Baby pigs, museums and protests

Well the touristy stuff has died down a bit these last few days mainly because we have seen pretty much all the touristy stuff in Madrid. Except a bull fight. And we plan to do that Sunday. I am excited because bull fighting is a huge part of Spanish culture and it probably won't be around much longer but a little nervous because I was talking with a girl in my program who has seen a bull fight and she said when she went she saw a person get gored. The person lived but still. Gross! I am praying no one gets gored we when go.

Anyhow, baby pigs. Ben found a market called Mercardo Maravilla so we headed up north to check it out. I have never seen so many vegetables, fruits, meats, fish and cheese in one place. There was stall after stall of these products. We are planning to go back there for produce because that looked pretty good. Some of the meat, such as the pigs and skinned rabbits, eyes still intact and the huge squid not so much. If we ever decide to make Chuletitas de conjeo (rabbit ribs) from the tapas recipe book we just bought we will know where to go.

Anyone hungry?

Wednesday night we went to one of the largest museums in Madrid, Museo del Prado. They have free hours from 6-8pm every night. We thought we'd get through the museum in an hour or so and then go out for tapas. I don't think we even saw a quarter of the museum! It was huge! We did get to see a few of the masterpieces housed there. One of them being 'Las meninas' by Velazquez. We plan to take a few more additional nights to get through the whole museum.

Las meninas 

We made it through 11 rooms in 2 hours. 

Once again the people are protesting. We were in the center a couple of nights in a row. The first time I didn't have my camera but the second night I had it and was able to get a couple of pictures. When we showed up the first night, Tuesday, the police, in full riot gear, had closed off a large section of the city. Cars weren't allowed to drive down the streets and some pedestrians even had a hard time getting past. Somehow Ben and I slipped through but at one point I wasn't 100% sure we would be able to get out of the sectioned off area. 

While we were walking on one of the main streets we noticed that a bunch of cars were stuck! The protesters had blocked them in. The police had already cleared most of them out of the way but enough by standers had gathered that they had to back everyone out of the area and send them down side streets. 

The next morning we looked up local news and got the full story. The people were rioting in Plaza de Neptuno where the parliament buildings are. The people were yelling 'Shame' and 'Resign' because they are quite dissatifsfied with the 25% unemployment rate. Someone who was here with the program last year said the people were unhappy with the president of Spain and voted to re-elect a year earlier than scheduled. It looks like they are still unhappy. Some of the protesters were trying to break down metal barriers that protect the lower house of parliament. Riot police ended up charging the thousands of protesters using rubber bullets and batons down side avenues to clear the plaza. Many sat on the ground and refused to leave. Hours later, with police blocking in the plaza the people still sat there peacefully. This is about the time Ben and I showed up. Thank goodness we missed the rubber bullets! 

Picture courtesy of www.news24.com

Wednesday there was another protest going on. Thousands of people are sitting in the roads not budging. From looking at the news it looks like this protest was a bit more peaceful. There were still a lot of police around but we didn't see as many of them in riot gear. The streets were jam packed though!

That car is getting no where fast!