Fire re-visited!

I know I told everyone all about the fire across from my OLD apartment (that's right, I said old. I'm all moved in to my new apartment, but that's for another blog entry), but apparently I didn't tell the whole story. According to the front page of the local news here, and also a neighbor girl whom I talked to, the two inhabitants of the apartment were actually IN the apartment when it caught fire. Some crackhead (no! in my neighborhood???) broke into their building, held them at knifepoint, tied them up, and then used an aerosol can and a lighter to try to blow up the apartment and kill them. They were two college students with almost nothing to begin with, visitors to this country, and now they are left with nothing. I tried finding them to offer them anything I could, but they were long gone by the time I figured out the whole story. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose everything, and I can only hope that wherever they are, things are looking up for them. And I also can't explain how happy I am to finally be out of the crackhead spot of Madrid where now I have grass that grows on my sidewalks and old men and women sitting reading books on benches. It's safer. I found a neighborhood. I'm beginning to like Madrid.