La Virgen de la Romería en San Lorenzo de El Escorial

09.12.10 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial - In the action-packed weekend that was, Sunday was a fiesta in our town. Something called a Romería, which I still haven't pinned down a proper definition for yet, but seems to be when every gets dressed in traditional costumes, builds parade floats and walks down to the nearest park to barbecue in the morning and comes back late at night. Missed the barbecue part unfortunately, but we did see them coming back. Seemed like a good time.

-Will

Drummer boy.
Dancing queen.
Romero.
Guarding their trophy carefully.

A bit of motor oil and a bit of homemade tinto de verano are something to always keep on the back of the parade float. It's just a good idea.

Noche en Blanco

09.11.10 - Madrid, Spain - This probably makes me the last of 10,000 photographers to post my photos from Noche en Blanco on Saturday night, but what can I say? The city of Madrid shut down the Gran Via (main boulevard) and filled it with art expos, thousands of people and lots of Chinese guys running around selling Mahou on the street. Really, not a whole lot different than any Saturday night in Madrid, only this time there was more family friendly activities.

The night was fun and we bar-hopped until they kicked us out of the last place open around 2:30am. Eunice and I spent the next couple hours debating the merits of the hot dogs at Chicago Hot Dogs in Chueca and then we headed back to El Escorial on the first train at 6:30am.

-Will

Ball fight in the Plaza Dos de Mayo.
Ball fight in the Plaza Dos de Mayo.
Lady dancing on a building in the Plaza de Santo Domingo.
Crowd.
Random people in Chueca.
Eunice.
George and Jenni in Sol.
Aforementioned Chicago Hot Dogs and a Bud, mmm. . .America

RENFE

09.09.10 - Robledo de Chavela, Spain - Eunice and I went to Robledo to meet the teachers at the school I'll be teaching at this year. It's a nice little pueblo in a valley about an hour outside of Madrid. We took the train back two stops to San Lorenzo and I took a few shots of the train station in Robledo and El Escorial.

-Will

Beautiful sky around the station in El Escorial, if it weren't for the missing letters on the sign, it might be a good shot for ADIF.

The station in Robledo. Kind of has a wild west feel to it, just without the tumbleweeds.

Summer Camp Vol 4-8

09.02.10 - El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain - As you may or may not have noticed, my plan to post weekly photos of TECS Summer Camp on my blog failed in spectacular fashion somewhere between weeks three and four. It was probably a bit ambitious anyway. At any given moment I was juggling requests in all types of media, from downloading music for performance night, shooting daily photos, updating the website and trying desparately to keep everything organized.

Suffice to say, being a camp IT Specialist is not an easy job and doesn't lend itself well to updating personal blogs. Anyway, below is my Photoshelter gallery of the summer. I tried to keep a tight edit of 20 photos and give a little idea of the chronology (using "story" there would be a bit ambitious for what I accomplished). Flip through it when the inspiration strikes you.

-Will