Typical week.

June 3, 2007-06-03

So what of my life lately? The day is filled with class, naps, and escapades in the city. Typically my escapades amount to nothing more than café con leche at a nearby cafeteria (interestingly cafeteria means coffee bar. It kind of makes sense if you think of it café- teria. I’unno its one of those fun new language things I’ve been learning since I’ve been here where we have a completely different meaning ascribed to it). Truly there has been not much more to life than that.
My life is turning into a clear routine.
Step One: A casual purchase of the daily booze at the grocery store. This typically consists of rum, beer, or wine. Note that all the above are comparably cheaper in Spain than in America.

Step Two: I return home for dinner at 10:00. Enough said. Dinner usually precludes and/or postludes a fifteen minute discussin about random musings with my Lola (my Senora) and her son.

Step Three: Alemeda de Hercules. I have a fondness for this area of town known as the Alemeda de Hercules. A grandiose rectangular outdoor courtyard lined with Alemeda trees filled to the brim with indy record shops, jazz clubs, music venues, and artsy cafes. At approximately the stroke of midnight, hundreds of college kids, scene types, high schoolers, and rockers bring booze, smokes, and rolling paper and sit on the ground or near to bars.

Step Four (optional): Stay at Alemeda all night or head to Alfalfa - the area where the Euro study abroad kids, some locals, and a few Americans tend to chill. Do a few chupitos (shots) go home.




Yes yes. This is my routine, My only complaint is its SO hard to meet Sevillanos. My Spanish IS improving but slowly and my conversational Spanish isn’t where I would want it to be right now. Sevillanos are extremely friendly and willing to make small talk. However, a lengthy discussion or an invite to hang out later is difficult. Most people in Sevilla live and die in Sevilla. Their friends are friends since they were young and so becoming friends with random foreigners doesn’t make sense.

I’ve been trying to think of a remedy to this over the weekend. I think my solution is to meet gay kids. There are tons of gay guys and girls in Alemeda. From what I can tell they are just as dramatic, super friendly, and bitchy as gays in D.C. In other words, they make friends and loose friends fast. Furthermore, apparently much of the gay population in Sevilla is of rural origin or other parts of Spain or Europe. They themselves don’t have the cemented relationships other Sevillanos have. So perhaps, they are my outlet for more Spainyard friends. There are quite a few gay bars and gay people in general in the Alemeda de Hercules area and even more bars towards the river on the otherside of town.

Anyways, that’s all for now. This weekend I went to the beach and got the worst sunburns of my life even though I used SPF 35 and reapplied it multiple times. It hurts super bad and at least one part of my skin is purple and nearly pealing.

Oh and to Amy and Z. My mom was SOOO happy y’all visited; she sent me a really excited e-mail. So anyone in town I’m sure is welcome to visit with my mom, she’d be thrilled. Ok that’s all loves. Sorry this post is so rambly and shitty, my sunburns are killing me and I desperately need to lie down.

-Adam

P.S. Z if you’re reading this… beware! All they eat in Spain is pork. In fact, this relates to anthropology a bit. People tend to have more words for things that relate to their climate/food/lifestyle etc. There are a billion and a half words for different cuts of pork. Its really hard to keep it straight, so before you leave you might want to learn all the words so when you order food you won’t freak out and die. Some of it deceptively tastes like chicken or lamb. Today I had a meatball that was indescribable. I couldn’t tell if it was beef or pork. So just beware.