This is my API Cádiz crew. (L-R: Ben, Mariah, Me, Kelsey, Russ) It's a pretty interesting group to say the least. There's three Texans, a Rhode Islander, and a Washingtonian (That right?). This picture was snapped on Wednesday on top of Torre Tavira. It's the highest point in the old city and served as a watch tower for merchants. They installed the first camera obscura in Spain on this tower and if you've ever seen a camera obscura, or haven't, this one's a must to check out. It was amazing although quite brief of a show....kind of disappointing on that note. This past week we had the Intensive Spanish course and it was great. Our professor, Laura, was amazing. She was pretty young and taught us as if we were kids. Pictures and everything! It was great. It really helped. Not only did she actually get the work we needed to get through out of the way but she gave us time to chat about anything and everything. We covered just about everything there is in life. We mostly talked about differences between Spanish and American culture but that's probably one of my favorite subjects to talk about right now. Although Spain is very much like Mexico in appearance, or Mexico very much like Spain, I'm enjoying learning about its history, economy, culture, fashion, politics, and just about any other subject I can get a conversation going about. Overall the Intensive Spanish course was a great success.
One of my final carnival experiences was a "Disney" show, as they called it in the ads, although it didn't have much Disney to it. It was basically an old guy in an oversized shirt who spoke in a really weird voice, and a young woman in short shorts and small jacket. Although my comrades and I didn't make it through more than 20 minutes of the show, the Spanish kids were entranced. I don't know why though. First of all there were no stage decorations, just an empty black stage with a couple of plain chairs as props. The show was in the middle of the day so there weren't any lighting effects. No pyrotechnics. Nothing swinging around. No nothing. Just two characters on stage talking. They sang songs and did the whole, "watch me attempt ridiculous stunts but fail at them/do them but trick you and do them in a way that's not as cool as the way I made you believe they would be" bit. But the kids ate it up. The best part of what I saw was a song they sang before I left about a girl who couldn't go out to play because she had to iron, wash clothes, sweep, hang clothes, cook, dust, you get the idea. I loved it.
A fireworks show over Castillo de San Sebastian was the event that truly marked the end of Carnival 2008. It lasted for about 30 minutes and was a way of assuring me that the small town I call home was now going to be a small quiet town. So far it's been nice to have the town nice and quiet. Although I could do without the cold weather. Except it's not really that it's cold, it's that it's windy here all day long and nobody knows why. Global warming maybe?
Well to stay out of the cold I attended a flamenco show which I was invited to by a friend at Peña Flamenca la Perla de Cádiz. I met Ally, my friend, on New Years in Houston at a family
friends house and it turned out that she lived in a tiny town about 35 minutes from Cádiz, and has all sort of cool friends, besides being cool herself. One of the girls that Ally studied flamenco with in Seville (Ally: 1 Cool Pt), was performing so she invited me to tag a long (Ally:
2 Cool Pts) with her and her boyfriend (Ally: 3 Cool Pts). I was introduced to her friend, Samantha (Far Left) who in this show played las palmas (clapped the beat) (Ally: 4 Cool Pts.) Then Ben, Mariah and I, who tagged a long with me, just stood around and talked to Ally and Alberto till the place started turning off its lights. Alberto is in school studying music so we talked about that for a while, and then I brought up the fact that I wanted to see the Misfits in Seville and turns out Ally was a punk rocker back in her day (Ally: 5 Cool Pts.) so that was cool. Then we talked about ways people express themselves since Ally is an artist (Ally: 6 Cool Pts.) and Alberto is a musician and I dabble in drawing and other things. But yeah it was sweet and by the end Ally was up to at least 10 Cool points. Life is good. It's nice to feel so safe and secure in a foreign country, and it's only because I truly feel like I'm being watched over. It was a huge blessing to have met Ally in Houston, and that's just another blessing to add to a growing list of blessings that only deal with this study abroad adventure of mine. God is good.
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