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