last day in the Crescent City

I should probably clarify that I'm not one of those live blogging types. I am not currently in New Orleans but back in my apartment chomping on some late night chocolate chip cookies. So let's flash back together....

Friday morning we all dragged ourselves out of bed, climbed in the cars and drove out to East New Orleans without saying a word. The morning continued in silence as nursing hangovers and sleep deprived we continued to build houses. I moved on from painting things blue to painting things gray and then cutting J channels for vinyl siding. I don't mean to sound like Ms. Dudley can't-Do-Right but it involved geometry skills that I lack, or rather that I have to work super hard at. The day picked up when our fellow workers from a church outside Philly bought enough ice cream pops for everyone. Appropriately refreshed we took one last group photo and skedaddled into the sunset.

As much as I love people I am a big believer in me-time so that evening I splintered from the main group with Laura, a colleague from Parks, to seek out Mexican food. It was an interesting experience if only because they sold the nacho cheese and salsa separate from the chips. My face expressed a confusion evidently previously unseen in New Orleans when asked "You want chips with that?" I was tempted to respond, "No, just a spoon will be fine."

Switching gears we walked along the ole' Miss and stopped in at Cafe du Monde to sample beignets. They're open 24 hours a day! I would guess that the French donuts (fried dough smothered in powdered sugar) are one of the more unhealthy foods of the world but Cafe du Monde was opened in 1862 before the advent of cholesterol. Tradition calls for blowing the sugar onto a friend but Laura politely declined.

The next morning (day 6!) I decided to take full advantage of the day and go on a bus tour of the entire city. We stopped at St. Louis Cemetery. Built over an old leper graveyard (heck yeah, I'm composing the all-singing all-dancing leper musical in my head now) it is built with walls of niches. The bodies are laid there, do their thing, and then are transferred to ossuary buildings. During yellow fever, graves couldn't be reopened until a year and one day after the bodies were interred. I would love to share more fascinating information about the cemetery and new Orleans but I fell asleep on the bus waking up only to note where the Ann Rice lived and the Manning family lives.

Ok, I'm less than inspired tonight...blame the chocolate so I shall end with the flight home. It was the bumpiest, scariest landing I have ever endured and I did think that death was a possibility. Compounding my anxiety, there was a woman on my flight who was super afraid of flying...to the point that up until the minute we took off she kept asking her companion if perhaps they could drive. I am a super low key flyer but it was a rough landing.

Crescent City

Day 3: Hump day! Wednesday was the first clue that I might not make it through the whole week unscathed. Bright and shiny we met at Bayou Rebirth's nursery to be led into the wild blue yonder of a real live bayou. Unfortunately their truck wasn't quite in working repair. While the men folk tinkered with the engine (and by tinker I mean remove large parts of the engine that I'm pretty sure are necessary to its proper functioning) we occupied ourselves by devising a hockey-type game with broom sticks. But sun exhaustion and a twisted knee and a replacement truck conspired to cut the game short.

Driving to the site, we passed endless waterways and several oil refineries to arrive at a newly built waterfront park. On site we dug through the bucket o' waders to find boots in a size approximating our own and then headed into the water to plant the marsh grasses that we had lovingly repotted the day before. This was more complicated than you might imagine as mucking through two feet of water (and a foot of mud) in incorrectly sized boots leads to imbalance and wet pants.
After lunch crossed the water to plant cane. The boat ride would have been much nicer if waders in direct sunlight didn't conduct so much heat but it was a nice opportunity to see the innards of a bayou. I may or may not have seen an alligator and some of the girls swear to having spotted a dinosaur. We did positively identify several nesting kildeer.
Night 3: Anyhoo, at the end of the day we were glad to peel off four feet of rubber and make our way towards Lafayette Square for Wednesday at the Square, "a free, 12-week concert series with food and drink for sale to benefit the Young Leadership Council." Of course we benefited the Council by purchasing Mar-GO-ritas, the adult version of a Capri sun and then went to soak up the alcohol at Deanie's Seafood because "you haven’t done New Orleans, until you’ve done Deanie’s." After doing Deanie's (and boy did we do Deanie's) we walked off all the fried, steamed, and boiled fish-y goodness on the way to d.b.a.

