Potato chips and cheap wine. There is only one choice of potato chips - plain - but they are better than the ones we get at home. Well, there is also Jamon flavour. Since I got my olive oil back I've been happier. Today I managed to cook my usual rice mash-up dish, so I feel healthier. But it is Sunday, so I couldn't get any oats for breakfast tomorrow.

The night before last, Sheri and I were up till about 3 am looking at flamenco on youtube. Last night we went to Pena Torres Macarena. She had met the director in the studios at Calle Castellar. He was singing and she painted him. He invited her to the pena and it was her first time going to one. We got there early and sat beside Diego while he started to sing, and the guitarist I've seen before there. It was totally unlike other Saturday nights I've been to. There was a big group later on and it went quite late. Pena means club, and everybody is members. For a night like this, it is just the members of the club hanging out singing together. They really took us in this time; they assumed we were dancers, but that we also sang, and kept asking us to do both. Most of them were older (older than 55), though there was one guitarist our age and one or two couples, then later on some young people. We didn't dance, as Sheri shared my thought - we would rather respect their art and not flounce around like a pair of daft, show-offy foreigners. But it became obvious part way through that they genuinely wanted us to participate. We promised them that next time we would, and let the older ladies do the dancing.
I was happy to share this with a friend who really appreciates it, and again was in awe of this culture I am in. This form of singing where they pour out their soul like no other kind of music - where that is the main requirement and it comes before technique, or even being in tune. Luckily at this pena, they have adequate technique as well.
I felt listening that I never want to leave here. I never want to leave a place where people understand when things are genuine and when they come straight from the heart. It is not easy for them either. Some of them say they are nervous, or look like they might be. But it is an accepted thing to do - to pour the deepest pain of your soul in a beautiful way.
I watched people of Spanish background on facebook the other day say things that sounded really harsh in English; they were insulting. And then I watched the conversation turn until they ended up agreeing to hang out and have a bottle of wine together and discuss the subject. It could have partly been the person responding to the insult, but it was partly cultural, I think, that the offense taken was less. All I know is that feelings are more acceptable here.