La Noche en Blanco (Part I)

White Nights are sort of a new-ish urban trend (begun in Paris in 2001, Madrid began theirs in 2005, according to Wikipedia). Basically, it's an all night street party for the entire city. They shut down the center to traffic and all sorts of museums and exhibitions are open to the public all night long, along with a lots of outdoor music.

This is The Gran Vía--all lit up and ready to party. 

We wandered by the Mexican Embassy, where they were showing what amounted to Mexican travel propaganda on the side of the building. It was all very dramatic and slo-mo-ey. Literally, every single shot for the 10 minute video (it felt like longer, but I'm just guessing here, so I'll give the videographer the benefit of the doubt) was in slow motion, with soaring dramatic music to go with it. I felt like I was watching the intro to a telenovela.

Also, I got to take my picture with people in Mexican traditional dress!

And we stopped at a self-serve fro-yo store to try it out, but their yogurt kind of tasted like cream, instead of, you know, yogurt, so I probs won't be going back. (also, a self-serve yogurt place doesn't have chocolate chip cookie dough. Who does that?). Still, we had fun eating it while chillin' in the Plaza Mayor. That's Christina greedily snarfing down hers above.

PS: Potentially my favorite story of the night was when we were entering the Plaza Mayor. The crowds were kind of overwhelming, but I noticed this one older-ish adolescent boy (maybe 17?) excitedly saying to his friends: "Americanas, Americanas!" I looked around me, and sure enough, there was this large pack of American girls talking about what they wanted to do next. I felt a little sorry for the kid because his excitement clearly stemmed from the thought that he could score it big with an American chick that night. He couldn't. Those girls were in a pack and they had some other dudes with them. They weren't really trusting the Madrid night scene just yet.