La noche en blanco

This past weekend’s exploits didn’t involve a jaunt about my adopted country, but rather remaining right here in Madrid, if not only to explore my city, but also for a special celebration. To say “Paseo una noche en blanco” literally means to spend a white night, but is a colloquialism for staying out all night. It is thus fitting that this night-long festival (9:30 Saturday night until 7 Sunday morning) be called “La noche en blanco.” This was a celebration of arts, music and culture throughout the streets, buildings, and plazas of Madrid. The varied activities were spread all about town, with the intent that people take time to enjouy the arts and also their city while walking between events. The many espectáculos, or events, ranged from chocolate tasting at a museum dedicated to clothing, to a band debuting their newest cd in front of an ancient Egyptian temple that is situated in a magnificent park, to watching the stars at a planetarium while listening to jazz. Needless to say the night was unique.
My night started off with a visit to la Casa Encendida, an art museum, that had many strange pieces of art (huge installations), but was also projecting a video in their courtyard that combined multimedia art with the songs of Björk. The next stop was a local cervecería for a caña, a small beer, before going to the circus. The circus was amazing, and jammed full of people in a intimate space. The act that my friends and I saw was a lady who twirled about like a spider monkey on two pieces of red fabric that hung from the ceiling.
We met up with more people, and headed over to the botanical gardens for a poetry reading. The line was too long so we abandoned this event, and proceeded to walk through the streets. This is an event in itself, looking at all the bars and clubs (Madrid has more bars per capita than anywhere else in the world… the local bar is part of their culture). Eventually the group decided to go get churros y chocolate, a late night snack typical of Madrid. This involves churros, deep-fried pieces of dough, being dipped in a mug of really thick hot chocolate. It is spectacular. We arrived at the chocolatería at about 3 in the morning and there was already a twenty-minute wait. We waited and ate, and then were back off into the night. We headed to Sol, a large plaza, where we took some pictures, and lost some members of the group to sleep.
The Palacio Real next called our names, so we headed to there. This is the royal palace of Spain. We sat in the plaza next to the palace for a long while, and posed for pictures with the statues of former Spanish kings.
The final event of our evening was located at Parque del Retiro, a huge park like Central Park in NYC. There were at least 8 different bands playing different types of music in the park, starting at 6:15 a.m.
We saw a Spanish band, heard a band that was heavy on the accordion, and saw an orchestra. It is very fun to watch drunken men dance wildly to live music in the park as the sun comes up. I called it a full night, and returned home at about 8:30 a.m.