Retiro

Today, I went with Lindsay, Claire, Danielle, Ben, Caleb, Eduardo, Eric and Ryan (phew!) to El Parque del Buen Retiro and I am now postponing any work I might get done tonight so I don't forget anything about it! It took us a while to all get together and get going, but it was totally worth it. We wanted to get some food, so we went outside of the park. It took us a while to find anything, though. We were initially looking for a market to buy food to take back to the park, but we went to a place called Rodillas (where some of us actually ate yesterday) which has many many varieties of cold "salad" sandwiches, hot sandwiches and sides. We went back to the park, where Ben finally joined us, and started to explore. There were a lot of people with stands selling snacks, jewelry, etc, there was a magician, there was a guy doing the crazy spray paint art like the guy on State Street, and selling balloons were Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and...wait for it...Barney. As in the purple dinosaur. And the costume was cross eyed...super creepy. Ben, Lindsay, Ryan and Eduardo went to take a row boat out on to the "lake" and the rest of us wandered aroud. Totally by accident, we found the Crystal Palace, which is a palace-like building made with a lot of glass. There was a sculpture inside that I cannot explain with words, hopefully I'll remember to put up a picture. After further wandering, we decided to take a siesta in the grass, which was quite nice. From our siesta spot, we saw a couple getting wedding pictures taken. Also, there was a place near the lake where there were a bunch of random cats hanging out, apparently they keep food there. On our way out, there were three guys playing reggae music and they turned out to be a legitimate band from Barcelona. I bought their CD, and they sang "No Woman No Cry". That awesome. p.s. On out way in to the park there was someone playing a trumpet and he played "My heart will go on". Odd, but I liked it. Needless to say, I want to go back again soon! I just made my first legitimate grocery shopping trip at a Supermercado about 3 blocks from my apartment. There is also a natural food store I found that I would like to check out. Quote of the day: "Why are there naked babies on everything in this city? I'm so sick of naked babies!"

Words of wisdom from my day-by-day calendar:
"Even if the water falls drop by drop, it will fill the pot." -The Dhammapada