The City of Randomness

Over the past few days, I have been noticing many random events. Some of these may seem out of the ordinary, however, randomness is actually quite common here in Madrid. I think if you are observing carefully, each town, city, country, culture is filled with these kind of "random" occurances. I went to the park the other day and this is where it all began...

• I was sitting on a bench minding my own business when I heard something falling through the leaves of the tree above me. I only realized what it was when I looked down and say pigeon poop on my leg.
• While also sitting on the poop bench, as I'll refer to it now, I watched a couple of guys play soccer. This may seem normal except that it was one on one and one guy was wearing a shirt and the other guy was shirtless. I wondered, did they do that on purpose so as to remember whose team they were on?
• After being pooped on while sitting on the poop bench, I decided it was time to find a new spot in the shade, but not directly under a tree. As I walked through the part to a new spot I passed a slightly paranoid looking woman sitting on a bench. Only when I looked closer did I realize why she was paranoid. She wasn't wearing a shirt. No, she wasn't playing soccer on the shirtless team. She was just cillin' on the bench in just her bra. This wasn't one of those cute bras either that could be mistaken for a bikini top. This was your grandma's white lace bra.
• I found a new bench and continued on with my reading, only to be disturbed by a large group of people walking my way. I looked up to see it was a bride, groom, I'm guessing their best man and maid of honor, and a large posse behind them. This doesn't seem too out of the ordinary because there was a photographer with them and Retiro is a beautiful park. The random part was that they were all wearing red ribbons. Not the little red ribbons that say you support something, like the troops or breast cancer awareness. These were grade school fun day 1st place size ribbons. Weird?!

So, now I've had enough and left the park. Hours have passed and I think I've seen all I can handle. Please, who am I trying to kid. One thing in Madrid that is guaranteed to always be random is fashion. I could list a hundred different weird things I've seen people wear but let me just mention a few that I have seen just in the last couple of days.

• A man that could be mistaken for a lumberjack. I don't think they really have those here though. He had the big boots, the white socks coming out of them, the carpenter style khaki colored shorts, and to top it off, the flanel shirt.
• This was followed by the two sets of mothers and daughters in matching outfits. Cute, right. Not when they are in their 30s and 50s. The first pair was wearing all opposite white and orange so the mother had on orange shoes, white pants, orange shirt, and a white purse. The daughter was just the opposite. The second pair was a bit cuter as it was a small girl and her mom who were wearing the exact same outfit.
• Now on to the not so cute, a man with one of the most incredible mohawks I've ever seen. He was past the rebelious mohawk age too.
• Finally, 2 men that look like they have just stepped out of the time machine. What was their time and place of origin you ask. 1980's death metal complete with the tight ripped jeans on one and the mega short cut-off shorts on the other. Long flowing hair in head bands and more. I can't even describe all of it.

Ok, I'll end with just a couple of other random things that just happened.

• I saw a sign that had the temperature outside posted on it. It said it was 69 degrees celcius. For you farenheit people out there, that is 156.2. Not possible. I think it was only in the 80s (F).
• Just in the last 3 days I have seen at least 5 different men peeing on the street. This is actually pretty common here so maybe I shouldn't list that in this post of randomness, but before I moved to Madrid, I would have considered that to be random.
• Victoria and I saw R.U.M.H. from the bus. Trust me, you don't even want to know. It's too bizarre to actually say, we had to come up with an acronym.
• The cute, but obnoxious, little dog in our building named Luli is a boy, despite what his name may lead you to believe.
• I was walking home with Victoria and say a man smelling his socks. He apparently didn't appreciate me seeing him doing that so he threw his hands up at me as I walked by to scare me. All it did was make me want to punch him.
• This is the last one, I promise. In Madrid, or even Spain for that matter, this is not random, but again from a Giri(foreigner) this may seem random. Many shops close down for almost the entire month of August so the owners can go on vacation. They often just post a hand written note on the building letting you know when they'll open again.

Well, I think that's it for now. It's been an interesting couple of days. My mind is still spinning.