Today was great. Scratch that, it was incredible. Everybody was out in the city celebrating the pre-funk to Carnaval. I don’t know what else to call it, and pre-funk sounds more than reasonable. Everyone was walking around with a drink today – but it wasn’t like they were drinking to get drunk. It was more of a celebratory let’s enjoy or city and our lifestyle kind of deal. Some of us met up at one of the Tapas bars at the plaza nearest to “la facultad de filosofía y letras” (the building at UCA that we’re studying in) and then walked to la playa (the beach). It was beautiful and the sun was out and that made it so much better since we’re all pretty much over the unpredictable weather (global warming is lame). The beach here is like out of a dream, it’s surreal and gorgeous and extreme. You have to take off your sun glasses to make sure that this is really what you’re looking at. Then we took off to go to a bar called “Woodstock” and ended up at this old plaza, la plaza Antigua, where hundreds and hundreds of people were crammed in the street – dancing to the drums and other instruments brought from home. It was fantastic. A little chaotic. Again surreal. The people here are so much fun. The majority of “gaditanos” are very laid back and kind – they enjoy music and are friendly. Ali and I went back to the chaotic plaza again to get our “gaditano-boyfriend” hunt on. Hahaha. It’s so ridiculous because we get so much attention being blonde haired and blue eyed in Spain. We figure that if we have Spanish speaking boyfriends we’ll get that much more info on Spain. It’s all for the education… priorities hahaha. We met this one guy, who I forgot his name, but his friends basically threw him on me and said “el es un buen hombre… muy simpatico… guapo… de Sevilla” (he’s a good man, friendly, handsome and from Sevilla) hahaha. [Anyhow this is a prime example of what I get every time I go to a bar – the wing men are out to get me.] So, now I have a friend in Sevilla – which some of us are going to take a trip to Sevilla next weekend, so we might give him a call and let him be our guide.
I love it here. Love to the tenth power. I have some pictures up – not very many because the server is slow here and it’s difficult to upload all the photos at once… but go see some pics of mine at: www.flickr.com/photos/alta_belleza_en_cadiz/
I also love my host family. Mi madre, Amparo, es lo major. My host mom’s name is Amparo and she’s so sweet. We’ve had some pretty funny conversations. When I got home this evening I told her that it’s hard for me to decipher between the gay and straight men because they all dress so well. I told her that it’s thrown my “gay-dar” off and she laughed pretty hard. I LOVE HOW THE MEN DRESS HERE.
Also, at some point in the next week I’m hoping to make it to mass – although I’m not Catholic, I think it’s important to see the Catholic church here and how it works here… plus the architecture is probably the best in all of the city… I love the architecture here…