Festival Season Continues...

As the days get nearer to some of my Texas festival-favorites (State Fair, Grapefest, Jam-bourie) I am trying to distract myself by attending some of the wonderful festivals here. Last week we went to a festival called etnoSur in Alcalá la Real. This is a famous cultural festival with international music, dance and theatre. Angel, Gusana, Nando, Karmen, Nesto and I took the van and camped out very close. We saw a few of the concerts and went to a few of the parties. There were THOUSANDS of people in every square inch of the city- sleeping in cars, on sidewalks, in tents, etc. The guys took huge stereos and dj equipment and tons of cans of beer and bottles of water and sold them each for a euro, resulting in quite a nice profit. We hosted a dance party outside the van late Friday night/Saturday morning. On Sunday, we drove out to Rio San Juan for some peaceful, quiet relaxing in a gorgeous location. The water was freezing but felt great after all the crowds and heat of the festival.

On Tuesday a group of us gathered on a roof in the albaycin for a lovely home-cooked meal (Mel, Rafa, Angel, Me, Clare, Dave, David, Juan Luis, and Mercedes). Rafa made a salad and a paella, and we all sipped wine and spoke in Spanish. It was a very lovely evening.

This Saturday I attended my first Spanish Baptism for a cousin of Angel’s named Jaime. Surprisingly, it was at 10 p.m. in a gorgeous bar with a huge outdoor jardin. The food was fantastic, accompanied by wine, beer and champagne (why aren’t American baptisms like this?) A crazy man that had been at a wedding reception heard our party and switched over to join us. We were lucky enough to be graced with his presence at our table, which was slightly horrific, slightly entertaining, but more importantly vastly expanded my vocabulary.

SABES QUE…
My hometown is now running wild with Criminal Apes. 

This Ain't No Monkey Buisness

Explosive Good Times

Another week of classes- and luckily my flamenco classes switched times and I am able to continue to take those as well. I still can’t believe just how different this style of dancing is from what I’m used to. The hardest part for me is all of the different movements of the hands.
Spanish classes are going really well too. We each were given a book of exercises to do in our own time if we want to. Each was different and selected specifically for the individual- and I was the only one given an advanced level!!

A weekend of birthdays- Friday night was Ester’s birthday (Angel’s younger cousin Angelito’s girlfriend of 6 years) and a large group went out for dinner, drinks and dancing. Saturday was Clare’s birthday, and started out as a bit of a disaster. She wanted to go to the beach during the day, but not the close beach- the beach in Malaga (the next province over) to meet up with our friend Ruben (who is a hilarious, very tall Dutch guy) I missed the early bus and had to wait in the bus station for a few hours before catching the noon bus. There was a very unusual amount of traffic and we didn’t arrive until almost 4 (normally a little less than a two hour trip). Once I got to the beach it was great- a perfect sunny day, a great group of people, coooooool Mediterranean water- for about 45 minutes until we had to head back to Granada. That night we all met back up for a dinner at one of my favorite spots- Paprika. (pictured: All of the girls outside of Paprika) Drinks and dancing followed, and we ended up staying at Camborio until almost 7 a.m.! After a delightful breakfast at Café Futbol, I finally was able to get some sleep. Exhuasting but fun, although I have no plans to stay up that late again anytime soon. Sunday was a lazy day, although Clare and I did have some nachos and watched season two of the series The Tudors.

Now that I am back in classes I’m not doing too much else during the week.
Monday night Angel and I met up with Melinda and Rafa to try a new restaurant called Deseo- it is a Mediterranean style with an emphasis on Italian foods. Everything we ate was REALLY good. We ordered several different things and just shared them all, and finished up with the Dessert Sampler.

Tuesday was Bastille Day, the anniversary of the French Revolution, on which there is an annual party at the house of Angel’s friend Pablo’s family (His mother is French). The two families are very close and have always included each other in every family function. I have met them before and I was nice to see them all again. Their house is just down the hill a bit from Angel’s parent’s house, with a beautiful jardin overlooking Granada. We had a lovely time- champagne, traditional food from Southern France, a little bit of singing some traditional French songs and small talk before things started getting a little wild. First the music took a little bit of a crazy turn and the dancing broke out. 

