SCOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, the things that I get myself into. I don´t know how it happens half the time, but I somehow bumble my way into stuff that most people would only dream of.

Sunday started out pretty dreary and miserable due to the rain. Around noon time, Eric and I headed south from the Gran Via to check out El Rastro (which translated means "the stain"), which is Madrid´s popular outdoor flea market that they hold every Sunday. The call it the "world´s largest flea market," but I´ll be honest: I´ve seen bigger. Shoot...El Rastro can´t even compare with Anderson, South Carolina´s world famous Jockey Lot. Now THAT is a large flea market. But anyway, El Rastro was interesting to walk through. For a couple of Euros, you can buy crappy bootleg T-shirts, crappy music, crappy black market Levi´s, and crappy women´s purses with misspelled names like Prodo and Couch.

After El Rastro, we made it over to the Museo del Prado to see some of the world´s older artwork. I enjoyed that museum much better than the Sofia. I was able to see works by Rafael, de Goya, El Greco, and many of the other masters from the Renaissance period. Great stuff.

We then headed back to the hostel, but I jumped on a subway and headed north to the futbol stadium to check out the pandemonium that was about to ensue. On Sunday, Madrid was hosting one of their final futbol games agains Malcorra. If you know European futbol fans, they tend to be overly passionate about their team, much more so than Americans. The streets outside the stadium were packed with aficionados donning their Real Madrid jersey and waving flags and blowing horns and noise makers and jumping up and down. It felt like Franco had just fallen from power and the crowd was rejoicing. I then headed back on the Metro to the hostel and watched some of the futbol game on television. As predicted, Real Madrid won, and since this was one of David Beckham´s last games with Madrid before he leaves for L.A., this game was extrememly important. This game also determined that Madrid was tied for first place with Barcelona. So after the game ended, fireworks went off all over the city, the crowds hit the streets yelling and screaming and going nuts and marched down the Gran Via to the plaza downtown. I drank beer for 2 hours watching the insanity, then joined in on the march. What an awesome way to end the evening.