According to their website, d.b.a.'s "building dates back to the 1880's, and musicians say the all cypress wood music room is one of the warmest sounding rooms in New Orleans." The website also says that it's located it one of the hippest neighborhoods in the country besides perhaps Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I maintain that Frenchmen Street and its live music venues and Creole mansions is way super cooler than the hipster haven. After drinking, dancing and feeding Philip (as in fill-up the tip jar) we caught a cab back to our plush bunk beds to dream of marsh grass and levees set to a blues soundtrack.

Let's just move right on to Day 4: Switching gears we began work with Habitat for Humanity. Although our crew leaders were total hotties and I could forgive them most anything I would have appreciated more of a welcome to the work day than "We have a lot of injuries each year. Please don't cut your fingers off or get hit on the head with a two by four." But besides the admonition not to rest tools on top of ladders that was about it; we were broken into teams and set to work hanging Tyvek sheets.


I immediately admitted to my team my complete inability to stand on ladders and do anything but stand. I was not blessed with a surplus of balance, if any, and was so relegated to the post of "ladder- holder and hammerer of low things" for the morning. At one point a two by four fell on my head. Seriously. Anyhoo, it was not an ideal job for any of us as there was no shade and boy is Tyvek reflective. We did take a brief break to construct a fort out of extra boards to provide a refuge from the blinding rays of the sun but I realized early on that any more time in the sun might cause my arms to fall off so after lunch I bribed someone with an inside job to take my place.

I spent the afternoon cowering in the shade and happily painting things blue. My arms, unfortunately had already started to blister a little (I'm allergic to the sun. neat huh?) which prompted a rational fear of what Friday might bring. But I didn't concern myself overly because of what Night 4 had in store.
Night 4: The leader of the gang (the fearless Brian, Lousiana native) had prepared a crawfish boil for us. We arrived to his house to be greeted by the spectre of 60 pounds of dead crustaceans on a table, with more in a large vat stirred with an oar. Also on the menu were corn on the cob, boiled potatoes and artichokes all smothered in cayenne pepper (which incidentally stings quite a bit when it comes into contact with your eyeballs) and a healthy selection of Abita, the local brew.

We spent the evening schmoozing and competition story-telling before Brian's neighbor hit on the bright idea of dragging us all to Rock and Bowl. Evidently this woman had an in so we paid a $5 cover and were treated to free shoes, $1 socks (bleached to germ free perfection), and an hour of bowling... to the sultry tunes of live zydeco. There was even a man with a washboard. It was perhaps the hippest bowling experience I've ever had. The lanes were new and pristine and the building featured a huge bar and dance floor.

In some fluke of lane assignments, I got a whole lane to myself and played against myself in five different positions. I impressed by bowling pretty much continuously for an entire hour and scoring higher than 60 for each spot. Sober with a tired arm I was in that first car to skedaddle home at 2am. We closed that place DOWN.

Does our hero survive Friday with only four hours of sleep and facing the threat of sun poisoning? Stay tuned for the next installment...

The Big Easy

Before I enlighten you on Day 2, I should probably give you a brief tutorial about wetlands restoration in general and in New Orleans in particular. Please keep in mind that I am by no means an expert. Any information that I hope to impart comes from an undergraduate degree in biology, several web searches, and three all-too-short days working with City Park and Bayou Rebirth.

Wetlands, as the name implies, is an area of land that is covered in shallow water all or part of the year. Think bogs, marshes, swamps, bayous. They are considered the most biologically diverse systems in the world.

New Orleans is basically one giant wetland. Bounded to the north by Lake Pontchartrain, to the south by Mississippi River and to the East by miles and miles of canals, most of the city is below sea level. It wasn't always that way though. The River, like all rivers, used to flood periodically depositing silt and sediment and building up the land mass of the city. After a particularly destructive flood, levees were built to control the flow of the river with the unfortunate effect of funneling all the dirt into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, channels were excavated to facilitate the transport of petroleum and ship traffic. The excavation increases the surface area of land exposed to erosion. So without new dirt provided by the river and with channels dug everywhere, New Orleans is slowly sinking. (National Geographic's feature "Gone with the Water" also points to overpopulation of nutria as a problem. Evidently those little suckers chomp wetland plants like no other. But not to worry, they're edible and soon they'll be as integral to Nawlins cuisine as jambalaya.)