Then Angel remembered he had fireworks in the back of his car (that had been there for almost 2 weeks in the heat!!!!!!) and he and some of the other guys decided to set some of the big ones off. Everyone crowded onto the grass to sit and watch the show, which was actually quite impressive. 

Until the house caught on fire.
In two places.
Then everything got crazy- people running back and forth with buckets of water from the pool to the a window on the third story and one man found a huge high-powered water hose! It took about 10 minutes but we were finally able to get all of the fire out, with very little damage to the house. Once everyone was sure that we were safe again the music started right back up and the dancing re-commenced. Angel was a little embarrassed about being the one who brought the fireworks, so we left pretty quickly after that.

The rest of the evenings this week were fairly low-key, a little bit of tapas, wine and dancing on Thursday night with the girls as Clare is now dating the [very attractive] owner of Camborio and we can get in pretty much anywhere free now. We’ve decided if we don’t drink at the dance clubs we can count our evenings there as workouts.

SABES QUE…
In 1996, a string of firecrackers were lit that lasted 22 hours for the Chinese New Year in Hong Kong.

The most dangerous fireworks-related tragedy in the world occurred on May 16, 1770, during the marriage of King Louis XVI to Marie Antoinette. After the celebratory fireworks show, there was a stampede where approximately 800 people where killed.

-www.fireworks.com

The Adventures Continue...

It turns out that the Españoles have always been some of Michael Jackson’s biggest fans, and they have taken his loss pretty roughly. In fact, a few days after we heard the news a large group of my Spanish friends gathered to watch any/every video related to him on Youtube they could find. This took about 6 hours. After that we had another girls night- Clare, Melinda, Alessandra and I, which was a blast, as always!

Saturday I attempted a Fourth of July party in Spain. As my only other American friend here is Melinda (Rhode Island), we had to recruit some Spaniards as well. Around mid-day Melinda, Angel, Jamie, his new girlfriend Luvna (from Morrocco) and I gathered in my house for real American-style cheeseburgers, beer and watermelon. They were all shocked at the idea of a watermelon spitting contest, I guess that’s just a Texan/my family thing. We drew some lovely party decorations and had the USA puzzle that Heather gave me assembled. Angel and I had bought fireworks but seeing as our ‘party’ ended around 6 p.m. we still haven’t set them off. (pictured: Melinda and I next to our Awesome Party Decorations. The real art is an orignal Carol Cronin, www.carolcronin.com)

That night I went with Angel to a big family function- his Aunt’s Italian husband invented the technology for photoboths however many years ago, and this party had something to do with some anniversary of that patent or something. It was in another uncle’s house- a gorgeous home- and we all gathered in the huge bottom floor that was very open, full of seating and had a stage and sound equipment set up. There was a full bar that some of the younger cousins were working and some of the older ones were grilling meats. I probably met 50 different cousins, aunts and uncles and could barely keep them all straight. After we had been there a little while, three cousins-all sisters in their late 30’s-40’s- performed some incredible flamenco with about 9 different costume changes. After the show we all got up and danced and had champagne. It ended up being a really fun party! 

Angel, Marina (his sister) and I left around 2 a.m. to go catch the end of a jazz concert. It was at the Lago de la Ermita near Atarfe, way up in the Sierra Nevadas on a cliff with a huge lake. There were tons of people sitting in the grass and along a darling little bridge and tucked away in little alcoves on benches. It was really beautiful and the music was great—and partly in English!!

Sunday Angel and I decided to go on an adventura. We both put on our hiking boots and hopped on the moto to drive up past Monachil. We parked at the base of The Cahorros and walked from there. The Ruta de Cahorros follows a river that is the result of melting ice at the top of the Sierra Nevadas. The water is crystal clear and FREEZING. Along this route there are also huge rock formations, steep cliffs and a dozen waterfalls. It is really beautiful. Several highlights of the route include el Famoso Puente Colgante (a very high wobbly bridge) and La Cueva de las Palomas (one of the many caves). 

Along the way we saw tons of people rock-climbing up the steep cliffs, and many more laying in the shallow waters picnicking or just sunbathing. One group of older Spaniards gave us each a cup of some sort of gazpacho that was hot pink- it was delicious but neither of us could figure out what it was. After several hours of climbing and a few freezing dips in the water later, we ended up at a restaurant with fantasic views over several of the valleys in the area. We ate lomo and sollomillos con pimientas y patatas de pobre before heading back down. When we arrived back at the moto we stopped to take coffee in a very eclectic café in Monachil.

