Valdilecha, Day 2

I found an internet connection, and since I can’t sleep, I’m writing a blog about what I did today.  Listen up.

Day 6: 9/6/08

Today started out like any other normal day in Valdilecha. 11 the time I woke up, rather early for this neck of the woods, as my parents were still sleeping due to the events of last night. Breakfast today consisted of Hot Chocolate and some biscuits, which wasn’t enough, but I kept my mouth shut and went along with it. I watched some TV with Marta, “The Simpsons” once again, and we played chess. Marta doesn’t speak a word of English, but we compare words frequently in both Spanish and English, thereby increasing both of our vocabularies.

Lunch today was “Albondigas y Patas” (Meatballs and Potatoes). The food here, so far, is pretty bland. They like a lot of olive oil, but not a lot of spices. I asked for pepper, but they don’t have any. After lunch, they explained the concept of the Siesta to me, not knowing that this was something that I’m already extremely well versed in. Napping is second nature to the Spaniards. My host father sleeps all the time, just not that often tonight.

After lunch, I went on a walk with my family. We went to the outskirts of town, walking along “Camino de Toro” (Street of the bulls) complete with a “Plaza de Toro” (Stadium of the bulls). Bullfighting goes down here. Imagine the street as being a dirt road, with big six foot railings on either side of the road, thus separating the road from the sidewalk. I asked Juan Antonio what these were, and he told me that this is the street along which the Running of the Bulls for Valdilecha takes place. When is it? This Tuesday. And I get to go. That’s right, my fair reader, yours truly gets to go to a Running of the Bulls, as well as his first bullfight. You can be sure that I will take a bunch of pictures. In fact, I took some of my first pictures today because I was with just my family and no one else, but I’ll take more tomorrow as well.

The walk continued, and we came to a nature route called “Los Pinos” (The Pines). The nature reminded me a lot of Colorado, so it was really nice to see this. They told me I’m welcome to run here, so I plan to do that for fun and take lots of pictures tomorrow. Right near the trail, Juan Antonio’s family owns a spot of land where they grow a lot of fruit, and that it was tended to by his father, but sadly, his father died earlier this year. Some of the fruit was still good, so we ate a lot of it. Juan Antonio had me explain what every type of fruit was in English, but the one that confused him the most was “blackberry”. He didn’t believe me at first that both the fruit and his cell phone could have the same name.

We got back to the house about an hour later, and we started to watch the Nadal match, but both my parents fell asleep, and I took a two hour nap for the hell of it. When in Rome. Or in this case, when in Spain. When I woke up, I got on the computer, watched some more TV until around 9:30, when we ate dinner. This time it was “pimentos fritos”, or fried peppers. More olive oil. I’m surprised these people don’t bathe in it, or at least offer me an alcoholic drink with it. Jesus.

Spain was playing Bosnia in a soccer match, so I watched that with Juan Antonio. Again, around midnight, we walked around the village, running into the nephew of Juan Antonio, whose name is Antonio. He is enrolled in college in London, so his English was very good and I was thankful to have someone to talk to and have a meaningful conversation with him. I drank “café solo” at a bar, essentially one shot of espresso. Very strong but also very good. Then we headed to the Plaza, where everyone was singing and dancing and having a grand old time. It really is something to see people younger than my cousins (8) and older than my parents (mid 40s) out at 3-4 in the morning. In fact, I’m writing this at 4 in the morning Spain time, and my parents are still out in the Plaza. I could wake up at 5 at night, and no one would care at all. It’s pretty cool.

Following the Plaza with Juan Antonio and Elena, my Peña came and got me. Their name is “Peña de sakas”. I have no idea what that means. More dancing (with a bitchin’ strobe light) and drinking ensued. They had me drink a bit of Black Vodka. I don’t even want to know what it is, but it actually did taste pretty good. Tomorrow, apparently, there will be a person dressed up as a bull. Juan Antonio told me it is a “firebull”, so that will be interesting to see. For now, ciao. I’m now tired and another day is ahead of me. Hopefully I’ll get some pictures tomorrow.

Peace.