Thursday, March 9, 2006
It is Thursday March 9th already and time seems to be passing by. The last few days have been calm and low key. I came down with a bad cold. Every day I would say to myself “slow down” but I haven’t….I think you can understand why…
Tuesday, I got a chance to sit in as a visitor in the Senado (Senate) . About 250 members. The session started at 4:p.m. and they had nine items on the agenda…I was not very impressed. Spain has to main political parties. The United Popular, Socialists and then many smaller parties. The popular party could be seen as the conservative and the socialists are the liberal. The entire debate was not the issue of the agendized item but they spent most of their time throwing mud at each other’s political party. Motions had very little substance…but I had to remember that Spain is a young democracy.
Yesterday, I went walking around downtown and came across an outdoor café. I approached a gentleman by the name of Jack Jamison. He is from Sacramento, California. . He was an American who has lived here with his wife since the 1970’s. He is an English teacher and musician here. I spent about two hours with him in a fantastic conversation. For the first time on this trip I was actually speaking to someone in English who had lived through the end of the Franco period. Little to say the least, he was very interesting and well educated. The contents of the discussion were so important for me so I have documented them off line for my own pleasure.
Let me just say it was a great pleasure to speak to you Mr. Jack Jamison. Your time with me was precious. I got a modern history lesson within a few hours…I hope we keep in contact and hope to meet your wife some day…anyway, please continue voting in our national election. Your vote always makes a difference even when it seems it doesn’t.
I then went over to the National Prado Art Museum. WOW…that is all I could say. This is the first time I really enjoyed myself at an art museum. (Don’t know why? I am gay, I should like these places) maybe it was just the fact that I nothing else to do but dedicate all of my attention to what was in front of me…. Again great! I took some photos and they will be on my photo blog soon, but I could not use my flash. so they are not of great quality…
By now I was really feeling sick. I could not even meet with my friend Helena for coffee. On the way to the metro station, I came across the Woman’s day march which on Atocha Street which was close to the museum. In waiting for the march to commence I started up a chat with a police officer named Alvaro. He is twenty seven years old and a darling. We talked for a long time. He was really interested in Los Angeles and New York. I told him that they would be interested in him too. He blushed. I even told him that he could leave the police force and become a model (Now this is the Richard I used to know) Again he blushed. He said that he would be interested in coming to Los Angeles. I gave him my business card and told him to look me up..
The woman’s day march was large. It was part of the international day of the woman worker. About 3,000 people participated. Very impressive! I spoke to many and told them that we from our organization supported them. They welcomed it!
Went home, worked on the computer a bit and knocked out
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