Sevilla is incredibly beautiful these days. Of course it's hot - 37 degrees I think today.
Everything is stunning - like you would imagine it to be. The river is very green, with all the very old coloured buildings along it on the Triana side. Then the white Plaza de Toros behind palm trees on the other side. Everywhere Jacaranda trees are blooming, and also some trees with bright yellow flowers that fall everywhere.

I discovered some decent gelato and then the book fair in Plaza Nueva, in the center of the city. I considered buying a guide to various hikes, I looked at a few books on horses, some on flamenco, and then I wanted to buy one on alternative finance and local cooperative networks in Andalucia, because this is interesting me highly these days. If I could, I would get involved in something to help re-arrange the structure of the world, and at the moment I am here, where it is desperately needed. Luckily people are already doing it. I am nearly finished reading my first ever foreign language novel - El Amour en Los Tiempos del Cólera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So I'm not really afraid of reading anything in Spanish any more. Of course there are a lot of words I don't understand, but you know...

I finally found some actually decent whole wheat bread. It is at my favorite specialty food store in Calle Regina. A rather reserved man probably in his late 40s stocks his shop full of all manner of stuff that is truly useful, as well as being high quality. That is where I got one of the best bottles of wine I've ever drunk, for under E5. I get unfiltered olive oil there (the only kind worth having), sometimes cheese, rice, sausage, and spices of all kinds. It is just a small place, but there are two high tables with stools against one wall, and in the afternoon, sometimes there are a few men hanging out in the doorway to the shop, sipping glasses of wine and chatting with the owner. Yesterday I bought an "olive oil" cookbook there, because I have been having trouble cooking properly for myself, and am hoping this will be motivation, as it is basically tons of normal Spanish recipes. It is one of those plain types of cookbooks - it has only a few pictures, and it's very serious, also pocket sized. It starts off explaining everything there is to know about olives and olive oil, including ancient history and details of extraction processes.

I am liking Sevilla more in this past week, as I finally feel I am getting to know a few people, and now my life seems partly to be falling into place. Yesterday I changed my practice time to 9-11 in the morning. Practicing between 4-6 was horrible, as it is directly after lunch and exactly the time I want to be sleeping. Also, it is when the studio is hottest. I feel like I am finally making progress with my dancing. I am learning tons, alone. I'd say it has probably taken me a month (after the time where I couldn't dance) to assimilate the choreographies I learned in January. I've finally practiced one of them enough to be at the point where I can start to use it - fit it with recorded music, and change it as necessary. For the other, I've finally started to understand the complexities of the rhythms and find how they fit into the overall rhythmic phrase and can finally do them to recorded percussion, and am working in detail on the body movements.
I went to watch a class today that I think I will start taking in June. The clase de Angel looked perfect and he looks like an awesome teacher. Instead of choreography, this particular class works with different aspects of technique every day.