Everyone we talked to in New Orleans also pointed towards the destructive influence of Mr. Go. Not a supervillian of extraordinary powers but the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, Mr. Go was dredged to serve as a 500-ft wide shipping shortcut. Unused, it has eroded to three times it's planned size and in Hurricane Katrina provided a direct route for storm surge to reach the city.

Storm surge, by the way, is the wave created by hurricanes in open water. But for every two to four miles of wetlands the wave's height is reduced by 1ft. This would be good news if the wetlands of New Orleans were untouched by levees, shipping channels and Mr. Go. (I have to say, it was remarkable how bitter NOLA citizens were about Mr. Go. Even the average joe seemed to be consumed by vitriol at its mere mention.)

Obviously people aren't just sitting around watching the wetlands disappear. There a number of groups doing phenomenal (albeit sometimes scattershot) work to restore the wetlands.

On Day 2 we got to work with such a group: Bayou Rebirth. "Founded in 2007 partly in response to the environmental and community needs present in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Bayou Rebirth envisions a revitalized and restored city through local and visiting citizens’ connection to the ecology of the coastal wetlands. Bayou Rebirth is offering local residents and visiting volunteers a way to get involved in solutions now."

Hidden in a parking lot behind an abandoned kitchen fixture store Bayou Rebirth has a nursery of wetland plants. There we stepped up marsh grasses, drained pools, weeded and cleaned up bags and bags of styrofoam in the unfortunately direct sunlight.

Night 2: After work, we ventured over to the lower ninth ward, the neighborhood of New Orleans that sustained the most damage and casualties in Hurricane Katrina. As it turns out, the levees built to control flooding were found to be in complete disrepair, or rather they were built in a manner that was since found to be completely negligent. Disregarding the settling and sinking of the land and using outdated methods the levees were not built to standard. In some areas, the walls were filled with crumpled newspaper and sand instead of dirt and cement. The citizens of New Orleans filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers and in a historic settlement were awarded damages.

The levees were rebuilt twice as high but only 60% of NOLA citizens returned after the hurricane and houses remain abandoned. They retain the water line and markings indicating FEMA searches. The juxtaposition with modern new houses built by Brad Pitt's Make it Right is especially eerie.

After a dirty day in the hot sun, and the depressing spectre of a devastated neighborhood, we recovered our spirits with frosty daiquiris at the drive-thru.

Coming off the high of a craw-gator frozen drink we went to Mandina's a "Creole-Italian" restaurant near our house. I didn't notice anything remotely close to Italian food (except for perhaps mufaletta sandwich which is a glorified sub) but they did have several varieties of traditional NOLA sandwiches including a French-fry po'boy. Really.

Then we rested for a hot minute before going to the Maple Leaf Bar to check out the Rebirth Brass Band. The bar hosts live music seven days a week....and it was packed to the gills. With good reason. The Band, which plays there every Tuesday, has been a "New Orleans institution" since 1983. I suppose they could be classified as funk, solid gold brass funk. Oh and Tim Robbins was there! He's tall!

You most definitely should download some Rebirth Brass Band tunes before reading the next installment of the NOLA files. Consider it homework.

a New York interlude

Today, while I was walking in midtown (the lights! the bustle!) my iPod got into the spirit and started playing songs from the great white way (Broadway). It took all I had to not burst into song. I know that most anything is acceptable in the big bad city but I still think people would frown upon me belting "Seasons of Love." And yes I am that trite.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Two weeks ago, I went on a work-sponsored trip to the Big Easy to plant things and build stuff. Arriving on Sunday evening we went straight to business at Franky and Johnny's with alligator nuggets. That's right, delicious fried reptile. Mmmmm. I never knew what I was missing living in NY where alligator is not readily available. Moving on to other items in the Nawlins repertoire I ordered red beans and rice which you are evidently only supposed to eat on Mondays. Don't ask.

Have you noticed that thus far I've only talked about food? I'm afraid it will continue as cuisine and New Orleans seem to inseparable. If anything can be made bigger, better or deeper fried, it can be done there.

Day 1: Donning our waders and braving poisonous stinging caterpillars we set out to City Park to plant trees, dig up marshgrasses and just get dirty. At 1300 acres City Park is one of the largest (and oldest) urban parks in the world. It has an amusement park, golf course, botanical garden and so so many big beautiful gorgeous 600 year old live oak trees. After Hurricane Katrina, the whole park was under water and much of the vegetation was destroyed. Five years later, the Park's staff still works out of a trailer. But they are a few hundred trees closer to being restored after our work day!

