A charming city, delicious food, fresh sherry, and some Flamenco

Me encanta España!

It’s day 10 since the boat left Halifax, Nova Scotia on the 16th and I’M IN SPAIN! The night of the 23rd felt like Christmas eve when I was 6. Erin and I had the HARDEST time getting to sleep and then when we did, we both woke up 15 minutes before our alarm clocks went off at 6:45am in order to see the sun rise over Spain and to watch as the guide boats helped our ship into the dock in SPAIN! After eating breakfast while the ship was OKed by security in Spain, I went back to sleep from 8-11 and Erin when our for her first FDP (field project). I know, I know, I was really lame and went back to sleep, but I was exhausted and my stomach was upset, so any walking around would have just been me being cranky! Plus everyone else was off on independent field studies, so I just went to sleep. Woke up, showered, and got ready to head off on my first SAS related trip which was the Cadiz city orientation. I know yesterday I talked about maybe going to Cordoba today, but Nate and I found out that the train runs at 8 am and like 5pm, so there was no way we would get a good Cordoba experience before we had to be back for today’s FDP for our ethnomusicology class.

But all-in-all I was fine with yesterdays events! I woke up, and showered like I said before and met my group on the pier by our boat. We then headed to the first monument which was across the street from the pier. It was recognizing the signing of Spain’s first constitution. It’s huge and awesome and made of white stone. It’s very pretty. We then headed down the very narrow, stone streets through the old section of the city (dating back THOUSANDS of years BC when the Phoenicians first came from Morocco to inhabit this section of land), to the archaeology museum. We had a tour through there with our tour guide where we saw various artifacts from the years when the city was first founded. It was insane to think about just how old some of the buildings around us were. It just puts you in awe when you think about how those buildings had seen thousands of years of life before the US was even founded? There was an archway we saw as we walked through the city that was built in the 1200’s and it’s still standing and just about perfect! We walked through the city a little longer, went to the main square and went to the different markets in the area. We scoped out a lot of little restaurants too to get an idea of things to eat and places to go.

After returning to the ship, I rested for a bit and then met Tim, Nate, and Eric to go to the beach on the atlantic. It was a quick 10 minute walk across the city (yes across the city in 10 minutes!) before we got to this beautiful beach. The water wasn’t quite crystal clear yet because we are just on the cusp of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, but I could definitely see my feet when I was in water up to my chest! It was awesome! The waves were really fun and Nate and Tim are great people to hang out with! YAY NEW FRIENDS! Haha, anyway, after we were there for a good 3 hours swimming, we dried off and headed back to the boat to shower and get ready for dinner. Unfortunately, we went to dinner with a group of like… 15? And they chose this expensive restaurant, so my new best friend Rachel and I ordered something really cheap and shared it! We had croquetes, which are these little deep fried things filled with random meat and cheese. They were really good. Then we wandered around Cadiz looking for a bar/club to go to. Ran into some friends of ours, and went to a bar that they were at, which was one of the only two open on a Wednesday night.

We had a few drinks then called it a night since Tim had to be up at 6:30 to head to Sevilla and I had to be up for today.

Today was amazing. My FDP was the best thing about this trip so far! First we met outside on the pier and boarded a bus to Jerez de la Frontera, a small city inland in Spain about an hour away from Cadiz. We headed to the Flamenco center, which we later found out was in the center of the Santiago neighborhood – a gypsy neighborhood. Flamenco originated from the gypsies when they came here from the middle east. It wasn’t publicly performed until recently since the gypsies weren’t accepted in society. In some places they still aren’t. Anyway, we found out that students from all over the world studying dance, guitar, and just the general musicology of Flamenco go to this place and stay (for free). It has all sorts of books and scores and videos and recordings dating back 1-2 centuries when Flamenco was first arriving in Spain.

People generally think of flashy dancing and guitar and big swirling skirts and sometimes fast paced rhythms when they think of Flamenco. However, that is not generally the case. There are over 70 different types of Flamenco and the most important person in the group is the singer. The singers get SO intense in the music, which is a majority of the time about some sort of pain over something or rising above the hardships and sometimes love. The voice is usually harsh and doesn’t really sound much like “music” to most, so it’s not generally liked by western music lovers (everyone that likes a definite beat and technique). It sounds a lot like the chanting of the Quran (sp) or some sort of Islamic or Muslim prayer, which makes sense since that is the region where Flamenco came to Spain from!

Anyway, after the flamenco center, we boarded the bus again and headed to a bodego (a bar) in another section of Jerez. We walked through the bar portion into the back which was a huge warehouse where they were fermenting and storing their sherry. There were chairs and tables set up and that is where we spent the next 4 ½ hours. It was amazing. Words can’t really describe what happened. There were several guitarists and singers and a dancer (who was British but had lived in Spain for the past 25 years) who first taught us to dance Flamenco and then who played and danced for us. The emotion that goes into Flamenco is unreal. I mean, I’ve seen singers and dancers passionate about their work, but I’ve NEVER seen anything like this. It’s their life. Since I don’t really want to blog your ear off, if that is possible, I won’t rant about how spectacular this was. But they played and sang songs from different regions of spain and different types of Flamenco. We ate jamon (ham) and Queso (cheese) but it wasn’t typical ham and cheese. The ham looked like bacon but was 10 times better and the cheese was some sort of crumbly cheese that sort of resembled parmesan? We split a bottle of sherry at my table between me, Rachel, and Nate. We got the sweet sherry which was OK. It tasted like molasses, it was weird. I didn’t really want to try the dry sherry. We figured we might as well taste it since it’s coming straight from the bar that we were at!

Anyway, I’ll close this with something both the tour guide and the Flamenco Center and the guy, Simon, that was doing our Flamenco lesson said.

Flamenco isn’t something you just learn for the hell of it or to get another dance style under your belt. You have to feel it. It’s a connection you make emotionally. There is no gray area. Either you like it or you hate it. And if you like it, you love it, and can’t get away from it. And you don’t have to be a gypsy to love it, people come from all over who have sparked their passion for Flamenco in some way. It’s terribly hard to master, but it’s an amazing journey.

Adios y hasta manana!!