Madrid

Today, Jessica and I have spent a beautiful day wandering slowly through beautiful gardens and drinking coffee in beautiful gardens and eating lunch in terraces next to beautiful gardens and getting yeld at by old men for sitting on the grass in beautiful gardens. And then having the police yell at us and kick us off the grass.

This was actually a kind of stressful, unsettling experience because this old man was yelling things like 'how could you be so disrespecful as to sit there?' and seemed genuinely upset that we were being so offensive. But there were no signs, and kids climbing everywhere, and people lying out on the grass in other parts of this park... there are some rules of conduct here that i have not yet come to understand.

Last night we stayed out til 3:30 in the morning, and when we came home the streets were packed. Packed. The nightlife in Madrid is startling. The schedule of meeting for dinner at 9:30, eating until 12, and then bar hopping literally all night long is something that takes a little getting used to. But it is FUN. The energy in a huge cosmoplitan city like madrid (pop 3.3 million) compared to Pamplona (pop. 200,000) is so different.

Tomorrow we take the train to Sevilla.

Tonight we will attempt to find vegetarian food, after which we will watch the movie Hitch, starring Will Smith, dubbed in Spanish.