A favorite pastime here in Madrid is spending the weekend at Retiro Park, which is like their Central Park, it is right in the middle of downtown Madrid and it is huge. There is a pond with rowboats, restaurants with outdoor seating, and trails for running. Weekends are usually spent lazying around listening to music and drinking a cerveza or two.
This Saturday happened to be a goodbye party for a friend of Mariana's, so a group of about 20 or 30 people gathered to play music ranging from Cuban to flamenco. Although gatherings like this are not technically legal (the beer drinking part), cops usually turn their backs as they do with most public drinking (once in awhile I think they are pressured to crack down). Saturday they were determined to be annoying and came over to complain that Jaime had an amp plugged in. He unplugged it and the rest of the day was acoustic, but nonetheless we were surrounded by 4 cop cars and about 10 cops just hanging out watching us. There are people being robbed in the city (like me) and they put half of the park's cops on us, a harmless group of musicians and us, the "chorus" putting on a free music show for everyone. But apparently we were in the zone of a lot of "junkies" which when they pronounce it it sounds like "yankees" so I get confused.
"There are a lot of Americans in this area??"
"No...jankees".
In other news, Mariana leaves for Cork, Ireland this Saturday to study English for the month of October. If she can find a nanny position or a job in a bar she will stay through November maybe I can find a cheap flight through Ryanair.
Picture at right (The Venezuelans and moi):
Julio, Anais (Mariana's cousin), Jeff, Mariana and me
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