It's gonna eat me! These suckers dropped out of trees and lurked everywhere waiting to sting the unsuspecting.

A spring chicken of a live oak tree. Their branches can reach lengths of 40ft!

Night 1: When most people think of New Orleans they think of Bourbon Street: the traditional center of drunken debauchery where open container laws hold no stead. But as upstanding young citizens we opted to go for sno balls instead! According to several culinary websites, sno-balls are an institution unto themselves not to be confused with sno-cones. Sno-cones are made with crushed ice. But a snow ball? light and fluffy shaved ice. Made with the one and only Hansen's Sno-Bliz and you can get just about anything you want on top, including sugar syrup, sweetened condensed milk and chocolate sauce.

...And then we went to Bourbon Street. At the Gumbo Shop I ate my first crawfish ever and drank my first hurricane of the trip. Actually four of us girls split a hurricane because we might be a bit lame for New Orleans. After dinner we popped into a voodoo shop selling Virgin Mary tokens (that looked an awful lot like Frida Kahlo), charms (unfortunately all for fertility) and a wide variety of cigars. I was tempted to peek into the aura reading happening in the back room but the posted signs promising death and doom to those who looked without paying scared me back on to the street. We moved on to souvenir stores selling beads, boas and bourbon and walked by Big Ass Beers several times. And then headed to bed.

All right ladies and gentleman, please watch Spike Lee's When the Levees broke before reading the next installment of Nawlins for lame-os.

dispatch from the big bad city

I've lived in the big bad city (NY, the original big bad city) for over a year and haven't written nary a blurb on it. Perhaps as a native NY-er I tend not to feel a need to remark on the weird that has become the everyday. Or perhaps the big bad city isn't as weird as outsiders think....no. that can't be it.

This weekend was an umbrella killer. Facing the rain and some terrific gusts of wind my umbrella promptly turned inside out and I decided that I had had enough. I disposed of it and bought a new one for $3 at the corner store; umbrella #2 bit the dust pretty much immediately. Screw it, I headed back to the apartment to nap and watch reruns of Gilmore Girls...more appropriate rainy day activities.

But Saturday nights are flamenco nights! So that evening, against better judgement, I grabbed umbrella #3 and headed out to Chelsea. According to the New York Times' neighborhood profiles (a thinking girls' bible) Chelsea is "charming in some places, and less so in others, including some pockets of high crime." I was likely in one of those areas where the two meet.

Because after the wind had destroyed yet another umbrella and the rain had soaked me through I realized I didn't have any cash. No, I wasn't pickpocketed just cash-less. The flamenco lady recommended that I go to the bar across the street to use their ATM but unfortunately she wasn't quite accurate. The ATM was in the store next to the bar, where surrounded by fake lady parts I withdrew some cash. I was in a porn store. But it was warm and dry and the staff was friendly, although a bit sad that I didn't make any purchases. Perhaps for Christmas. Sensual love toys for all my friends!

On the way home the subway was closed due to "smoke conditions," I saw a rat as big as a bobcat and a man in a dress called me beautiful.

Oh and the flamenco show was sublime.

2009 in review

In 2009 I...
...drove or walked across the george washington, throgs neck, triboro, 49th st, manhattan, brooklyn, and verrazano bridges and through the midtown and lincoln tunnels. Only the whitestone bridge and the holland tunnel remain.
...finished 60 books including War and Peace, the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Wild Card Quilt, What is the What, Mountains beyond Mountains, Half the Sky, and Animal Farm.
...planted 45,000 trees (with the help of 3000 volunteers).
...had 5 first dates. Sigh.
...set foot in 7 states.

El Reino de Espana - por fin!

If you don't mind I'll squeeze the last three days of our trip into one posting. Day #2 in Sevilla we decided to maintain our long-standing tradition of visiting museums off the beaten path...so off the beaten path in fact that we spent much of the morning wandering lost in the haze of a 100 degree day. Finally we stumbled through the oasis that is Parque Maria Luisa where Chachi lectured us on the finer points of urban planning and forestry. According to Wikipedia the park "tiene una particular característica, sus palomas, que al agruparse forman una blanca alfombra cuyo apetito resulta difícil de saciar." Fighting off a white carpet of insatiable pigeons we arrived at the Museo de Artes Populares y Costumbres which had an extensive collection of doilies. Even the display on sausage-making did not make it worth the threat of a fowl death. (Ha?) Next we hit up the Museo Arqueologico de Sevilla where we learned all about the history and culture of Spain from trilobites to tapas. I was perhaps more fascinated than my lovely companions but generally our indomitable tourist spirit was lessened and we spent the rest of the day eating anything but tapas, swimming in the hotel pool and shopping.

