a bit weary: feria recap

I started this entry Sunday morning but didn't have the energy to finish. The feria was great fun, but I must admit it is nice to get back to a sense of normalcy. The dogs managed to survive without having a nervous breakdown, although just barely. Surprisingly, Mr. Beebs had a tougher time than Precious Boo. P.B. spent the majority of the weekend hiding under the bed from the rockets; M.B. needed constant comfort and reassurance. Neither touched their food, except for when we slipped them a piece of cheese or the like. T. proved to be even more of a feria amateur than Big Jim and me, opting to stay in Saturday night  and watch many episodes of "Freaks & Geeks". Frankfurt has had a particularly cool summer; therefore, I think the strong sun and heat affected T. much more than us. He did rally, though, and had a great time with us at the beach Sunday. Here's my highlight list from the weekend. Mind you I am writing this through one half-swollen eye; I'll explain at the end. :-)

• Saturday afternoon at Bar Loro with B.J., T., and M.A., sipping gazpacho and tinto de verano, anything to keep cool.
• The foam dance: the entire main plaza was filled with more than a meter of soap suds (I'm 165 cm, and it came to my armpits). B.J. and T. passed on this one, but I had great fun, and again, anything to keep cool. After I danced to a couple songs, I climbed the steps out of the square, my flipflops squishing, and I felt like a teenager, watching those silly dance shows from the Jersey shore with my sister on TV.
• Convincing Big Jim to go on the Crazy Kangeroo ride with me (he screamed like a baby the entire time).
• The local dance schools' performance. I love to watch how serious the little girls are about the sevillanas, their faces contorted in determined concentration.
• Vino y Pasa's lounge act Saturday night. After providing a pop show for the kids on Friday, Saturday they toned down the action for a more family night of pasa dobles. Big Jim and I were some of very few expats mixed among the throngs of Spanish in the makeshift open-air dinner/dance hall that usually serves as the school's basketball court. We saw many of our neighbors and our landlord Pepe (who has an uncanny resemblance to Uncle Junior of the "Sopranos"; we refer to him and his cohort of card-playing buddies as the Village Mafia).
• Churros y chocolate: For those not familar with churros, they are essentially fried dough. They are similar to a PA Dutch treat called funnel cake, which I know from growing up in southeastern PA, except they are much thicker and cut into eight-inch sticks. And then, instead of sprinkling with icing sugar, they are dipped into a cup of thick, hot chocolate.
• Seeing Almendena drinking a San Miguel (the vast majority of Spanish women in our village over 50 are never seen drinking alcohol, at least in public) and right from the bottle!
• Having lunch with Big Jim and T. Sunday at one of the seaside fish restaurants in Torre del Mar.
• The beach itself. The water was perfect, and T. noted the sensation I love when one swims a bit from shore: you feel as if you have the entire Med to yourself.
• Dinner at M.A.'s Sunday evening and watching the procession of horses and riders, completely bedecked in their finest.
• The finale fireworks, the proper pretty kind, not just the bangers.
• Experiencing jetlag without traveling. In a 2-day span, I went from getting up at 6:30 am to not going to bed until the same time.
• The local town band serenading us and our neighbors on Calle Salares.
• The deserted village yesterday, as everyone was indoors sleeping and recovering.

We also had some fireworks of our own, which is how I've wound up with a shiner. When our friend G. visited in May, he brought Big Jim a packet of 10 fireworks. We decided it would be fun to set them off from M.A.'s roof terrace Sunday night. They weren't particularly powerful ones, mainly fountain sprays, although a couple also were loaded with rockets. As I was looking up to the sky, enjoying the pretty red and green lights above my head, I suddenly felt as though I had been punched in my eye and fell to my knees. M.A. sprung into action and quickly got me some ice and a brandy. There was a small lump on my eyebrow, and the guys pretty much thought I was overreacting, convinced I had been hit with just some paper from the firework packaging (this coming from two men with zero pain tolerance). To their surprise, I woke up yesterday with a swollen and black & blue eye. T. suggested I add red and purple eye shadow to the other eye to make the look more of a fashion statement. I'm still not sure what hit me, perhaps some debris from the rocket. But the lesson, kids, is to let the fireworks to professionals. I for one am sticking to sparklers in the future. :-)

T. returned to Frankfurt yesterday evening, so today it's back to work for me and back to looking for a job for Big Jim.  The dogs are no longer terrified to venture outdoors for their walks, and C.K. is back to sleeping in her bed. She took advantage of the dogs' fearful state and freely slept spread out in the kitchen and on the stairs and roof terrace, knowing that during the feria the dogs would be too bothered to harass her. She is a clever kitty. The neighbors are back to their routine as well. The women are mopping away the last bits of feria from the streets, and the streamers are beginning to sag. All will be quiet for another couple of weeks, when the wine festival begins.

hasta manana,

mylifeinspain