La noche en blanco

Paco (the name Puck uses here in Spain) and I went out to eat with one of the historical fencers (Rorro) and his wife tonight–a delicious Italian dinner. I had gnocchi (pasta made of potatoes) which always makes me think of Leo, my host mom in Argentina. It was wonderful to go out with another couple, and we’re meeting Rorro tomorrow morning to go to the fencing practice up in the northern part of Madrid.

Signs like these were hung all over the city to announce La noche en blanco.

Last Saturday we went out for La noche en blanco. We started the night in the Plaza de Espana (just a couple of blocks from our house). There was a huge image of the full moon hanging from one of the buildings overlooking the plaza and fireworks.

The fireworks marked the beginning of the night on the town and did homage to the large image of the moon hanging from the building to the left.

The Plaza de España also has statues of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, and in the photo you can see the full moon image behind it.

The Plaza de España is only a couple of blocks from our apartment.

There is also a photo of Paco in the Plaza Mayor where we sat at one of the cafes and had some coffee as the night got chilly and we got tired.

You can see the Plaza Mayor behind Puck. It is a gathering area in Spain where many activities have taken place over the years.

We were also pretty amused by the large rubber duckies in the fountains along the road in front of the Prado Museum. There are two photos of Neptune’s fountain. It was very cool to get to walk right up to the fountains because normally there is so much traffic it would be impossible.

The large rubber ducks reminded us of our friend Leigh's collection of duckies.

There were supposedly around a million people on the Madrid streets that night and diverse types of music on the air. They had images of lips on one of the buildings with the loud sound of “smacks” (noisy kisses). As they said, they were showering the streets with kisses.

Kisses for everyone! Imagine the loud smacking sounds.

A final image from our night out on the town:

We had a lot of fun wandering the streets of Madrid with thousands of other people.