Sevilla from above (duh?)

Day #3 in Sevilla we actually spent on the beach in Cadiz. Due to some quirk in train reservations Mary and I were seated in a diffferent car than Chachi and arrived sans our favorite tall redheaded companion.

The woman at the information desk in the train station convinced us that no trains would arrive for the next few hours and that we should probably just go to the beach. We hopped on a bus, stopped at the grocery store, tried calling Chachi several times and finally settled on the beach hoping against hopes that we would run into the boy eventually. A mile or so and the beginnings of a good sunburn later we spotted our fair (literally) friend who had gotten off at a train stop closer to the beach, didn't see us, took the next train to where Mary and I had gotten off, spoke to the same woman who evidently didn't absorb that the three lost Americans were together, took a bus back to the beach and in the mark of a good traveler also bought some groceries and settled himself. Reunited, we continued to work on our sunburns until we headed back to Sevilla. here, Chachi left to meet up with a friend of his and Mary and I ventured out to a flamenco show. Unfortunately I don't have any photos so this one will have to do:

The next day brought the end of our trip. Mary and I, erratically and uncomfortably sunburnt (I still bear marks today) traveled back to Madrid and in the whirlwind typical of the last day of vacation visited the Archeology Museum, ate McDonalds, bought souvenirs, took photos of the train station...
...and then sat in the airport for three hours due to mechanical difficulties.

We are now home safe and sound and are planning our next vacation which I won't write about until six months later. Bueno pues nada.

El Reino de Espana - melting in Sevilla

Competing in the Amazing Race demands some athleticism. Mary runs marathons and I can plod along for hours....and honestly this was our downfall in Sevilla. It was sooo hot and we walked sooo far each day getting sooo lost when honestly we should have sprung for cabs all the time. (Not that cabs always helped. At least twice we got dropped off at the wrong place and still had to walk further.)

But let's start at the beginning. Bright and shiny early Mary and I hopped on the train to Sevilla and upon arriving somehow navigated our way to the hotel. (I seem to recall taking a bus. Could that be true?) While checking in, I turned to see Mary being hugged by a tall red-head who turned out to be my friend Cody. Cody served in Peace Corps Bolivia and had the poor fortune to be in my Spanish class for 11 weeks. He is now in grad school in Europe and agreed to spend a couple of days with us.

For some bizarre reason we decided to cram all of the Seville sights into one day...and started off by ducking into a church to check out the relics (bits of dead saints).

Finally we made it to the Cathedral which, according to the Guinness Book of World Records certificate inside, is the largest in the world. I take nothing at face value so I googled it; it's the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and third largest cathedral cathedral.

I have a bad habit of attaching myself to tour groups and eavesdropping on all the exclusive juicy historical details so I was pleased to note that Cody had the same habit. As an added bonus he also speaks French which allowed us more range in our tour group joining.
Unfortunately all he understood from the description of the altar pieces were a bunch of numbers which we assumed to be dates.

The cathedral has a bell tower or giralda that you can climb.

It does not have stairs but rather a 36 story ramp. (For those wondering: they were numbered. I didn't count the floors.) Many of the floors have windows which provide welcome opportunities to rest and check out the drainage system.

Each individual bell was named after a different saint but to my disappointment they were controlled by an electronic timer.

Throughout the trip I was interested to note what aspects of Spanish culture made their way over to the Americas. Hmmm.

After a lunch of overpriced sandwiches, instead of resting like normal people we went to the royal palace and gardens. Evidently the royals still live there although probably not in the summer. If you are insane enough to go in July (like us), there is a poorly calibrated fountain in the palace that sprays water on passersby. Totally worth the admission.

I took thousands of bad pictures that do nothing to show off the scope and scale of the palace... And we left when Mary got the hiccups and I was laughing too hard at her distress to be able to breathe.

Still to come: the boring museums of Sevilla which aren't highlighted in tourist guides for a reason.