That night was another of the big moto races- this time in Laguna Seca, Californa. I have to admit I didn’t even know moto races existed before I lived here, and now I can tell you more stats about some of the racers than you’d ever care to know. This race was especially exciting for the guys as it was the first time a Spaniard has won- Dani Pedrosa.

This week I began my new Spanish classes at the Cento de Linguas Modernas. The first few days were frustrating as I was surrounded by 16 year olds who didn’t care at all, but then I was moved to a higher level class that is much smaller and more focused on grammar, (which is what I need to work on). Besides me, there are two other Americans: Justin, a ski instructor from Utah, and Ashton, a pre-med student from Oklahoma. Nora, from Hungary, who works in the financial office of the European Union, is also in the class. Unfortunately this class is now in the afternoons, so I will have to put my flamenco class on hold for a while. I am so excited to be learning Spanish again!

SABES QUE…
Tuesday was the beginning of the festival of San Fermín up in Pampalona (celebrating Saint Fermín, the co-patron of Navarra). You may recognize this better as the day of the Encierro, or running of the bulls. This run stretches down a little over half a mile through the narrow streets of the old town. There are usually 6 bulls followed by another 6 steers, as well as thousands of people from all over the world. The festival begins with this run at 8:00 a.m. on July 7th, and lasts for an entire week- very similar to any of the other Carnivals. At midnight on the final night, the people of Pamplona meet in the Plaza Consistorial with candles to sing the traditional song Pobre de Mí ('Poor Me').

Van Trip!!

The heat is turned waaaay up in Granada this week, which is nice except for the fact that very few places have air conditioning. This makes for a lazy attitude that has enveloped the entire city.

This weekend was another fantastic one- Friday night was a bonafide Girls Night In/Out, with Clare, Ale, Melinda and I getting dressed up and having dinner and wine at Clare’s Albaycin apartment (with a small dance party) and then heading out to our favorite spot- Camborio for some more dancing after hours. I always have so much fun with these girls!

Saturday the Melrose crew + friends headed out to a beautiful house in the country where we met up with about 100 other people for a fantastic fiesta-

 Jamie made giant vats of paella, there were barbequed lamb ribs, a ridiculous assortment of desserts and people of all ages splashing around in a very unique pool. The entire atmosphere was so friendly and festive! Later on in the evening a few of the guys’ bands played (mostly reggae) and I played some games with Javie’s adorable 6 year old, Ari. After a while, Angel and I headed off in the van towards Malaga for the beach. I have to admit, this was hands down one of the worst nights I have experienced in this country. (Angel now refers to it as the “Noche Inferno”).

1. I had a TERRIBLE migraine.

2. We were lost and everyone we stopped to ask where the sea was thought we were joking and just laughed.

3. I finally went to lay down in one of the beds in the back but due to the bouncy curvy roads I was catapulted out of it into the small kitchenette producing a nice goose-egg on my forehead.

4. Once we finally arrived and parked on the first beach we could find, the war began: Mosquitoes vs. Humans. We did not win.

5. When we finally woke up and looked outside we realized we had accidentally parked on a “playa nudista” and were surrounded by little old naked men.

We hightailed it out of there in search of a café with coffee and breakfast. After that small caffeine fix, we tried again – this time with success!! We found a nice family-friendly beach, set up the umbrella, and proceeded to nap for the next 8 hours. Each time we woke up, Gusana was in an interesting position (my favorite was awaking to find her head burrowed in my armpit). The sun was out, the Mediterranean was clear and refreshing and there was a slight breeze. At one point we had some ice cream. A perfect day. Around 7 we decided to clean up a bit and have a dinner date- we found a nice restaurant with outside seating for hamburgers and patatas, which we devoured before heading back to Granada.

SABES QUE...
The Phoenicians founded the city of Malaka around 1000 BC and the name is believed to be from the Phoenician word for salt because fish were salted near the harbor.

