This past
week was awesome. Tuesday and Wednesday were holidays of some sort,
so the schools gave us Monday off as well and made it a long weekend.
I have Fridays off, though, so it turned into a 6-day weekend
followed by a 1-day work week. I can DEFINITELY get used to that.
Unfortunately it rained the ENTIRE time, practically, so it was hard
to do the things I wanted to do like start running (read: jogging)
and see more of the city (I know the city pretty well but I could
stand to explore more...take more pictures...I forget how bad-ass it
is living in Madrid since I've been here for so long).
The next
fun even was Saturday, which if course was Cinco de Mayo. For all of
you who don't know, Cinco de Mayo is (obviously) a Mexican holiday,
celebrating the Mexican triumph at the Battle of Puebla. None of my
friends were doing anything, and Spaniards couldn't care less about
Mexican history...so I went with Rebecca and some of the other
assistants from her school to a Mexican restaurant named Montezuma.
It was a pretty classy place. Rebecca & I got there first and the
first thing I noticed was that there wasn't any music playing. COME
ON! If it's Cinco de Mayo, I need some mariachi music in my face...or
something. Eventually they turned on some elevator Spanish
music...but it wasn't meant for a Mexican restaurant (and by that I
mean the American Mexican restaurants, haha...I was hoping for El
Rodeo to magically appear in Spain.) We ordered margaritas and I
think I confused the shit out of the waiter because I asked for sugar
instead of salt. He told me he'd try...and in the end came through!
We ended up waiting for the other girls a little bit (because
Montezuma is located in a back alley on a hill far away from
landmarks) but I didn't care. I'm always a happy little camper if I
have a delicious margarita in front of my face. During the summer I
swear 1/2 of the money I spent is with friends at Rodeo drinking
margaritas on the patio and eavesdropping on the workers (I think I'm
the only one who does that, though...haha) Therefore, the taste of
margaritas=home. The waiter kept checking on us to make sure we
didn't want to order and Rebecca was a little brat and told the
waiter I wanted to hear some Juanes (the most cliché Mexican singer
ever...Juanes is the go-to singer in every Spanish class across
America...right before Shakira). In her defense I DID say I wanted to
hear Juanes but I didn't feel like sharing that with the waiter. I
felt the need to explain my rudeness in judging their music so I
reminded him it was Cinco de Mayo and we're Americans, so we tend to
celebrate the holiday more than Mexicans do...and we were there for
that purpose and I just wanted the ambiance to feel more...Cinco-y.
He tried to test me and asked if I even knew why we celebrate Cinco
de Mayo and I quickly retorted with the Battle of Puebla. (Look Mom &
Dad! That summer in Mexico served for something :) He was impressed,
mainly because he had asked not because he was testing me, but
because he forgot. And for this I was rewarded with a free refill of
my delicious sugar-rimmed margarita. Mmmmm... Sadly the restaurant
got busy and our waiter left us and was substituted by a middle-aged
Asian woman. I was thoroughly amazed and confused for a little bit.
Have you ever seen an Asian working at a Mexican restaurant? It's
funny. Anyways by the end of the meal my intelligence and delightful
personality (I like to think) scored me free margarita and free
chicken...it was the best meal I've had yet in Spain! I was so
stuffed though...so stuffed. Cinco is the new Thanksgiving.
Afterwards
we walked to Sol, the center of Madrid, to grab some ice cream and
enjoy the sun. Guess what we found....not one, but TWO mariachi
bands!! I don't think anybody knew about the holiday but I was
thoroughly touched. One band had an older Mexican couple watching,
who started dancing (Video #1) and the other group had this old man,
who I will refer to as the Energizer Bunny, who was dancing to the
music on his own free will for at least 30 minutes. Then this little
baby Asian girl came and started dancing with him. It was ADORABLE.
(Video #2)
This post
was supposed to be more about the hilarious things my students write,
though, and not so much about my life. Prepare to pee your pants in the next post!
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