I'm sitting in the living room waiting for my mother and my sister to wake up. It's 10:47am, which is reasonable given that it's still 5am in their biological clock. They arrived yesterday, uneventfully. I had sent my sister a fake hotel reservation in case they would be questioned at immigration. Us latin americans are supposed to ask for permission to the police to have family stay over when they come visit, but racism is so institutionalized in Spain that the more white you are, the less strict they are at the border.
I was supposed to pick them up at the airport yesterday, I planned to make it there at 6:30, but I received a message as I was leaving home that they had landed a bit early and had already made it through customs, so I asked them to grab a cab to my place. I waited outside for the taxi to arrive, and after it did we embraced in a hug that felt strangely pleasant: I don't really enjoy hugging my family, we don't have much physical contact. When I hug or kiss my sister we sometimes follow a tradition we started as teenagers: we both say out loud "eeeewwww" and wipe the kiss or sweep away the hug with our hands, but this time there was nothing of that. The hugs were long and sincere.
After settling in we went outside for a walk and to search for a place for breakfast. We entered a more or less random place (I chose it based on the appearance and number of patrons) and I asked for a tortilla española, an egg omelette made with potatoes, a staple of Spanish breakfast. They loved it but assured it tasted like pork, "it has to have bacon grease" they said, but I assured them that would be out of canon, Spanish tortilla can only be made with eggs, potatoes, olive oil, salt, and optionally onions. Perhaps this legend is spread so that restaurants serve the best ones, because indeed it was unlike anything homemade I've tried (in a good way).
After the walk we came back home. My sister went into the room to sleep, my mother read a book, and I worked remotely. At lunchtime my sister came out of the room and I prepared lunch: a large salad, and on a large wooden board I set up cheese, rice crackers, and cured salmon. Then I took them to the city square (Sol) and told them where to buy SIM cards, exchange money, and I grabbed a bike to get to work.
At work I was strangely comfortable and focused. I have come to enjoy what I'm doing right now (documentation) and I kind of yearned to stay longer, but I know my main task in these days is being present with my family. I debated a bit if I should take the bike or the subway on my way bike, I thought: if I had an accident my mother would be horrified. But then I shrugged: nothing has ever happened to me, nothing will happen today, so I took the bike uneventfully.
We had dinner. A previous couchsurfing guest, a Colombian woman, had prepared arepas and left some in the freezer, so I took them out and made them on the pan with butter. Then we added cheese, avocado and Spanish ham. After dinner we went out for a walk.
I told my sister: I will take you through what they say is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Madrid downtown. So we strolled down through Lavapiés, and the only thing they noticed were black people. Is this it? My sister asked, I laughed: yes, this is it. It's always interesting for me to notice how sensations of insecurity never go away, there is always a place that is more dangerous than the rest and people will warn you to not go there.
Then we started circling back home when we passed La Nave Nodriza, I told them: this is the school of Isa, they knew who I was talking about, because most of the time I've lived in Madrid I've lived with her. Even though it was near 10pm the lights were on. I peeked inside and saw her working. I knocked the window, she came cautiously and smiled when she saw me. I presented my mother and my sister to her. She excused herself because she was very busy finishing something for the classes next day but we made promises of meeting up at a later date and said farewell.
I was tremendously tired from waking up early in expectation of picking my family up, my sister and my mother were alert and awake from them being 6pm, so I went to sleep and left them to shower and I promptly fell asleep on the inflatable mattress I set up in the living room. They took the bedroom.
I woke up at 8:30am. We had plans to visit the Prado today, but I found that tomorrow it's the anniversary of the museum and it will be free entrance, so I will propose to them to go tomorrow. I still don't know what we are going to do today, perhaps go to Toledo? To the park? I should have planned this when I had time. I don't like plans, I prefer spontaneity, but the reason a plan is made is that you have a menu of options. If no plan is made, there is no spontaneity either because the plan is... spontaneity.
I notice myself writing much faster than before. Perhaps it's not the most content dense entry I've written, but I think writing so many docs has at least made me swifter pouring out thoughts. For docs I allow LLMs to polish away my blabbering, but on my personal blog I like it like this: a stream of thought that rushes down unedited.
It's now 11:26am and they have still not have come out of the room. I hate being woken up, so I extend this courtesy to other people. The breakfast table is set up with fresh fruit cut into little pieces (pears, apples and plums), a bag of granola, yogurt, and nuts. It's not the kind of breakfast I would have (more protein heavy) but this is for my family, not for me.