Yesterday

This evening walking home the long way across the Puente San Telmo and by the cathedral, I started crying when I heard some native South American guys playing the pan pipes. They had a t-shirt for sale with a cheesy picture of a stereotypical North American Native, with the feather headdress. They reminded me of my own continent – not that they are even from it, but at least their continent is attached to mine, and somehow, well... I don't know.

It is not that I am unhappy to be here. It's just that I have come planning to stay a long time, and it's not been easy so far, and I am scared. While I was still staying at the hostel, I heard a guy playing blues and it made me feel a kind of relief – familiarity. Something that is mine. Something that comes from my tradition, because a lot else around me is not.

I am at my wits end with walking across the city twice a day, both ways. My feet ache. I tried to rent a bike, but the bike place didn't open in time for me to find out that it was too expensive and the bikes that are part of a program of the city that are parked all over the place, you need a subscription that has to be bought on the internet. I was late and then had difficulty taking a bus. It is like being handicapped not to have internet at home. I have to squeeze in time in a Wifi cafe, after walking and walking, and needing to eat and sleep. I feel as if that is all I am doing – dancing, walking, eating and sleeping. Finding out how to buy a second hand bike or where to rent one is difficult without having the web at my disposal easily, and so I got myself into the situation of being just about crazy from walking.

I got through the Siguiriyas class well today. It is an absolutely killer siguiriyas. I feel like soniquete is my second name, when I am dancing this. Which means it sounds incredibly cool. Now the issue is to get it fluent enough so that the siguiriyas rhythm actually is discernible in the complicated sections. Ha ha. Two days I've crossed Puente San Telmo walking weirdly, trying to sort out how a pattern that repeats in 4s can fit, in triplets, into the two beats of 2s, 2 beats of 3s and one more of 2. To figure out on paper is fine and dandy but what matters is making your body do that and hearing and feeling it. Math is not very helpful.

I'd scheduled several hours of practice today, since I am not going to do any on the weekend (at the studio at least. Maybe on the rooftop, though). So immediately after class I went across the street to the Bar Remesal, which was just opening up, and sat down while one heavily made up and coiffed older lady was talking on the phone, and another more matronly one was dusting bottles of alcohol on the shelf. Neither of them attended to me for quite a few minutes. One does not get offended by this in Spain. One would have to just go back to one's own country and forget about it, if one was inclined to do so. Anyways, I finally got a montadito (tiny sandwich) of spicy chorizo, and a small beer, because I was intending to do another hour of dance, and had just done 2. And it would be 3 pm before I could make lunch. After my practice, I went for a quick beer with Elin, the girl who organises the scheduling of the studio. I originally felt she was a bit odd for a Spanish girl and indeed she turned out to be Swedish.

This is the second time now after my evening practice that I've decided to take a slightly longer route and go over the Puente San Telmo and through the centre of the city, by the cathedral and the touristy area. Again I stopped in at a side chapel and sat. It seems this has been my only real time out. And both times, I have felt like I used the cathedral for the purpose it should be use for. I left my burdens there, at least until the next day. Tonight I wondered before I entered, if I should cross myself. But I've never really been taught how, and I would only be copying strangers and it would kind of be fake, because I am not Catholic. Tonight I felt the same. To look at me people must have thought I was a religious person, because I was crying. It's really the only time I've taken to myself, to do nothing. A bit too emotional right now.

After that I walked my favorite way back to my neighborhood and in a sudden urge, decided to stop for chocolate and churros. This was the first time I've had it. These churros were different from the Jerez kind and I liked them better. Long deep-fried dough sticks, they actually are squeezed out of something like a soft ice cream type machine, and then fried. They usually come out in circles, because of how the dough falls. You dip them in chocolate that is actually good. It is not very sweet and not milky and has a slightly puddingy consistency.

The bar was narrow and had a mixture of really typical older and younger men behind the counter, rushing like crazy and yelling out orders to each other. There were a couple of really old pictures like the kind you see of people's relatives, on the wall. Then a picture of one of the Jesus statues that gets paraded around in the festivals, some very dusty alchohol bottles upside down in holders, a wooden model of the store-front, with a figurine standing in front, eating. Behind me were high glass doored shelves with many extremely dusty bottles of unusual alchohol.

I've been watching the news, because that's really all its possible to do if I am not in my room when Loli and Marie Carmen are home. Marie Carmen sits in an easy chair and Loli lays on the couch. There is a table with a glass top and a plate of varied cookies and chocolates in packages, and one of those oil-electric heaters under the table, with several heavy table cloths coming to the floor. You pull up to the table and stick your legs under the table cloth to keep warm. That's where they stay, all the time, just watching TV. I kind of feel like I am living with Auntie Evelene and Auntie, when they both used to live at Beulah Gardens. Except calmer. And younger. And I get a bit of a feeling that they are a couple. Neither has children and though I'm sure Spanish ladies hang out together if they have no family, these two are inseparable, and in pictures together.

Anyways it will be helpful to my Spanish to watch the news and interesting to know a bit more about the country, once they get to the local news, that is. Unlike us, they have a large amount of fairly in depth international news here, which is all pretty horrific right now, unfortunately.