Playa Playa Playa

Ahhhh… Paradise. That’s where I’ve been for the last few weeks. Angel, Gusana and I loaded up the van and headed down to the coast- Cabo de Gata. We spent two weeks beach-hopping, sleeping next to the Mediterranean Sea (and on occasion under the stars), building sand animals, exploring coves and hills in the giant national park as well as ruins of castles and towers. The water was warm and crystal clear and the sand was fine and white- pretty much perfection. We even ventured out for one midnight swim when there was a full moon (but I quickly remembered every shark movie I’d ever seen and how the really bad stuff usually happens at night- let’s just say I hightailed it out of there reeeeaaaaalll fast.) We didn’t see any tiberonitos (sharklets), but plenty of other less harmful animals (with the exception of a few medusas (jelly fish) on the first two days— I was the only one who got stung. Twice.) We spent a day snorkeling around a rocky bay and saw a ton of interesting and colorful fish, sponges, prickly things, squishy things, slippery things, and bony things.
For most of our meals we cooked in the van, but occasionally we would venture out into a town to try interesting plates and fancy fruity cocktails. Cuisine highlight for me: Buey de Planca (Grilled Ox). One Friday Angel and I found a discoteca called La Rocca in San Jose and spent the night dancing to a mix that heavily favored a latino flare. Another night we found a Tex Mex restaurant in a tiny hippy town called Las Negras, and after some delightful fajitas and margartas we were heading back to the van when we walked right past Christopher Lloyd, (the older actor in Back to the Future, we’re 95% sure it was him) and ended up having a drink at the table next to him, giggling and playing with his dog.

The first few days we joined his cousins, Pablito and Angelito, and Angelito’s girlfriend Ester to try out a few different beaches as well. One of those days we hiked about an hour to reach a secluded beach called San Pedro, with the ruins of a castle shaped like a kabob (no one else agrees with me on this, but it’s true).

It was a wonderful wonderful wonderful vacation, completely Spanish (except for a few occasions when Angel wanted to practice English, resulting in a few very funny mixups such as “Ladies and Germans”).

And now back to Granada and reality. Kind of. What a wonderful life.

SABES QUE…
Christopher Lloyd is supposedly best friends with Jack Nicholson.

Lorca, and Other Stars

Last night I went to see a play in a beautiful theatre. A tragedy called Bodas de Sangre, a play that I was already very familiar with (the English translation anyway) by Frederico Garcia Lorca. Originally it premiered in Madrid in 1933, and although it was not anywhere near being one of Lorca’s favorite, it remains one of his most well-known and successful plays.

Basic plot summary: A young couple is engaged, the groom’s mother is kind of a wreck because all the other men in the family have been violently killed, the bride has been engaged before to a man named Leonardo (the only character who gets a name) who is now married to someone else and has a son, the wedding happens, during the reception party the bride and Leonardo run away together, they are searched out in the woods and both Leonardo and the groom are killed, leaving his mother terribly grief-stricken and alone, and the bride claiming her virtue is intact and begging to be killed too.

The theatre itself set an excellent atmosphere for the production: An open aire courtyard with a fountain surrounded by two floors of arched walkways. Vines were growing up the sides of the walls and creeping a little bit over wires across the open roof, and when the wind blew all of the leaves rustled a little bit, without fail sending chills down the spines of half the audience.

This particular production took quite a lot of artistic liberty, and while this produced some very interesting effects (including lots of really cool percussion) I felt that a lot of it was just for the sake of being ‘new’ and ‘different’ and didn’t particularly add to the story. Most of the acting was very good, the mother was absolutely outstanding, and the singing was phenomenal across the board. I enjoyed it very much.

I have also been working in the bar a lot more this last two weeks, which has been nice, but still a bit frustrating to get used to not being called in until 11 p.m., therefore thwarting any tentative plans. On Tuesday a friend named Gerard came into the bar- he and I had met when I worked for the Civic Theatre of Allentown in Pennsylvania, and has been traveling with friends around Spain for the summer. It was wonderful to see a familiar face, and not only that, but one of the nicest and most sincere people I have ever known. What a small world!

My only other adventures as of late have both been in the mountains. Last week during the Llorar de Estrellas, Angel, Gusana and I drove up into the Sierras a little bit, just far enough to escape the city lights and watch all of the shooting stars, as well as searching out planets and constellations, and even make up a few of our own. The amount of stars we were able to see was unbelievable!

Again on Monday we found ourselves with an afternoon off and decided to hop on the moto and just drive up. We drove for about an hour and climbed almost all the way to the tippity top of the Sierra Nevadas-past the ski resort- until we weren’t allowed to drive anymore and continued on foot a little. I was shocked to see that there are still a few patches of snow up there, even in this insane heat! On the way back down to Granada we stopped in the coolest bar- my favorite kind. It was very plush; in the middle of nowhere on the side of a cliff overlooking the mountains (the sun happened to be setting when we arrived). There is an indoor bar, which is lovely, but the outside part is incredible- a pool surrounded by spacious white tented-cabana beds (alternating square and round) and modern colored lights juxtaposed with Moroccan lanterns. We lounged in one of these sipping beautiful cocktails and listening to the mix of jazz and house music. Marvelous!

SABES QUE…
The Irish bar that I am working in was the first of many Irish bars to be found in Granada. It opened in 1994.

Holy Toledo! Madrid and Portugal

Early Wednesday morning I caught a bus to Madrid to meet up with Ross, a good friend of mine since we were very little. We spent the afternoon walking around the city and exploring without a map. That night we did a little tapa-sampling (not free in Madrid, that’s a special Granada thing) and tried out a few bars and discotecas.