Malaga is the birthplace of painter Pablo Picasso and actor Antonio Banderas. 

www.wcities.com

La Noche de San Juan

Tuesday I started my FLAMENCO DANCE COURSE!!! There are tons of different styles of Flamenco, including Tango, Fandango, Siguiriya, and the one I’m learning, Alegría (a Solea). These are based on the rhythyms, tempos and mood of the music. There are 3 other girls in my class, 2 Spanish and 1 Chinese. One of the Spanish girls, Lola, was one of my teachers at Castila, and we immediately clicked as friends. The style of this dance class is slightly different to all the others I’ve ever taken. There’s less “showing what to do” from the instructor and more of a “just try to keep up” vibe. Crazy at first, but I picked up quickly. ish. I am looking forward to my second class today. Interesting fact: my flamenco shoes are like tap shoes but instead of two flat metal pieces on the bottom, there is a cluster of nail heads both at the heel and the toe of the foot.

Tuesday was also La Noche de San Juan, an annual Spanish holiday basically celebrating summer and the shortest night of the year. Every year there are massive bonfire parties and concerts all along the coast, and a few famous ones inland. One of these is the Fiesta de Agua in a pueblo called Lanjaron. This pueblo (not far from Granada) is famous for it’s bottled water, some of the most common to be found all over Spain. On this day the entire town carries around buckets, hoses and waterguns, and starting at midnight a gargantuous waterfight commences. We opted to skip this and go to one of the beach parties in Motril. (Coast of Granada, next to Salobreña). The 6 of us ended up arriving around 10:30, early by Spanish standards, and sat ourselves on blankets near the bonfire. There were hundreds of people already there with bbq pits, drinks, and random flamenco singing. After about an hour we noticed a huge crowd of people near some music and discovered it was a FOAM party! We of course jumped right in. This was the “seems like a good idea” of the night- When we finally left the dancing soapy mob and rinsed off it was absolutely freezing! Then some fireworks started going off and we realized that Angel’s dog, Gusana, was nowhere to be found. We ended up spending the rest of the night looking for her, only to take a short nap near the bonfire before Angel had to drive back to work. His sister finally found Gusana around 9 a.m., much to everyone’s relief. Despite the dog-scare, it was a really interesting experience, and very cool to watch the fires all along the coast and the fireworks over the Mediterranean. (pictured: Marina and I in the foam, Angel and I post-foam, and the beach we were on in Motril, minus the bonfire).

SABES QUE…
Castanets are not part of true flamenco, they are an element that has been added in recent years to enhance the finger snapping.

Two Crazy Weeks

Úbeda

Last Wednesday, Clare and I decided to take another day trip. We got up early(ish), met at the bus station, and selected a destination at random. We ended up heading north to a town in Jaen called Úbeda, which is about 3-4 hours away. After several bus mishaps, we arrived shortly after the mid-day siesta had begun to find almost everything closed. We decided to just walk around the old town which was absolutely charming, although a little weird as we did not come across any other human beings in the heat. After a few beautiful plazas we came to a road that curved along the edge of a cliff, and the city. It overlooked rolling hills with farms and orchards and was lined with lightposts, flowerbeds, and a few playgrounds. After taking tons of photos, we headed back towards the bus station (armed with popsicles) and caught our 6:00 bus back to Granada (right as everything was opening back up after the siesta). Great day.

Fería
“All Granadinos say they hate the Feria, but they all eventully go” 

– Miguel Farfán Calderón, a friend and teacher

Thursday was a nice relaxed day as it was one of the main days of Corpus Christi, (the week-long celebration, also refered to as Fería) and no one had to work. The Melrose crowd all gathered for a lunch of grilled meats and then siestas. That night Angel came with me to meet Clare, Anais, Melinda and Ruben at the restaurant where Rafa and Mateo work (Melinda’s and Clare’s novios). This is a gorgeous restaurant in the albaycin next to the Mirador San Nicolas and we sat on the roof terrace to enjoy the breeze and the views of the sunset behind the Alhambra. 

We stayed until closing and then all headed over to the Fería. This was kind of like the Fería in Cordoba, but even bigger. There was the Fair/Carnival side and then the Casetas – the tents with restaurants and bars, and then another final row of tented discos. We headed straight for that final row and ended up hoping from tent to tent, dancing until about 7:00 in the morning. (Pictured is Angel and I somewhere around 4 a.m. taking a break from dancing to eat some fair food).  As you can imagine, Friday was spent sleeping. When I finally woke up I met up with Clare and Alessandra to go to the Castila Anniversary Party (Castila is the Spanish Language School we all went to). It was in the jardin at the school and there were tapas, a great crowd of people and giant jars of sangria. After a while, a trio of flamenco performers (guitarist, singer and dancer) put on an incredible show of original upbeat flamenco (which is a lot snappier than some of the sadder traditional stuff). They were incredible.

