Thanksgiving

I had Thanksgiving at the home of the pastor of my church. The pastor has been a missionary here for ~25 years and they always invite all the Americans to have Thanksgiving. It was quite different than my normal Thanksgiving. Actually not too different; just that everything was very fancy. Wine, candles, etc. The company was great as well. There was a girl who lived in Sisters last year so we had a good time talking about Central Oregon. Here are some random fun facts I learned from the group:

- Some homeless people have wi-fi under a bridge in Madrid and are quite tidy. No it's not pronounced "wy-fy", in Spanish it's "wee-fee".

- The pastor's son, Ryan, said that one time he ran away from the ticket taker on the train just to see what he would do. The ticket taker finally caught up to him a few train cars down and Ryan showed him his ticket. The guy asked/yelled, "Why did you run?" and Ryan replied, "Why did you run?"

- One time our worship leader, Kenny, was (literally) running late to catch a train and didn't have time to buy a ticket. He asked a security guard who was boarding at the same time if he could pay on the train; the man said yes. When the train's doors closed the security guard fined him for not having a ticket. After a few moments of confusion Kenny started egging the man on and finally the security guard called him a bad name. After that Kenny took down his name and information. The train company dropped the fine after Kenny wrote to them saying he felt: insulted, ashamed to ride on their trains and was going to sue.

- Last year there was a strike by the parking enforcement because sometimes people would beat them up when they got a ticket. The parking enforcement wanted a security guard accompanying them. Everybody supported the strike. It was the best two weeks of parking in Madrid.