Thursday we decided to head out to Toledo, a town about an hour southwest of Madrid. (It also used to be the capital before some king, I forget who, moved it to Madrid to attempt to separate religion and politics.) This town has been declared a national monument, as it is one of the best-preserved parts of the country. It is charmingly gorgeous, situated on a hill with the most confusing tiny, winding, cobblestone streets and basically no new architecture. 

Home of the famous artist “El Greco”, art and religion (Judaism, Christianity and Islam were all equally represented by the population for centuries) are really predominant everywhere you look. We were able to visit a tiny chapel that hold’s El Greco’s most famous work- The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. (pictured) which was incredible. We also visited the famous synagogue there- gorgeous, with a lot of Arabic influences in the carvings, walls and ceiling. Then we headed a few blocks over to the cathedral, one of the largest and most beautiful in Europe. 

In this particular cathedral there is a tradition that the cardinals can hang their hats from the massive ceiling over a spot of their choosing to be buried, and the hats remain there until they rot. This gave the cathedral what I felt was a little bit of a Harry Potter quality, and we were able to find about 8 or 9 of the hats, in various stages of decay (one is pictured, right). This cathedral is also well known for it’s incredible art— my favorite painting in particular was in one of the chapels, depicting a representation of all of the sins (gluttony, lust, greed, etc). Lust was a hot redhead on fire, almost a dead ringer for a certain friend of mine. Thursday night was another night on the town with dinner and dancing. We were joined by Ross’s friends and a few other girls we met during the evening.

Friday was a dia del museos—We started at the Prado (classical and renaissance European art) and worked our way over to the Reina Sofia (modern). I was most excited to see Picasso’s Guernica (a response to Hitler and Franco agreeing to give a nuclearesque bomb a little trial run in this northern Spanish pueblo- the first time a bomb of this magnitude was ever used).

In the wee hours of Saturday Ross headed off to Canada and I caught another bus to Badajoz, a Spanish town on the Portugal border. From there, Angel, Gusana, his friends Pablo, Gema, Juan Pablo and I drove over to have a tasty lunch in a tiny little Portuguese village. We then returned to Pablo’s rented cottage, an unbelievably adorably situated, white washed, two story house surrounded by grapevines and various other fruit trees and bushes in the middle of some rolling green hills. After a siesta, we watched the sun set and ate dinner there- grilled beef, shrimp, and vegetables. Sunday was Gema’s birthday, so after a lazy breakfast we ventured over to a town called Castello de la Vela where we strolled through the narrow streets up to the castle (open to the public) and climbed the towers and walls. We then sat down to avoid the heat at a little café where we were served Portuguese beers and…..snails. For eating. They were apparently very good as everyone else jumped right on in and started slurping the little suckers out of their shells, but I just couldn’t bring myself to join them.  (pictured: top left, clockwise: me in a tower window of the Castle, Angel in the village, Juan Pablo on top of the castle wall, the view from our cottage window, Pablo and Gema, the snails, the cottage, and in the middle: Gusana) 
After a little more hanging out at the cottage we ended this fairy-tale weekend with a 5 hour drive back to Granada.


SABES QUE…
The American expression "Holy Toledo" likely originated from the Sephardic Jews who eventually immigrated to America. To them, Toledo was the most holy Jewish city in Europe...Holy Toledo! 

-My Rick Steve's Guide to Spain book

Fluemenco

The majority of this week was spent in bed with a little bit of a cold, but I have started feeling better during the past few days.Last night to celebrate my return to society, Angel took me on a wonderful date. We got dressed up fancy and went to dinner at a place a little outside of town with a huge terrace. We ate something involving a “spicy meat”, and something else that was so delicious I didn’t want to know what it was followed by a strawberry and cinnamon crepe. Deeeeeelicious. Then, as the sun was setting, we hopped on the moto and headed to the Alhambra- we had tickets to see a show in the Generalife gardens. This show is officially called Poema del cante jondo en el café de Chinitas, and is a poem written by the Granadinian poet/playwright Frederico Garcia Lorca. (Cafe de Chinitas is a 19th century building that houses one of the oldest flamenco clubs in Madrid. www.chinitas.com) The stage is beautifully set up in the Gardins, surrounded by a line of tall pine(?) trees and across from the Alhambra, which is lit up at night. We were lucky enough to have a full moon last night, which added to the ambiance. Every summer this theater produces a show that combines the works of Lorca and Andalucían flamenco singing and dancing— a breathtaking combination. It is also worth noting that the costumes were astonishing.

I liked the large, colorful, intricate group dance numbers the best, but there was another bit that was beautiful, a solo male dancer during “Silence” followed by “Grito” (yell) which was sung by 3 deep slow voices.

EL SILENCIO

Oye. Hijo mío, el silencio.

Es un silencio ondulado,

un silencio donde resbalan valles

y ecos y que inclina las frentes hacia el suelo.

EL GRITO

La elipse de un grito,va de monte a monte.

Desde los olivos, sera un arco iris negro sobre la noche azul.

¡Ay! Como un arco de virola el grito ha hecho vibrar largas cuerdas del viento.

¡Ay! (Las gentes de las cueves asoman sus velones.) ¡Ay!

SABES QUE…
Manolo Blahnik is SPANISH!!! His dad was Czech and his mom Spanish, and he was raised here in the Canary Islands. I love his work. I see no reason why we're not best friends. 

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').