Recent Happenings

Let me begin by saying that I can currently look out of my window and see a party on the roof of a building across the street, and I would very much like to be there. It looks like they're having a blast. But I'm about to go have a blast sleeping in my bed, and I'm thinking that I'll have a lot more fun there than I would at any party tonight.

The past week or so has been super busy. I went to Portugal last weekend and spent several days working hard on my tan (and if you know me well, you know I don't tan, so I really do have to work hard on it!) lying on the beach and reading Jane Austen's Emma. My first novel in English since November. (sidenote to anybody who has sent me books to read: I WILL read them, but since I'm on a mostly no-English book diet, it will take me a while to get around to them. But feel free to send me more. Or send Spanish books)

I was there with some friends and we spent some time each day singing songs praising our Father and reading the Word, and then lying on the beach, swimming in the freezing cold Atlantic Ocean, lying by the pool, drinking iced coffee, eating Indian food...so good.

I also spent a day in Sevilla, Spain and went to a Flamenco show. I would highly recommend it to anybody who might be traveling through. I was amazed at the speed and dexterity of the guitar player's fingers, and since I am currently taking flamenco guitar lessons, I have a new appreciation for just how ridiculously difficult it is. And the dancers were WOW, in all caps, of course. Their faces were so intense and the way their feet moved so fast was almost as unnatural as Vera-Ellen (who plays Judy Haynes) in the movie White Christmas with her super skinny thighs and lightening speed toe tapping. It was amazing.


I also went to the Alcázar, an old Arabic palace from when the Moors had control of Southern Spain (the Islamic kingdom in Spain lasted around 700 years). The Alcázar is of a similar style to the Alhambra (where I went in Granada and lost all the pictures), and while it is far less impressive, it is still very nice and worth a visit if you happen to be in town.



Now that I'm back I've been busy studying, hanging out with friends, running around to government offices to ask for legal residency (that's a work in progress...), painting an apartment for some new friends that just moved into town, picking up said friends from the airport, doing laundry from my time in Portugal...I've been on my toes, that's for sure!

And, our new friends have a little baby girl who is just the cutest little peanut. I think I like her. =)

Speaking of toes, my big toe has been in a lot of pain all day, and I can't think of why except that I was on my feet a lot yesterday (and quite literally, all night) so maybe it's just telling me that next time I salsa all night long I should have a seat every now and then. I'm still not quite entirely adjusted to this "night culture" where people eat dinner at 10pm and their kids don't go to bed until after midnight and it's perfectly normal to stay out until the sunrise on a weekend. And not just the young whippersnappers like myself, either. I've seen old people walking through the city center with their canes at 3am. In the US, that would be unheard of, but here, it's perfectly natural. It really is a different world.