La Noche en Blanco

We rented bikes today to take around Madrid and over to Casa de Campo. We were going to meet at 1:00pm in Sol but I woke up a good hour and a half early so I decided to leave early for Sol and walk there and take the scenic route/ explore the city a bit more. It only took about 10 minutes to walk from my place to Plaza Mayor which is then only 3 or so minutes from Sol, but I had much more time then that so I started wandering around.. found a really cool Cathedral to which I'll start going to mass.. for the weekends when I am in Spain that is.. Absolutely beautiful inside and I managed to take a quick picture when no one was looking because its mal educado to do so. I didnt have time to stick around for mass though.. and wasn't quite properly dressed in my athletic gear and ipod headphones draped over my shoulder. I then found my way over to a very cool marketplace right next to Plaza Mayor with all sorts of fresh fruit, wine, cheese, fish, churros, and all things in between. Jess and I will have to go over there at some point to eat. I'm going to have to start getting some recommendations for places to take her to eat as well.. at least sit down places because I've only been to a limited few so far... I blame Eugenia. None of these restaurant's food compare to her's most of the time. But I do like Spanish food a lot. But I think after 3 weeks I can say that I like American food better and I think it's actually healthier in the US as well. Or at least it feels healthier. Maybe it's that we use so many preservatives.. I don't know. I just love our variety.
...So after walking around for a bit I made my way back to Sol where before meeting up with the group I watched this one group of street performers playing classic music.. they were tremendous! Pretty soon after I got to the rendevous we all walked over to the bike rental store. I was the only one who knew where the place was.. good thing I looked into it beforehand.. gotta love google maps and street view. We actually started off walking in the exact wrong direction and then I asked where we were going and they said that they were just following Julia. Turns out Julia was just randomly walking hoping to find it.. haha Biking was great after we got out of Sol and away from the hoards of people. We made our way all the way over to Casa de Campo, a massive park a couple miles away. I'll definitely be taking Jess there on her runs. They even have a gondala-esque thing which would give you a tremendous view of the city because it's located on a big, gentle hill outside the city. Almost ate lunch at this Equadorian food festival where they were cooking food in front of you but I held out for Bonner Kabobs a bit later once we got back.. I had never had one yet at that point but I had heard that they are amazing. The park was very nice and we found some cool graffiti in a tunnel there. On a whole I'd say the graffiti is prettier here. Actually one graffiti I found is actually the background on my computer right now. Once we made it back we quickly got rid of the bikes and got over to the Kabob place.. they were not lying!! So soo good and not very expensive at all. 5 euros for the whole meal. But it must be terrible for you.. but once in a while it's not bad to indulge yourself.. but then again I had a second one that night so who am I to tell you about self restraint..
Got back home for a strategic 2 hour nap before meeting back up with the group for La Noche en Blanco! I was very excited for all the festivities of the night where the city doesn't go to sleep. There were SOOO many people out tonight it was crazy. It was like new years in NYC(not that I've ever been) all over the place.. I think there were around 1,000,000 people out in the streets that night.. that's what the paper said but I have no idea how they measured that. I was a little let down though by the number of events we got to.. we only really went to two places and the second was a mistake.. there were thousands of events around the city to go to.. but it is hard to find them and navigate through the masses. But I still had fun. Got back home at 3:30 or so just before the metro stopped running because for some reason I was getting very tired and wan't really in the mood to go to Joy.. it's hard to expect your body to get up at 8 am every day during the week and go to bed at a reasonable hour and then turn around to the weekend and go to bed at 6am.. I don't know how some people do it. Are they doing it to simply say they went out every night till 6am or are they really enjoying it.. The latest I've done is 4:45 or so.. which is pretty good. But I did feel weak because my Senora didn't get home that night till 6:30am.. so I lied to her and told her I got back at 4:30.. haha