salsa-ing shoes

¡Hola!

happy may day to everyone! i'm not exactly sure what holiday that is for, but not much of valencia was open. i'm starting to see the difference between a "holiday" and a "festival". festival is the much better option because it usually means cheap food and a lot of fun; holiday just means everything is closed.

i had a great time in madrid for the few days i was there. i don't know what it would have been like if i stayed in a different hostel. the place was really small which meant you had to meet everyone. on saturday 15 of us (it seemed like more than half of the hostel) went to a salsa club. i'm crap at the salsa (it was my first time and i was in flip-flops, not the best salsa-ing shoes). tonight i might check out some tango (to watch, not to do) in valencia. the next day i went to the street market where i have never seen such a long river of people. it was dense (not chocalate festival in perugia, italy kind of dense) and it went on forever.

spain in the spring is amazing--although, lots of places probably are...but i'm not there, so i can only tell you about spain. every city i'm going to either just had a festival or are getting ready for one. i don't know if people work in madrid because everyone is out walking the streets (all day and all night long). they have huge parks where depending on where you go, can be tranquil or packed full of people, and the difference is only a minute or two walk away from each other.

i skipped out on the bull fight on sunday. not as a social stand against the cruelty of it; i just really love animals, and i don't think i could have taken the killing of 6 bulls. so, maybe i missed out on a cool cultural experience, but this trip is a cool cultural experience. i think i'll do alright without it. i did want to see picasso's guernica but the museum it was in was closed. instead i went to the prado and saw a lot of spanish art of goya and velazquez. velazquez's stuff was good but goya's paintings were really dark and powerful. my award goes to goya.

so, my birthday is tomorrow. i'm thinking its going to be alright. i kind of like celebrating other peoples birthdays more than mine. it seems like such an ambiguous celebration--kind of like new years. it does put me one year closer to cheap car insurance though (one more year), after that there aren't many more milestones. 23 has been an unbelievably crazy year for me. its going to be hard for 24 to compete, but i'll do my best to give it a good chance.

i'm getting used to eating dinner on spain time. there were two other people starting to cook dinner with me at 10:30pm. its still a bit strange, but that's when i was hungry. the sun is out today, so that means the beach. its only a tram ride away.

have a good day
your friend

chad