Wandering on a Saturday Afternoon

You may have noticed an extended absence from my blog recently.  That hasn't been intentional, but there's really only so many intriguing things you can say about studying Spanish :).  Which, by the way, if anyone has any fun or interesting methods for memorizing vocab, hook me up in the comments.  That's one of my most significantly lacking areas at this point.

Anyways, this morning after awakening and preparing for the day I realized that, aside from studying, I didn't really have anything pressing to take care of.  My language exchange folks are out of town this weekend and the weather looked lovely, so I figured I would wander about the city a bit since I haven't really had the opportunity to do so for a while.

I went to the Mercado de los Mostenses first, mostly just because I love walking around in there.  It is crowded, kind of gritty feeling, but the range of products they sell is incredible.  I usually see something new here, and I apologize but I kind of forgot to take any pictures because I was, with great fascination, watching the fishmongers at work.  I did find a video link for you though :).

And randomly, since I was talking about fish, here's a picture of some sardines that I enjoyed while Nikki and I were in Santander a couple months ago.

They look a little odd, but they were very tasty!

Then I headed down toward Plaza Mayor where an artist was busy working on a painting.

After watching this guy for a bit, I was making my way to Plaza de Tirso de Molina for some lunch at one of my favorite spots, when I ran into a protest about funding for public schools.  I have seen plenty of protests around here, but this was the first one with a brass band.  So, I made my way through the crowd to check it out.  This video is a little jumpy because I kept getting whacked on the head by people waving flags.  Don't worry, I'm fine - it was just distracting :).

Eventually I escaped the crowds and had some lunch.  Then I headed north again because I had heard that the 15-M protesters had taken over the abandoned Hotel Madrid near Puerta del Sol.  I can confirm that this is indeed true.

I'm breaking in some new shoes (we walk enough here that you go through them pretty fast - kind of like burning through a tank of fuel in the states), so at this point it became clear that heading for home would be a good idea.  But it was a nice little outing :).