Vicky Arriving and Girls Night Out!!

On Saturday my friend Vicky arrived from England. She was at the school with me in February, taking time off from her job in the Royal Air Force. She arrived around 5 p.m. and after dropping her stuff off at my house we immediately went on a tapas run. We were joined by Clare, Alessandra, Melinda, and Blanca in one of our usual bars on Calle Elvira- Bar Circulo. We then found the Fería bus and headed out early (most adults don’t get there before 3 a.m. We arrived at 9). This time we went straight for the carnival side. We rode the ferris wheel, and some other creaky old roller coaster where our feet dangled. We walked around and searched for the crazy people that always show up for fairs. We saw a monkey and some ponies. We debated which gofre stand to go to and then split a gooey and delicious gofre drizzled in chocolate.We then decided to take a break from all that fun and sat ourselves down in one of the casetas. We chose based on the hundreds of red and white paper flowers along the top. There we took turns buying rounds of sangria and tasting various tapas. I was also able to barter down a jewelry seller to less than 2 Euros for a colorful beaded necklace! We were also visited by clowns.We ended the night with a round of dancing in one of the disco-tents. None of us were able to stay out nearly as late this time around.

La Fiesta de Piscinas

Sunday was SCORCHING. The only possible solution to this that Vicky and I could come up with was to have a pool party. The only flaw to this solution was that we had no pool. We eventually saved the day by purchasing 3 inflatable kiddie pools (along with a beach ball and tiny ring) going onto Javie’s roof terrace (He and Carol were in Portugal for the weekend) and after about an hour of blowing everything up and filling them with freezing hose-water we spent the rest of the afternoon napping in the sun.

Alhambra and Paella

Monday we got up EARLY and climbed up to the Alhambra. Vicky had tried to go in February but didn’t end up buying tickets so only was able to see the Charles V Palace. We had a great time exploring the Palace, the towers and the Generalife Jardins. 

For dinner on Monday night we went in search of meat and cheese tapa platters. The one pictured is from Al Sur de Granada, one of my favorite places in town for chorizo.

Tuesday we hiked on up to the school for Vicky to say hi to everyone- and of course for some 

Paella and Sangria!! Paella is one of the most popular and well-known foods of Andalucia. It always includes rice and veggies and generally various fish and meats. This one had shrimp, rabbit and chicken and was cooked by Juana, Manolo’s wife (pictured: Manolo, Me, Antonio and Juana).

Salobreña
We woke up to a late start on Wednesday, and were not able to make any of the planned morning busses to Salobreña, a great beach town less than an hour away. After spending several hours waiting in the bus station, we finally made it there, and after another 30 minutes of waiting for a pizza we were craving to be made, we made it to the beach around 5:45. It was perfect- the sun was out, there was a nice breeze and it wasn’t too crowded. I also enjoyed diving into the Mediterranean for the first time! That water is unbelievably clear— and really refreshing. Taking a pizza with us also proved to be a FANTASTIC idea. We laid out, swam a little, and I played with some rocks. We were able to bask for about 2 hours before we caught the bus home. That night we were exhausted so we had a wonderful steak dinner before going to bed early.

Pancakes and Monachil
By this point in the week Vicky and I had run out of food at my house so we went out for breakfast and found… PANCAKES!!!! They are very much not a Spanish thing so I was shocked. The place is called Café Belle, and they pretty much got it right too, except for mayple syrup they used a sweet caramel sauce. Very exciting. That afternoon we caught a bus up to Monachil, (a pueblo up towards the Sierra Nevadas, right after Huetor Vega). Vicky’s cousin Johnny lives in a beautiful house up there with his wife Marcela and their adorable 6 month old daughter Hannah (and their sweet puppy Che). We all had some wine and then went for a nice walk up in the hills to see some ancient ruins (pictured). When we hiked back down Johnny made a batch of his famous curry and we were joined by their neighbor Alan, a very very tall Brit. I have to say, I have not had much curry to compare it to, but this dish was delicious!! It was also incredibly nice to be in a home, and yes, even to play with a baby. (Don’t get excited, mom). I do have to state for the record that this one never once cried while we were there, just giggled the whole time. I don’t know why anyone would ever have one of the other kind (the criers/screamers).

