The Gallivanting Grasshopper: Coto del Valle

I'm just about to start my fifth day at Pueblo Ingles, and I'm still thinking that I must have cheated someone to get here. I found out yesterday that the waitlist for Anglos is about three thousand. I don't know how I passed all of them on the list, but I'm extremely happy that I did.

Sunday evening had to be my favorite experience so far. Apparently, the good people here at Pueblo Ingles have a ritual that they perform in every program Sunday night after dinner. So at ten forty five. Dinners here are VERY late. The ritual itself is very pagan, and there was some recitation of witches and worms and bones and brews. We were outside under a full moon with four people reciting in Gaelic, Spanish, English, and another language that I'd actually never heard of before. On one side of the performers was a table where the program MC was concocting the ritual's traditional drink -- an extremely alcoholic brew to ward off the witches. The drink itself was made from gin, orange peel, sugar, various spices, and coffee beans. The MC proceeded to light it on fire, and the flames reached about a foot and a half into the air. During the somewhat eerie, somewhat hilarious recitation, he stood in the background ladling the flaming alcohol. He took one ladle full of it around the circle, and we all dipped our fingers into the flames and quickly swallowed them before our fingers could be burned. The drink was one of the strongest I've ever tried (not that that says very much), but it was quite flavorful and good.

So, all of us feeling a bit light-headed (some quite a bit more than others) from the ritual, we continued on to the singing portion of the evening. Each country had to stand in front of the group and sing a song they felt exemplified their country best. I don't know the names of the other songs, but I did manage to capture the performances on video, and they were all absolutely delightful. There a six Americans here, and we decided rather last minute to sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." After singing it through once or twice, the group decided that I ought to sing it and they would do improvisational dance around me. When our turn came, I belted away, and the rest of the group magically transformed themselves into the best rainbows and bluebirds and lemon drops I have ever seen. The Spaniards loved it, we won the competition, and they asked for an encore. Still having a bit of that ritual witch repelling brew in us, we were more than happpy to oblige.

Monday was a very busy day for me. I had one to ones all morning and telephone calls and one to ones all afternoon. I learned that most Spaniards think that Americans speak with potatoes in their mouths. They dislike our lazy manner of speech, how far back the resonance is, and how we contract everything we possibly can.

After a hard day of incessant chatter, we were given an hour off to prepare for dinner and the party we were required to attend afterwards. Sunday night is ritual night, Monday night is party night. I'm looking forward to going to my yoga program where after a hard day's work, I'll be able to go to bed at a decent hour.

A funny thing happened at dinner that I think is worth mentioning because it was so out of character for me. When nine o'clock rolled around, I found myself seated with one of the anglos from Australia, a very funny middle-aged Spaniard, and the ex-navy MC. As the conversation started, I began to feel an occasional kick in the shins from the MC who was sitting across the table from me. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to embarrass him and I'm still a bit shy with fellows who are over two hundred pounds and stand over six feet tall. I figured that he'd notice soon enough, so I held my tongue and winced every so often. Once he went so far as to step on my bare toes and apologized quite sincerely, which I found odd as he had been kicking me on and off for the last half an hour and hadn't said a word.

Near the end of dinner, the conversation turned toward our romantic partners. The MC started talking about how much he hated his mother-in-law, but loved his wife. By this time, I'd been kicked in the shins one time too many, and had sipped just the right amount of wine. As the very intimidating ex-navy man waxed on about how much he cared for his wife, I finally blurted out, "You sure about that? 'Cos you've been playing footsie with me for the last half an hour."

There was silence for just a moment. Everyone stopped chewing and looked a little shocked, including the MC. "You mean that's you I've been kicking? I thought I was kicking part of the table."

"No, that has most definitely been my shins," I replied as our whole table broke out into self-perpetuating laughter. Including the MC.

After dinner, we had a Spanish dance party with a lot of bad American music, but a lot of FINE Spanish dancers. There was a middle-aged principal who danced for four hours straight, in what seemed to be a mixture of classical ballet, flamenco, and tango. The final dance was between him and a lovely girl from Ireland, who did something that looked like a mixture of ballet and Irish step dancing. They danced to the Bohemian Rhapsody, and it might have been the most magnificent thing I've ever seen.

Today we went on an excursion to a nearby town built into the mountainside. I took some pictures of an old fort and ate some local olives.

I'm about to start my next one to one, so I'll go ahead and let this already long-winded post come to an end.