La Virgen en el tren

Cool! Another public holiday, this time we celebrated a patron saint of Madrid, La Virgen de la Almudena. On Wednesday, in my Spanish class I learnt a useful "expresión familiar": when there is a public holiday on Thursday like today, the Spaniards like to take a day off on Friday, too, and they call it "hacer puente". It's unofficial, thus extremely popular. I guess I celebrated this day with the best lunch here so far. I went for a menú diario to Areia Colonial, a restaurant/bar/chill-out on c/ Hortaleza, where I enjoyed a caipirinha on my first day in Madrid, so I have a special feeling towards that place. A wonderful salad with warm aromatic cheese on top was followed by "brocheta de langostinos". This feast was crowned by an outstanding "tarta de chocolate" that was served warm. In the afternoon I went to see a movie and as I happened to be in the Madrid de los Austrias, I went to check if there was anything happening on Plaza Mayor. Indeed, there was some fiesta there, as colourful as described in my travel guide. The castizos from Vallecas, dressed in traditional outfits, were dancing on the stage and were proudly accompanied by many people in the audience. I understand that the stage performance could be targeted on tourists, but the madrileños followed, so it was a pretty surreal experience. After the movie, I made a stop in fnac and bought a new CD by Alejandro Sanz, called El tren de los momentos. Passing by a Pull and Bear store, I remembered that I wanted to post a piece of an advertisement for their clothes with Evandro Soldati, a Brazilian supermodel that convinces me that if there is a God, he must be Brazilian.