On Friday we made a second attempt to go to Salobreña, but missed the bus again. We were able to make it there early enough to enjoy about 5 hours on the beach, which turned out to be just enough to avoid getting burned. 

That night we went out for tapas with some of Vicky’s British friends, and then dancing with Ale and Rafa. We ended the night with the traditional and obligatory Falafel.

Lazy Weekend
Vicky left on Saturday afternoon and I was very sad to see her go. There aren’t many people a person can spend an entire week with and not get tired of but she is definitely one of them. I spent the rest of the evening just relaxing and napping.

Sunday I went out with Angel to a fantastic lunch at a restaurant in Huetor Vega. We had several different pork dishes and a jamon/asparagus concoction. We spent a lazy afternoon together reading the newspaper and eventually battling the heat by jumping in the pool. That evening he surprised me by playing the piano a little (he is always full of surprises!) and then we watched a movie and had milk and cookies. I had not seen him much this past week because in addition to me wanting to spend all of my time with Vicky, he and his buddies had gone to a nearby lake and built a “aquajump”. This basically consisted of a ramp that shot them straight up and then into the water. They all took their caravans up there and made a big week of it- bruising themselves on the jump all day everyday, the crazies. Below are some links to see these fools:

Angel
Angel2
Ernesto

SABES QUE…

In the past all the towns and villages around Granada were forced to each supply a specific amount of greenery to carpet the streets of the provincial capital [every year for Feria]. And historically, theatre carts travelled around the city, following the Corpus Cristi processions and putting on plays. That seems to have gotten out of hand at one point and in 1765 King Carlos III officially put a stop to the custom.

--www.andalucia.com/festival/corpuschristi.htm

¡Dia EXTREMA!

We’ve officially kicked off the summer- a BBQ/pool party at Angel’s house on Saturday. Unfortunately, we also had the first cool/drizzly day in weeks on Saturday, which didn’t stop us from bbq-ing but did put a hold on the swimming plans. Nonetheless we had a great turnout and a great time and grilled a ton of meats and veggies on a huge homemade grill while the guys took turns dj-ing on the turntables.

Sunday was a day of EXTREMES! Angel invited me to go for a moto ride in the mountains, which to me sounded lovely (I’m thinking picnics, hot sun, cool breeze, great views, etc.) First of all, he showed me the shortcut to his garage from his kitchen: a 3-story high fireman pole. I put on my brave face and some moto gloves and gave it a go- it turns out it wasn’t nearly as scary as I had imagined. The moto ride however was MUCH SCARIER. For this we took the lighter off-roading moto, and he told me it would probably be a lot like riding a horse. NOT TRUE. Those off-roading moto drivers are crazy!! Angel went easy on me, not doing many of the jumps or going too fast next to the side of the cliffs, but every other moto we saw was either 5 feet in the air or completely sideways or both (none of the horses we saw were in either of these situations). Crazies. The scenery was gorgeous, from what I could tell behind my squeezed-shut eyes, and I think Angel was only a little embarrassed by me screaming at the top of my lungs when we went over the scary parts. (Don’t worry mom I was completely safe the whole time). At one point we were on top of a mountain and even passed some parachuters. Summary: Great experience, not to be repeated.

SABES QUE…

This rider is doing the "Superman Seat Grab". 

Additional information:
I completely left out the part of the story where we stopped to fill up the off-roading moto with gas and I was left alone with it while Angel went to pay. At this point, a car full of about 9 people pull up behind me and signal for me to scoot the thing up so they can pull up and get gas. So I have no idea how to move a moto or even turn it on and as I struggled with the thing not only did the car of 9 along and all of the people in the other cars watch in awe and amusement but when I looked up everyone inside the gas station was lined up against the window watching and laughing as well. I finally ended up knocking both myself and the bike over before Angel came out and saved me. Stupid fancy “on” buttons.

Also- Georgie got a haircut and a job! Apparently something for the city that involves wearing a jumpsuit. I am very proud of him. (Remember Georgie?)