He's peeing! He's PEEING! Did you hear me say 'He's Peeing'?

Happy Spain Imperialism Day! We'd like to take this opportunity to thank Spain/the Catholic Church for reeking havoc on all of Latin America, some of the Caribbean Islands and bits and pieces of the the Pacific Islands as well. Today we celebrate Columbus Day in high fashion with a huge parade and enormous amounts of red and yellow apparel.


In all seriousness I missed the parade. Last night got a little out of hand (example being the random man on the street peeing on a car) and Liz, Meagan, and I did not wake up on time.
We headed down to Plaza de Colon where the royal family and distinguished guests sit. However, the road was blocked off a quarter mile around them in all directions so we have to go down farther to see the road. The extent of the parade for us was watching cars zoom past really fast as the crowd whistled and cheered. We assumed that these were all the royals and such. You'd think they'd carpool seeing as they were all going back to the Royal Palace...

We decided to walk towards the Palace and do a little sightseeing. Every Sunday there is a book fair between Colon and Cibeles. There are all types of books; some from 40 years ago, others in German, and of course popular books translated into Castellano. I like to look at the travel books from the 50's and see what has developed. The prices are flea market prices so no matter what you buy it is a good deal.

From there we headed up Gran Via to my old neighborhood. It was nice to back on the street and see the places that were so familar to me from last time. I noticed a ton of new stores and of course the old ones that I spent many afternoons wandering in and out of. However, as I rounded the corner to where my old street was I was at a loss for words. The buildings on the left side of the street were stripped down! It is just a massive hole of where these restaurants used to be. I still can not believe it! I walked down that street everyday for three months and now the buildings were gone. I'm going to have to ask Maribel, my host mother from 2 years ago, what happened and why they came down. Que raro!

By the time we got to the actual Palace we were starving so we quickly took a few pictures of the gardens and admired the hoards of military that had collected inside the gates. Everyone was there from the parade, including the military on horses. All the horses were tied to the back of the building in a straight line, it was quite a sight. There was a huge crowd of spectators in front of the Palace so we stuck around to watch a very weak changing of the guards, all two of them. We walked through Opera and found this amazing Turkish restaurant. The falafel was incredible and the apple tea reminded me so much of Istanbul. The three of us were very satisfied with the little hole in the wall place, we'll probably go back. From there we headed to Sol for a quick glance at the Spanish patriotism that was looming around the whole city. Lots of people were out and about which was a little surprising seeing as it was supposed to be a horrific weekend, weather wise. We made our way down Gran Via and hopped on the metro for home.

All in all it turned out to be a beautiful day; a nice walk through the city and I was able to revisit some of my old places.

Negative: Lots of horses, lots of messes in the street.

Positive: A new found appreciation for the colors red and yellow, together, and everywhere I look.