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').