El Reino de espana - in which we go to Cordoba and it is closed

After a few days in Madrid, we decided to take the show on the road and start the trek southwards to Sevilla. First stop: Cordoba. Status: closed. In yet another example of not reading the guide books we arrived to Cordoba on a Monday only to be told that almost all tourist attractions in the city were closed on Mondays. We made the best of it.

We didn't stay in this hotel. But I liked this particular street in the Jewish quarter of town-- and so we ate lunch there which presented for the gazillionth time another impediment to our Amazing Race debut. Flaw #3: my dear sweet sister is allergic to a variety of meat products, many of which are served with regularity in Spain. My translating skills were the only thing standing between her and certain death! After lunch we continued wandering, stopping into a variety of artesenia stores before coming to the mosque. While Mary was using the bathroom outside of the mosque I ran into a nice Canadian Mennonite couple on vacation from Bolivia. Poor Mary came out to find me chatting animatedly with strangers yet again; they recommended a good flamenco place and we parted ways.


The mosque and gardens were lovely. They are of course a Catholic church now. After meandering through the grounds and gigantic building we walked over to the other side of Cordoba to the only other open tourist attraction.I haven't yet mentioned but Cordoba was really frikkin hot and sunny. We spent much of our time applying and re-applying sunscreen and scurrying from shady spot to shady spot. This bridge presented quite the barrier to that plan.

The bridge ended in a tower that had several interactive displays that described the history and attractions of Cordoba with audio tracks piped through to stylish headwear.

You could change the tracks to your particular language at will and at one point I even tried German in one ear and English in the other. After an hour or so there we returned to the main city, ate ice cream, sampled horchata and looked at all the lovely building from the outside. For a bust of a day it wasn't too bad. We then went to the train station to reserve our tickets for the next day. Unfortunately it looked like everyone else wanted to leave too...
In the next installment: we get lost in Sevilla and avoid haircuts.

El Reino de Espana - Toledo for no apparent reason

Before going to Spain Mary and I divided the financial and planning responsibilities. I bought the plane tickets (because I harangued American Airlines into crediting me for a flight I purchased but never took. That's a story for another day.) and the EuroRail pass and Mary reserved the hotels and was generally the cash-cow (moo) in-country. I decided on what cities we would visit and Mary was going to plan the individual days...or so I thought.

So Sunday was blocked out to take the train to Toledo for the day. According to Wikipedia and the guide books we consulted Toledo was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its "extensive cultural and monumental heritage as one of the former capitals of the Spanish Empire and place of coexistence of Christian, Jewish, and Moorish cultures"...until they were expelled from Spain of course. Sounds dreamy no?

And so it is, See?.......ok perhaps not the best example.

We arrived at the Madrid train station and went straight to the information office to figure out how in the heck to use our EuroRail pass. Here I will give one of the only useful travel tips you can glean from my blog: The EuroRail pass is pretty much useless, or at the very least not cost-effective, in Spain. EuroRail requires reservation fees in addition to the cost of the pass for trains that are high speed. Wait for it, wait for it...pretty much all the trains in Spain are high speed and, as it turns out, the reservation fee is often more expensive than just buying a normal ticket sans EuroRail.

We did make it to Toledo finally and tooled around the town. Unfortunately many of the the touted cultural sites were closed for renovation. That's ok. There's always the Torture Museum!

A note on this photo in the spirit of oversharing: like many women I am prone to retaining water during certain points of the month. Generally that bloat contributes to distractingly large boobs but sometimes, due to large amounts of water consumption and/or trans-Atlantic flights, I can expand in all directions. So yeah, that's what's going on.

Afterwards, we basically went to whatever was open. The cathedral:



The monastery church:

And several other churches that were churches and several synagogues and mosques that were churches and castles that had churches.

Then we got tired, and perhaps a little heat-stroked after all the walking and started taking cheesy photos. Mary with the Spain beer guy:

And me with Cervantes:

Then we headed back to Madrid for dinner at which point Mary, who up until that point had made no indication of reading the guide books, mentioned that most restaurants were closed on Sundays except those that catered especially to Americans. (another travel tip! Amazing!) So we entered a restaurant in a parellel universe where the typical American dish was enchiladas, Michael Jackson was dead, and Brazil lost a soccer game to the USA....and the day ended.

Still to come: We travel to Cordoba but it's closed!