And last but not the least, when Fatou and I were about to go our separate ways, we saw a guy on his knees and whose head was bleeding like crazy. We called for an ambulance and four guys walking past helped calm him down. As we waited for the ambulance and as I kept myself from vomiting (I hate blood!), we found out that he got robbed and beaten. Or so he says. I wasn’t sure if he was just drunk or a combination of drunk and out of it from the beating. The ambulance took their time (Oh Spain!), missed us and drove back around (por favor provide them with a GPS!!) and finally arrived after what felt like forever.

I decided to take the long way home this time. Fatou and I were so weirded out by the night’s events that it got us wondering if there was a full moon. There sure was. Yup, the crazies were definitely out!