Happy New Year!

As you know, yesterday was New Year's Eve. I wanted kebab for lunch, so we went to a kebab restaurant called Sindibad. I was expecting meat on a stick. What we got was delicious, but it wasn't on a stick. This is what they do: they tightly press meat pieces (chicken or lamb) together until they have a 2-foot tall barrel shape. This is what they skewer and put on a vertical spit. The meat rotates in front of a burner. When someone orders kebab, the meat for their kebab is shaved off the barrel and put on a flat bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, and dressing. It was a messy concoction, but Katie and I enjoyed our kebabs and Ginny enjoyed her duram (like a tortilla wrap).
We spent a good part of the day walking around the city (Katie and I will have the best legs in Hayden). Ginny wanted to stop by a used English bookstore, so we went there. Unhappily, it was closed. Then we walked what seemed like several more miles to an ancient Egyptian temple (it was closed, too) that was surrounded by a park. There we sat and rested. It was very nice and relaxing. Then we headed back and stopped for ice cream in the Puerta del Sol. We knew we would be out late last night, so we went back to the apartment to rest before heading back to the Puerta del Sol for New Years.
I must say that last night was the craziest New Year's Eve I've ever experienced. I might compare it to going to Times Square in New York City to watch the ball drop except that I've never been there. Just seen it on TV. Ginny's friend, Biz, joined us as she had just arrived back in Madrid from her home visit to Memphis. We put on our sparkly hats and feather boas (Biz borrowed a crazy wig that Ginny had) and we all went to Puerta del Sol, along with all Madridians and a host of Italians, to usher in the new year. At the Puerta del Sol is a huge clock tower on a building. I guess that's the reason everyone goes there. It's also a very large open area. As we walked toward the clock, it became more and more crowded. Police were there to keep the crowd in check and, at one point, my bag was searched for glass bottles. I didn't have one. It seemed that everyone was drinking. Some had obviously been drinking for some time. At the glass bottles check point, if you had a bottle, you had to open it, pour the contents of the bottle into a large plastic drinking glass that the police and sanitation workers provided, and toss your bottle into a garbage bin before you could continue on toward the clock. They didn't want to deprive anyone of their alcohol, but they also didn't want anyone breaking bottles in their New Year's celebrations. We found a spot to stand on the side of the street so we wouldn't, we hoped, get washed away in the tide of people. Ginny had bought us small cans of 12 peeled, seedless grapes for the occasion. At each midnight chime of the clock, which we could barely hear, we ate a grape. Doing this is supposed to bring good fortune for the year to come, the same as eating black-eyed peas and collard greens on New Year's Day. I dropped one grape, and ate two at one time, so I don't know if my new year will be fortunate or not. I assume I'll have one really crappy month...can't wait to find out which one.
At midnight, fireworks were shot from the clock tower, a big "Feliz 2008" sign appeared below the clock, and everyone screamed. And there was kissing and dancing and yelling and pushing.
At about 12:15 we decided to try to head back home so we headed toward the nearest Metro station. This would prove to be the trying part of our night. We literally had to hold onto each other to keep from getting separated as we pushed our way through the crowd and as people in the crowd pushed their way through us. For Ginny, it was a frightening experience because of her time earlier in the year at the Tomatina when she was also in a crushing crowd. But I don't think Katie nor I were ever afraid. (We've decided that we came to Madrid for new experiences...some would be good but some would probably be bad.)
The Metro runs until 1:30 AM so we figured we probably had time to get home before it shut down. But there were so many people who wanted to travel around the city, too, to home and bars and parties, so we decided to take a round-about route on the Metro. It was nerve wracking, and a couple of times we were packed in the Metro cars so tightly that we didn't have to hang on. The crowd held us upright.
We finally arrived at home at about 1:30. This was when I discovered that my camera had been lifted out of my pocket. You know, at the square and on the Metro I kept thinking, this would be a fantastic opportunity for a pickpocket. Well, he or she must have read my mind, because someone else now has all my New Year's pictures along with my camera. It is upsetting, but I've determined not to let it ruin my time here. We had already copied most of my pictures onto the computer, so I'll have those. And I'll have the pictures that Ginny took. I have to say, "It's all good" and I really did pray that the person who has my camera will run into someone today who can lead him or her to a salvation relationship with Jesus.
So that was our New Years experience. I must say that it was a good time, it was exciting, but I doubt that I'll ever consciously do it again.

More observations:
*Everyone here wears scarves around their necks during the winter. Men and women. Everyone! There are some beautiful scarves and they really dress up a coat. A scarf does make a difference in the cold, and I'll probably continue to wear mine when I get home.
*Also, most of the young women wear boots.
*Everyone I've seen seems to be in the acceptable weight range. I've not seen any obesely large people. I guess it's all the walking. One of my New Year's resolutions (Ginny decided that we needed at least two resolutions each, and she made us write them down) is to walk a mile at least three times a week. Maybe that will help me trim down a bit.
*I think these small one-way side streets could actually be two-way streets, but people park on each side of the road, half on the road and half on the sidewalk. This also makes for narrow sidewalks. We usually walk in a line and watch out for the speeding drivers. I haven't yet figured out how the drivers know which way they are supposed to drive on the streets...no one-way only signs.
*And drivers here use their horns a lot. If someone is holding up traffic, cover your ears. In Segovia, we saw a lady get out of her car, march up to the offending driver, and give him an earful. I would be a nervous wreck trying to drive through this chaos. But no one seems to mind the horns...they don't take it personally.
*Yes, they do have McDonald's here, and KFC and Burger King. But there's no way we're going to eat there. We can do that at home. Sorry, Trent, we've not seen a Subway yet. I know that breaks your heart.
*I've heard that, in Europe, anything goes. This seems to be true. People do and wear whatever they want and are not put down for it. Us Americans know we fit right in because several times Katie and I have been spoken to in Spanish and the speaker expected a response. We always had to defer to Ginny who, I think, speaks Spanish like a native.

One of Ginny's resolutions was to learn to cook this year, so we're planning to make a couscous casserole for dinner using a recipe from one of the cookbooks Katie brought Ginny for Christmas (assuming that a store will be open from which we can purchase the necessary ingredients). We'll let you know how that turns out.
Happy New Year!