Week 2, Day Eight
Queridos amigos,
So much has happened, and I’m trying to get it all down. Yesterday was Saturday and all the sidewalk cafes in Logroño were bustling. A beautiful day.
Monument to Young Pilgrims
Logroño, Near my Hotel
Across from the cathedral there was some huge but peaceful protest going on in the square. There were perhaps eight tents; a sleep-in perhaps. Lots of tables with volunteers helping people sign petitions, lots of big posters condemning bankers, the rich, the government. The posters had the same feel as the Posada skeleton posters during the Mexican revolution. I took pictures of a lot of them.
Protesters Camping Out in the Main Plaza
‘Sin’ Means Without -- The Man Leaning on the Fiscal Paradise Sign Says, ‘Without shame’
Mass was at six and I was right there so I went into the cathedral about quarter til six. All was dark; the organist was playing Pachelbel’s Canon. Very moving. About two minutes before six all the lights went on and a horde of well-dressed people flooded in. I asked if it were a wedding. It was.
Amid this sea of women in elegant dresses and men in dark suits, white shirts, nice ties, and shiny black shoes, guess who doesn’t fit in. Maybe it’s that guy in the fifth row with the wrinkled, sweat-stained chambray shirt, the ink-stained, trail-stained nylon hiking pants, the bare, heavily bandaged toes protruding from his dusty Birkenstocks, who badly needs a shave. Hey, I am who I am and I was there first.
In retrospect I should have moved to the very back of the church. As a concession to the family, I moved from next to the center aisle to the end of the pew to make room for the wedding party. No takers. You don´t go to a society wedding and sit next to a vagrant who might be crazy. Perhaps they thought I came from demonstration outside.
Veronica, the bride, was lovely, the tattoo on the back of her shoulder shining through her veil. I tried to get into the spirit of the occasion and applauded as loudly as anybody when the priest announced that Veronica and Eduardo were now man and wife. As a final concession to the wedding party, I resolved not to stick around after the ceremony and try to kiss the bride.
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