mullets and peasants and...guns (??!) OH my

Well, once again, I am sick. I don't know why. I went to bed early last night and when I got up this morning, I came to the Catedral to use the internet and Skype. But on entering the plaza I found a ton of people standing around with their fingers all in their ears. I walked across the plaza towards the direction they were all looking, and found a group of 20-30 men dressed as soldiers, and 20-30 men and women dressed as peasants, I guess. They were standing about 50 feet from each other, and yelling. Kind of weakly. Actually only the "peasants" were yelling. The soldiers just stood there silently. All of a sudden a gun was shot, and I understood the plugged ears. I think I jumped about 4 feet. Plus because of the plaza, it echoed! There were more shots, back and forth, more yelling, more shots, and all of a sudden the soldiers raised all their guns at once, and shot all at once. I'm surprised that all the pidgeons managed to escape, since they stupidly left the safety of the ground to fly up into the air. Right where they guns were all being shot...Hundreds of pidgeons. And not one fell. And it's not like they were fake guns. They were definitely real.

Last night I went back to the market in San Antonio for dinner with a couple of friends, thinking we would try something new. Turns out for a sausage and some bread it cost 10-15 euros. So we wandered around for a while, and then went to find some other place to eat. This market is really strange. It's like a cross between the Portland Saturday Market, the Rose Festival Fun Center, and Disneyland. If they were all to take place in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, none of my pictures do it justice. Plus you have all the Spaniards walking around with their gigantic baby strollers (I think carriages is probably a better word choice) and their bizarro fashion choices...Seriously, I don't know where they get these ideas. I mean, I was definitely expecting painful faux-hawks and mullets, scattered with your pair of Hammer Pants, but this is bad. Anyone who looks in the mirror with their blunt bangs/mullet with the 3 dreadlocked rat tails in the back and say "Damn, I look good" has some issues (And these aren't just men here. The women "rock" this hairstyle, too). And then to proceed to put on a pair of parachute pants, and match your shoes to your belt to your scarf to your purse...I have no words. And they look at me like I'm dressed weird! But back to my point. All these people have come to this market, where all the vendors are dressed in something like 16th century peasant garb or like pirates and pretending (...maybe) to be drunkenly singing and dancing. It's the weirdest congregation of people I have ever seen.