Fiesta de San Isidro is a day for Madrid to celebrate itself and how cool the people are. Seriously. The traditional costume for this holiday is called "chulapa" for girls and "chulapos" for guys, and Im not sure what the direct translation would be, but chulo=cool. To celebrate, I went to the offcial park of San Isidro (this festival one day a year gets its own park!), la Pradera de San Isidro, with Esmerelda and 3 of her friends. We got there around 12, and there were people wandering by the food stands and game tents, but not too many on the grass. We got a good spot on the hill and set up our picnic. When we left 6 hours later, the blankets next to us were overlapped with people and you couldnt see any grass anymore.I learned some good new card games, and learned that there is such a thing as a Spanish deck of cards. Instead of the Queen, its a caballero, there are no numbers 8 and 9, and instead of the 4 suits, they have gold, cups, swords, and clubs. This whole time I thought a deck of cards was a standardized concept- ahhhh my world has shifted. Anyway hilarious playing poker with Spanish people because they pronounce the ace = "ass". So phrases like "ass is high" or "pair of asses" are always funny. I looked around and all the other blanket groups around us were playing cards too. We were the only ones with a legit breifcase of poker chips though.
My friends' moms all made tortilla espanola to bring to the picnic. Have I shared my love for this spanish delicacy? If not, its kind of like a cross between scrambled eggs and hashbrowns in one gushy, yet perplexingly delightful, mass. Im not sure how something so simple can be so delicious-- im thinking its probably the obscene amounts of olive oil, but so ill stick with not asking.
Once we couldn't take the stupid 14 year old girl puking a few blankets over, we walked around the park. It was just like Ocean City boarwalk, with stands for crappy food, dart/basketball games to win your typical oversized suffed animal or equally exciting, a leg of ham. There was one game where your ONLY option was a pig's leg. There were about 200 legs hanging on the wall behind the targets, and it the most popular one, I meant to go back and take a picture later when there were less people, but we didn't pass by it on the walk back. Im sure that ridiculous image in your head is what it really looked like.
Almost every festival in Spain has its own pastry dedicated to it. I like trying them because 1. theyre usually really interesting and really good i.e. for Easter the french toast-like pastry or the pastry with a big chocolate egg in the center 2. they're only available for a limited time, so you feel accomplished by tasting the fleeting wonder. The rosquillas for San Isidro are a cross between a cookie and a donut and there are 2 basic varieties: "listas", or smart ones, have sugar and "tontas", or stupid ones, are plain. I really like the names :) However, the pastries themselves...so gross and so disappointing. They taste like a stale wafery cookie, and I tried a lista! ***Side note: another Spanish nickname whose translation is really cute: you know the white weed puffball things that flutter through the air... I dont even know what they are... they look like a little cotton fuzz? Well they call them "abuelitos", Grandads. 
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