30 Days To Groundhog Day

It's a new year and hopefully it will be a good year but it is the anniversary year and there are only 30 days to go until the centenary celebration on Groundhog Day so I will be busy posting about the upcoming anniversary but also trying to finish Ulysses by February 2nd.

30 days to to go and I was delighted to get through a full 20 pages today while drinking coffee in La Cervecería Alemana in Plaza Santa Ana in the centre of Old Madrid.

While the bar has nothing to do with James Joyce and everything to do with his old drinking buddy Ernest Hemingway who used to frequent the beautiful bar in the centre of Madrid which opened interestingly enough in 1904.

The bar has probably changed little since Hemingway's days except for the QR codes, credit card machine and a modern cash register.

It has been over 100 years since Spanish Flu killed millions of people globally and walking around the streets of Madrid, I can see that the mask mandate here is an absolute joke but I love the technological advancement of QR Codes for menus and contactless payments by Credit Card which have made dining during a pandemic possible and safe.

Let's celebrate the past and the best from 1904 but let's embrace best practices like La Cervecería Alemana have and if I can read 20 pages of Ulysses in a single sitting then I will have to start frequenting Hemingway's haunt more frequently over the next 30 days. Hemingway once said:

"Always do sober what you said you would do drunk, it will teach you to keep your mouth shut"

and when it comes to The Groundhog Day Challenge, sometimes I really wish that I had kept my mouth shut before starting such a challenging read. Maybe I have bitten off more than I can chew but with over 200 pages to read in the next 30 days, I think I will be keeping Hemingway's old seat warm in La Cervecería Alemana until Groundhog Day.

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