While my excursion to Sevilla was marvelous, I must not let it overshadow last week’s highlights, and although I'm lacking some "zed's" (that's how the British say "z"), I will gladly give them up to mention some exciting news from last week.
Last weekend, I made friends with some Spaniards from the south of Spain (before my visit to Andalusia). Antonio and his amigos are from Málaga, and SK and I hung out with them a lot last weekend. It’s fun to be making random Spanish friends!
I checked out El Rastro last Sunday (the 12th of October) with SK. El Rastro is basically Madrid’s version of a flea market the size of a small town that sprawls through entire street blocks and plazas. You can find almost anything in El Rastro. From clothes to electric appliances to jewelry to baseball cards, El Rastro has an eclectic mix of goods to buy at very low prices. I bought several colorful scarves to give my wardrobe a little more street cred here in Spain.
Festival VivaAmerica was an event in Madrid that lasted from the 6th to the 12th of October. Dozens of Latin American authors, film makers, artists, and other notable representatives held conferences, concerts, and presentations over the course of a week. The culmination of the event came on Sunday evening in the form of the coolest and most fun parade, called La Marcha, that I have ever seen. El Paseo del Prado, one of Madrid’s largest and most prominent streets, was blocked off for the festival. Dancers and performers processed down the promenade in a magnificent display of sights and sounds. Representatives from each country were wearing their traditional costumes, dancing their specific steps, and playing their regional rhythms. Between sets of countries, huge tractor-trailors/double-decker-buses were transformed into moving stages and some of Latin America’s most famous music stars sage out to the crowded streets. Hermanos Rosario from the Dominican Republic, Orishas from Cuba, and Brasil’s queen of Carnival Daniela Mercury were among the top performers. And I got to see these musicians up close and personal. SK, Antonio, and I would follow the buses as the crept down the road, and as we moved, we danced. Everyone was dancing in the streets… and it was awesome. Basically, La Marcha was a beautiful celebration of Latin America and its people, and it was so refreshing to taste that distinctly sweet and exotic flavor here in the more stoic and traditional Spanish lifestyle.
My friend, Miami Alex, and I did a couple of notable things last week. [Btw, Alex is an actor from Miami who’s visiting Spain to practice his Spanish. We met on my birthday and have hung out a few times.] On Tuesday night, we went to a district called La Latina and found a great Basque tapas bar called Txacolina. The Basque region is in the northeastern part of Spain and it has a completely different language. In fact, there is an ongoing debate over Basque independence, but no legislation has come from that.
Miami Alex invited me to see a play with him at El Teatro María Guerrero. He told me he thought it was some kind of Russian opera. Oh no. Boris Godnov’s La Fura dels Baus was based off an old Russian opera, but it was relating the story of the 2002 terrorist kidnapping of a theater in Moscow… and it was the scariest, most thrilling theatrical performance I have ever seen, because that is exactly what happened to our theater. The actor-terrorists were actually carrying real weapons and shot real blanks, and although it was in Spanish and I missed a few words or phrases, I didn’t have to know everything to still be terrified out of my mind. On a technical note, this play was also awesome because it incorporated cinematography with live-acting. Part of the set used large blank canvases at the back of the stage to show the security camera images that the terrorists had set up throughout the theater—the lobby, the bathrooms, the basement, the audience. Obviously, these had been prerecorded, but the actors had to be in sync with the film. It was a really cool effect and admirable addition to this already more-than-realistic performance.
Lastly, not only am I working at my school, but I’ve taken on several private tutoring classes, but seeing as how it's late and time to some well deserved sleep, I'll wait on describing those great new experiences!
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