THE SEASON OF GOOD CHEER: A GUIDEPOST Collage

Editor’s Blog

.
What’s the Season that’s just taken a bow and cleared the stage for the new one to act on a year from now, if not folks – mostly expats in Guidepost’s circle – plunging into a whirl of come-joins as if to make up for that home that’s so far away it’s all but faded into the distance?

By Rose Maramba
Photos: R. Maramba

THE GUIDEPOST PARTY

Our friends say it didn’t last as long as it did last year. Which is quite true, through no fault of our own! Lots of goodies and lots of good friends – those that you’ve known for years and years you can’t remember when you didn’t know them and are glad that’s so, and equally loved new ones. It’s not how long the party lasts but how you enjoy it, huh?

.

´.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

THE MADRID BELEN

2014 was the 4th death centenary of the Renaissance court painter El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos, Crete 1541 – Toledo 7 April 1614) which Spain has been celebrating as though it was all about a native son. El Greco’s expressionistic style was fraught with an incredible drama that turned out to be the precursor of Cubism and Expressionism. Trust the highly imaginative Spaniards to plunge into the celebration with the ¡Ole! kind of enthusiasm they simply can’t repress. They turned the birth of the Messiah into an excuse for an “Evocación al Greco” which themed the wildly popular Nativity scene that Madrid mounts each year in the patio of the 18th century neo-Classical Casa de Correos.

Guidepost joined the kilometric queue, drenched almost to the bone by a villainous downpour, to see how you can switch the birthplace of Christ from Bethlehem to 16th-century Toledo and get away with it.

We’ll leave the pictures we’ve taken for you to judge for yourselves! By the way, you can still view the Belen, all 150 sq. meters (1615 sq. ft) of it, till the 6th of January which is when the glamorous Three Kings of the Orient come visiting the Spanish kids in their homes, putting paid, only then, to the alternately long and lusty and all too solemn fiestas Navideñas.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

INTO THE MYSTICAL MIX,THE VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE

Guidepost has a strong link with the Mexican community of Madrid due mainly to a dearest friend Ventura Rocha. And also to our other Mexican friends. After the Christmas party at Guidepost some of us left for the Cathedral of Almudena off the Royal Palace to join the Mexicans celebrate their special day, the feast of the Patron Saint of Mexico, the Virgin of Guadalupe. Didn’t we say religion is intrinsic to the all-inclusiveChristmas in Spain?

The Virgin of Guadalupe

Encarna and Luisa, attendees of the mass offered by the Mexican community in Madrid on the Feast Day of the the Virgin of Guadalupe, pose with the president of the community and her husband both on the right

.

.

.

WE’RE STILL GOING MEXICAN!

Puerto Rican New Yorker Nina Valdes, whose cataclysmic calling is creating guaranteed-exciting events, set up a wine&tapas&mariachi for the American Women’s Club and their friends. Nobody in their right mind would have given it a miss if only because it was good for their musical and occasionally inebriated soul. Guidepost didn’t miss.

AWCer but pres

AWCers

Guidepost, Navy League and a lovely señorita

Mariachi, what else?

A priestly acclaim of Nina’s miracle: wine-tapas-mariachi for 10e!

Enthusiasts