Allie in Spain (and Ireland): WEEKEND

I must say, I had a pretty Spanish weekend this past week. Ok, probably not really, but I felt cool at least, so I will share it with you guys (forgive me if this is hastily written, I should be studying right now).

Friday night was very relaxed - I met up with a couple of friends in Moncloa, which is a big student area because it's near one of Madrid biggest universities, the Complutense, and we went to this famous kebab place. There's nothing like 3 euro dinner. Then we headed over to Malasaña, which is a neighborhood that has pretty popular night life. We went into a few different bars and ended up settling in this really cute place with little comfy couches. We hung out for a while and talked a lot about the protests that are going on in Madrid right now. Most of you have probably heard about them, but I'll give you a little synopsis.

The protest started in response to the elections that happened last Sunday, which were for mayors and Presidents of the Autonomous Communities (basically governors) in most places in Spain. The protest was started mostly by youth leaders who are fed up with the absurd 45% unemployment rate among people under 35. Yeah, it's pretty nuts. I mean normal unemployment is 21%, which is bad enough as it is, but it's over double that for the young people. So they just decided to protest, without really giving any particular demands or reasons, other than being fed up with the "system." The police said that they were going to make them stop before the weekend, because there's a law about protesting going on during elections because it might intimidatingly influence voter behavior, but the protest has continued and is still going on even now that the election is over. I'll revisit this later.

So we discussed that and headed home pretty early. I had papers to work on the next day and some other stuff that I wanted to do.

SATURDAY. Woke up, worked on papers. Bleh. It was a really nice day out, so I decided to get my butt outside and actually do something, and I ended up actually going inside the Palacio Real, which up to that point I had only seen from the outside. The inside was, of course, very impressive. It was similar to the other palaces I have seen at Aranjuez and El Escorial, but it's still used for a lot of official things so it's unique in that respect.

After that, I went to meet up with some friends for dinner in Sol. MISTAKE. Despite the fact that I was completely aware of the protests that were going on, it didn't occur to me to realize that going to the center of the protests might cause a problem. The plaza was so packed, you could barely move. There were people EVERYWHERE - protesters and spectators alike. It was actually pretty interesting to see though. The more I saw, however, the move it solidified my opinion that it's pretty much just a directionless, pointless effort. The crowds were full of signs sayings things like "It's not the crisis, it's the system" or "We want reform" and "Revolución no es botellon (meaning revolution isn't drinking in the streets, even though that was clearly what was happening). It was just really hard to take seriously. I talked to my host dad about it later, and he literally said "they are just young people who have nothing better to do because they aren't in school and they don't have jobs. They are hippies" I loled. Granted he certainly has a conservatively biased perspective, but I kind of agree with him. I get that the economy sucks, but there's nothing that sitting in the streets complaining about it is going to help. The federal government can't do anything because they have no money, and it's the youth that helped put the socialist party in power in the first place. And what do they think now, re-voting the conservative party in is going to bring on revolution? Kind of counter-intuitive, but that's what has happened anyway. Oh well. Spain's got a lot of problems to sort out.

ANYWAY, back to my weekend. So after pushing my way through the protesters, I stopped and ate dinner with some friends, and we headed over to the Thyssen museum. There was a special gallery opening of the Heroine's Exhibit - female artists and art depicting women through the ages. It was cool. The Thyssen is probably my favorite out of the 3 famous Madrid museums.

SUNDAY. Went to my first bull-fight. The season just officially started here after San Isidro last weekend. My friend and I got some pretty cheap tickets and had decent seating, and the weather was perfect - warm, but not too sunny. Bull-fights, as controversial as they are, are a major part of Spanish tradition and so it was something that I really wanted to do, and I have to say that I actually really enjoyed it. As a cultural experience at least. I can totally understand the controversy and why some people are opposed, but I thought it was really interesting. The crowd was actually composed of mostly Spanish people, not tourists, and they were SO into it. It really is like a sporting event, but an art form at the same time. They judge and comment on the matadors based up on their technique and style. I was pretty oblivious, and don't know the difference between what's good and bad, but listening to the commentary was interesting. We also had one bull get rejected because the crowd didn't like him - that was funny. They send in 8-10 other bulls with bells around their necks to herd him out of the pen. The crowd loved it. We also saw two matadors get gored and trampled, which I guess isn't very common. Fortunately, they were both okay, but it definitely freaked me out. I'm glad I'm not sqeamish, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to watch the whole thing. Despite the violence of it all, I'm glad that I got to experience it first hand.

So that was my weekend. Now I'm back to studying for finals booo. I'm almost finished though! I'll put some pictures of the various activities discussed.

Also, I'll put a few of the Noche de Fuego for San Isidro that I went to last weekend. San Isidro is the holiday for the patron Saint of Madrid, so there's a bunch of events that go along with it, including but not limited to putting giant iron structures on the river to be lit on fire.

One more thing - if you haven't seen the pictures of the baby pandas from the zoo - GO LOOK ON FACEBOOK! Cutest things ever.