I'm sitting on a bench on the street typing on my laptop and a lady just asked me if I have celphone coverage. I don't. Madrid has been without electricity for 7 hours by now. I'm guessing she needed to communicate with someone, but nobody has coverage because of a nationwide electricity outage.
At the office the event passed largely unnoticed, the diesel generators from the building provided energy for almost the entire workday, but they asked us to leave a bit early in order to make a graceful shutdown. We had lunch at the cafeteria of the company that leases space for us because of the uncertainty of going outside where we weren't sure we could be served food. I had a light lunch, which I now regret because I'm hungry and I can't get inside my apartment. I'll get to that.
I left the office walking, and the streets are full of people. Streets have less cars than usual. People seem to be more perplexed than worried. There's a doorman in at the building in front of the bench where I'm typing, and he's been constantly asked for directions. Without Maps people don't know how to get where they need to go. I've seen long queues for the supermarket, and I'm a bit perplexed myself as to why, I think they are preparing for a worst case scenario. I didn't ask but I'm guessing they're taking cash only.
The reason why I'm on the street typing this is because there's two different doors into my apartment. One door is for the elevator, the other is for the stairs. I was given keys for both doors, but they were identical and I only used the elevator door, so I took the key for the stairwell door out of my keyring and placed it in a drawer.
I knocked the door for several minutes without an answer, and then I came down to ask the maintenance guy if he had access to our apartment. He looked in a small locker in the maintenance room, but found no keys for my apartment. I told him not to worry, and thought I would walk to the park to spend some time, but in the end I reasoned I'm too hungry to enjoy the park and it would be a long walk (about 80 minutes both ways), so I decided to stay around. Hmmm... I should go into my building in case a roomate arrives and can open the door for me. I will do this.
There's a couch here in the lobby of my building which is more comforable than the bench, but I miss seeing the people walk by. I have an uninteresting view, but I will take a picture of it to remember this moment. It's striking that people are not on their phones, people in Madrid tend to walk phone-in-hand, moreso than any other city where I've lived.
I'm surprised I'm this hungry, and I'm wondering if it's some sort of instinctive mechanism as anticipation for scarcity. I get voraciously hungry before flying, I often eat until I'm full before leaving for the airport, and by the time I'm there I'll already be hungry.
There's been speculation about the cause of the outage, the media overplaying a cyberattack, but at this point it's just speculation. I won't idle on the cause because I can't glean any information about it now (and even if I could, the media will initially spin the most scanadalous accounts and then correct itself as more reliable information comes in).
There's a neighbor outside whom I'm almost sure is an escort. Ooops, she just kissed a guy on the lips (not that she couldn't have a boyfriend, but it doesn't fit the picture, now I'm doubting my assumptions). She has a weathered look for her age and an obviously fake booty. Long fake eyelashes. I'll stop speculating, I'm no better than the media, spinning scandalous accounts of my neighbors. In this building I run into new people all the time, I suspect many of the apartments are inhabited by people like me, who rent by the month, and come and go as they please.
I will go up the seven flights of stairs again to knock on the door, and see if I have better luck this time.
No luck. When I came back into the lobby I decided to make my way to the park, so I walked down Serrano St. and I came across a large church which was open. Mass was being held, so I went inside as the priest was preparing the eucharist. I knelt and listened to mass, deciding not to take communion because this is something I only do when I'm walking. The priest declared "you can leave in peace", and people started dispersing.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Soon after I came out I heard a loud scream "eeey", I looked around and I saw that the lights of a couple of shops were lit up, electricity had come back. I made my way back home, but two blocks away the blackout was still in effect. They must be lighting up the city progressively. When I reached my apartment building I sat down in the lobby again. Soon after, one of my roomates arrived. I greeted him and said I didn't have the keys for the stairwell door. I went up with him and he let me in.
I hastily prepared myself a salad with Spanish ham instead of steak (my usual dinner) and then came into my room to eat. After I was done, I brought out my computer, and finished typing my account of this blackout. There's still no electricity, but I have data on my phone, so I will post this right now.
Just as I finished typing I heard cheers and applause on the streets. Electricity has come back.