Sand grains, salt (on skin) and other small tidbits.

Unemployed 22 days:Escapar - La Oreja De Van Gogh

Y escapar juntos de aqui / juntos de la mano / dando un salto y sentir / la libertad y el valor de elegir / regalarte mi vida.

On Saturday, CC arrives to join us for a week. CC asked what we were up to; here is an excerpt from J´s response:

let´s see how do i describe V and my uber busy schedule. we wake up at about 10 something, or 11 something, or sometimes 12 someting, and then decide if we want to just sit on the beach, or walk along the beach, or sit and read in the apartment, or watch tv. this lasts till sometime between 2-4 upon which we decide what to cook. this is followed by deciding whether or not to return to the beach, walk to the old city, read at a cafe, attend our sevillanas dance class, or just maybe visit a tourist site. we´ve also made some spanish friends through a language exchange thing i found and we go out with them sometimes to drink or check out other beaches or towns. awesome to find friends with cars.

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Small tidbits:

*Three doors down from our apartment there is a tiny store, a Panaderia, that only carries goods bread-related. Each morning (10am-ish) I walk downstairs and say hola to the old man - white hair, hunched back, freindly smile - who runs the store. He already knows what I want, retreats to the back room, and returns with a fresh baguette in hand for me to inspect before he bags it and I trade 30 centimos for ¨cuidao que te quema¨bread (i.e. ¨be careful, it will burn you). Upstairs, I rip out the soft insides to eat seperately and then smear raspberry jam over the crusty remains. (I also love the fruterias, so pretty.)
*I´ve started to recognize people in the street. Last week we saw the owner of our internet cafe at a bar, yesterday we ran into our intercambio freind at the mall, and today our Sevillanos teacher (who calls J ¨Lee¨because the first name is too un-spanish) said she saw us crossing the street in the morning.
*The center of the city is replete with surprises. As we follow the winding cobblestoned paths (listening intently for traffic which at any moment could come tearing down the narrow streets and be our death), we´ve stumbled upon many a cute plaza - trees, benches, waterfountains and statues - , the odd crumbling church, a theater which I believe used to be a mosque, and a dance studio with ¨efunky eep Op¨, aka Funky/Hip Hop (Alas there are no classes left in the month of June for us to attend). At the end of one dead-end ally is a fence with a peek at the roman ampitheater in the center of Cadiz. Also, because Cadiz is such a small penninsula, frequently we see not buildings at the end of any given street, but ocean.
*The streets are lined with not just any trees, but orange trees! It´s such a cute touch.
*The old ladies who have Flameco class after ours are incredibly impressed with how quickly we are learning the Sevillanos. They are particularly please with the ¨arte¨that is expressed by the ¨chinita¨.
*The chic haircut here is the mullet (which J describes as ¨business in the front, PARTY in the back!!), for both women and men. In general the women carry it off better than the men, and it looks like a very, very feathered haircut. The men, however... well let´s just say J and I have started a contest to see who can spot the worst ones. (There is currently a tie between one man with a party down past his armpits, and another whose hair is so curly he had 6 distinct curls of a party springing down his neck - yes, I counted.) We´ve also drunkenly started calling out ¨here mullet mullet mullet¨in the hopes that one will come closer and let us stare at the hair, but alas, they all speak spanish and don´t understand ¨mullet¨.¨
*This city breathes Flamenco. Every Friday this summer there is a professional contest of different types of Flamenco. (We attened last week and it was very fun, very powerful). Every Thursday is a free concert given by the city. (We´ll go to tomorrow´s.)
*Either the sea has warmed up or J and I are braver and heartier than previously. We now take dips in the ocean between an arduous schedule of laying on the sand and reading books or watching shows on our iPods. PS, pick up Special Topics in Calamity Physics; it´s a funny, very witty novel that turns into a thrilling little mystery. I loved it!
*The local Cortez Ingles (a.k.a. department store) has a supermarket with a section devoted to dried pig-legs hanging down the aisles. Oh sweet sweet jamon iberico, if only I could take thee with me to the US. I would never share thee with anyone!!

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Saturday night we went to a barbque in a remote city in the province of Cadiz. After the free grub, the party moved to a bar. Check out our deep tans and new freinds, here. (Click on FOTOS at the top and look for JUNIO07. J is the only asian, as usual, and I´m wearing a rainbow.) Next we moved to a chiringuito (open-air bar, usually near a body of water) where J and I had two amazing suitors. Mine was old and he gyrated at me from across the bar. Awesome. (It may have been funnier due to our elevated blood alcohol levels.) J´s was young, slightly mulleted, and tried to befriend J by pretending to do martial arts... then he turned his ¨punches¨into a dance. Then he further tried to impress us by doing some sort of chicken-dance where he bent his arms and flapped his elbows. Last, he did that 50´s move where you kind of pretend youre going underwater, holding your nose with one hand and wagging the other... scratch that, he tried to do that move. Instead, J thought he was saying she smelled bad!! Amazing. Thankfully, Cadiz-proper is not so sketchy.