Stairway

This morning i found myself waking up on my own free will, exhausted after another Granada evening. The general nightlife here does not get started until about 11 p.m. for which the avergae college student you have already parked yurself at yur favorite seat, in your favorite bar and are starting to scan the room making goo goo eyes at any pretty girl you find. For the Spanish they are just waking up from their naps that extend into tehe evening. Crazy as it may seem this is the cultural norm here and its not uncommon to see grandparents out and about at 2 am going for tapas or dinner. Its shocking but true. Spain itself and the people are different and there seems to be here a central focus on family life,w hich is to be expected and appreciated as it is in the end one of the most important things that we have in our lives, our suport system. Spanish families in Spain are diverse as i have come to know this during a recent day expedition with a few friends to a small village outside of Granada. Life outside the walls of Granada proves to be vastly different but at the same time shares the picturesque back drop of the Sierra Nevada mountains. We accompanied a friend of ours to the family's estate which parts of i feel should be out of an old Clint Eastwood film while the pressing modernism could also be easily recognized. Needless to say i found myself at one point getting roped into making from scratch pasta carbona in a large tiled Spanish kitchen for a group of 5 who anxiously awaited my creation. An hour and a half later and pestering men coming in wanting to have a taste, i had supplied them with roasted eggplant, spinahc, tomaotoes bruschetta with orveja cheese to satisfy their hunger while the homemade ( I MEAN HOMEMADE!) sauce simmered away as i prayed this would come out right given my limited ingredients. Needless to say a dash of this and a dash of that provided them with looks of sheer enjoyment and pleasure on their faces as plate fuls after platefuls of the homemade meal disappeared. Relief came over me. Families in general are unique and different in their own special way especially in large families. This famiy had 6 children, 3 boys and 3 girls. Talk about a line for the bathroom in the morning! Needless to say the family dynamic is different yet centered around a key component, food and tradition. On the property they make homeamde wine to which i saw aging in large wooden barrels while curing legs of serrano ham hung neatly above my head. In the kitchen sat a leg on the counter as they casually walked by sliced a piece off and continued on their daily tasks. The house was filled with old traditional oiled paintings and antiques cluttered, and i mean CLUTTERED, the marble steps and banister. A trip outside the city as nerve racking it is to be away from your immediate comfort zone can be was quite enjoyable. Times you feel like things do get lost in translation as they solely speak their native tongue and others disregard your presence and contine to speak in Granadino ( a local dialect in which they cut the words in  half and dont use conjugation).  to which you REALLY need to pay attention. However situations like these can cause a person to do one of two things. 1 shutter back in fear or light a fire under your keister ( butt, bottom, your ... well.. um ya know) and try to master the langauge further to where your comprehension is above 80%.  Needless to say i will use this saturday morning to get a workout in, practice my language, and explore a dried fruit store on my village.

Worldly Woman

Song of the day

Hanz Zimmer

"The Wheat"