It is dawn and I am getting into bed. Usually getting to bed later than I should makes me tense. That happens just about every night.

It makes me tense not to be out in the middle of the day, aprovechar-ing the light. There is this rigid sense of time that I am slave to, and it's not just due to schedules imposed on me from commitments I have. But here, there is so much intense light, for so much of the year, who cares if you miss some? Getting out in the light, because you feel down if you don't, and keeping yourself sane with schedules you set up - neither of those things matter all that much if you are around people. In fact I feel like I could stand a lot, if I have warm, friendly people around me. I can hang out in ugly or boring places, I can survive a certain amount of deprivation.

Spanish people are amazing. This group of friends absorbed me like a sponge. I meet new people every time I go out with them, roaming around to different bars, there are other friends in their extended group present every time. I am always introduced with a kiss on either cheek. It was Jose Luis who first gave me his phone number. But the first time after that, that I went out with them, three more people exchange phone numbers with me. Everyone is nice to me, makes an effort to talk to me. It's fascinating watching how they are different from us, socially. They're pretty similar in what they talk about, in the way they joke around. Everyone in this group is part of a couple. They don't always have their partner with them. The interesting thing is that they are really close with each other. A girl whose fiance is sitting across from her will put her head on the shoulder of a guy friend beside her. A guy will put his arm around a girl that's not his girlfriend, as they're walking down the sidewalk, and affectionately give her a big hug. They aren't stuck to each other's sides. The guys who have girlfriends will walk and talk with me, and nobody is worried about that. They seem to be very "loving" with each other.
Spanish people call each other "hija", "hijo" endearingly (child - daughter/son). Even strangers, some my own age, have called me "hija" (like in a shop). Girls will call each other guapa. Usually between men and women, without necessarily any romantic attachment, they might call each other "corazon".
I wouldn't take a stranger so quickly into my group of friends and don't know anyone at home who would (I guess not surprisingly with the exception of my Italian friends, and their group of non-Canadian friends). I was even invited to go to Noelia's bachelorette party. (She is getting married in a month).

Madrugada was a bust. I called Maria and then Jose Luis to see if it might be possible to at least go see in the churches, and see if there would be any Saetas sung. The lineups would have been enormous and in the rain. I met them at one bar and we went to the next, where a big group of us had tapas. It seems that the guys pretty much always pay for the girls. And nobody would let me pay for anything, any of the times we've gone out. Jose Luis seems to be the only single guy, and when people are not wandering and milling around talking to whoever, or the girls aren't talking all together, I am with him, which suits me fine, as he is really sweet, and cute. I don't know if it means anything really. Also he is quite a lot younger than me - Spanish people look older than they are, I think. Probably because they act more mature, more responsible.

This was the biggest night of Semana Santa. I was really looking forward to seeing and hearing some of the processions. Jose Luis spent quite a bit of time during tapas listening to a radio station on Jose Pablo's iphone, that gave up to date information on whether each hermandad would be going out. He was pretty disappointed. It was raining off and on all night, so none would. We went to the same bar as a few nights before, with the TV. That was the saddest of all, as the TV insisted on showing Semana Santa, even though it wasn't happening - they were filming the empty streets with rain pounding down... they just kept showing them. And some people were actually watching this. We finally went to another bar (we were attempting to stay up till around 5 or 6 when we could go look at Jesus del Gran Poder - the most important Jesus in Sevilla - in Plaza San Lorenzo, and I suppose the one that Kathy and I saw being taken down the other night).

Finally after various members of the crowd had drifted away from us, we had three Joses, Agu and Noelia. The church was closed and nobody was trying to do the same thing. We went to Jose and Noelias place for another drink. This is rare, as people don't invite others to their homes here, so I understand. There were just no bars available.

Throughout the night, when the guys weren't fixated on talking about something else, they would hum the Semana Santa tunes, or stick a box of napkins from the table on their head and pretend to be carrying a float, or walk funny, in time to the music, real or imaginary or on their iphone or TV. At Noelia and Jose's place a very surreal moment was watching a program on health, with subtitles telling you how to eat better or how to protect your back, and a woman demonstrating stuff, with the sound turned off and Semana Santa music on the stereo really loud, and Jose Luis doing the costalero walk, in time to the music and humming along, right beside or in front of the enormous TV (they have a gorgeous apartment).

Jose Luis is the most fanatical about it. While the others shut off the Semana Santa part of their brain during the rest of the year, he does not. I don't understand. Well, there is understanding and then knowing in some other part of yourself besides your brain. I don't get it. It's impossible for a Canadian to "get". Not everyone here knows about or likes flamenco. But Jose Luis suddenly started doing bulerias palmas and then rapping it out on a chair. He seems to be a traditional Spanish culture buff - flamenco, bullfighting and Semana Santa are all passions or at least interests. I've tried several times to explain how strange this all is for me and how much it differs from North American or Anglo Saxon thinking (people here all know this, or have their reverse stereotypes of us, just like we do of them). He explained to me something very similar to what I've heard other people say to describe Andalucians. Living with heart, instead of logic, is the only way to do it. Living for the moment, because you could be dead next year. I said my roommates even didn't like bullfighting because the bulls die. He said, "I am an animal, you are an animal, we will die too."