Oct. 12: Día de something

I'm really not sure why there are so many different names for the same holiday, this past Friday, October 12: in Latin America it's known as Día de la Raza, here it's called Día de la hispanidad but it's also known as the religious festival Día de Nuestra Señora Pilar. It's Columbus Day in the states. For Spain it's supposed to be a nationalist holiday, for Spain's former colonies it's supposed to be a day to assert indigenous pride and memorialize the beginning of their unfortunate conquest, and for the US, it's supposed to be a holiday to celebrate their being discovered (sounds an awful lot like a Hollywood aspiration, being discovered).

Anyways, we went out with several friends to celebrate and pretty much missed the whole VivAmerica concert-on-wheels. I did snag this photo of the Dominican rappers, but they were the last of four floats to pass and we weren't interested in fighting the crowd up to hear Carlos Vives' crooning. We took advantage of the lights of the oncoming cleaner trucks to take pictures, including the one at the beginning of this post; as one friend pictured commented, there we have representation, from left to right, from Mexico, the US (that's me!), the Czech Republic, the Filipines, US/Spain, Colombia, Mexico and Panama. I think the most important thing we commemorated was our shared friendship, more than nationality or language. We wandered away from the Paseo de la Castellana and the crowds to celebrate elsewhere, eating tapas, dancing in an Irish pub, and later going out for churros con chocolate. You can thank the New World for the latter treat!