YOLO

Alright bloggers, it's been a while once again, but here's the thing I am in Spain and don't feel like updating you on all the dreams (freaky or not). This post is about the closest to a near death experience as I have ever had, and I want you to know that I don't want to ever experience it again!

It all starts with my family and I getting ready for an evening of dinner and drinking. We hear off our balcony people chanting and yelling. We look off our balcony and see literally thousands of people marching down our street into the nearby Plaza Sol. We watched the march, called the Black March, and finish getting ready. We decided to see what all the fuss was about  so we follow the general direction of the march. There are thousands of people gathered in this tiny plaza all shouting to stop cutting funding for the miners. Later upon further investigation I found out that they had marched from all over Spain sometimes ranging 600 km just to protest at the capital. We walked through the herd of people and head a little down another street in order to get out of the crowd because I get really antsy and nervous around large crowds of people. I would also like to point out that as soon as we hit the main throng of people that I had an instant image of us running and getting trampled by the crowd, but I kept my mouth shut for fear that my parents would say that I was in another mood. However, I couldn't mask my emotions all the way because I constantly pushed them to keep moving further and further away. I thought we would be relatively safe in a giant store called Cortes Ingles and consequently I bought two new pairs of sunglasses. We leave right as they are about to lock us in the store and we are deciding where to eat when I looked to my left and saw people running and screaming. It did not quite register so I looked behind me and saw literally 50 policia decked in riot garb starting to herd people out of the plaza. Everyone ran and screamed at the top of their lungs. My mom bolted in front of us and my dad grabbed my hand and that's when I heard the first shot. They shot rubber bullets into the crowd and chased everyone out of the plaza. We ran down the nearest street looking for refuge as soon as we could! All I could do was yell,"dad!" Restaurants and stores closed their doors to the runners and we ran like hell. Eventually we made it to a relatively safe zone and sat down at our friendly restaurant (we had made friends with them a few nights before) and had two pitchers of sangria.

I have never been so scared in my life, but you only live once, and that is one experience I can go my life without experiencing again.