Another Long Weekend

Friday was another national holiday, so today concludes the second long weekend in the past two weeks. Normally I would find this delightful, but frankly I've been somewhat frustrated lately with how little is accomplished in class at the school. Every lecture starts late, ends early, and isn't nearly as in depth as I feel my (and my parent's, and the federal government's) tuition dollars should buy. But that's how it goes in a laid back country such as this.

On Friday I went with my fellow Hoosier Danny and a girl from Texas to a flamenco show here in Madrid. It was the third such show I've seen, and was pretty good. A prized skill in flamenco dancing is the extreme rapidity with which the dancers can tap their heels against the stage in something of a human drum-roll, and one of the dancer's on Friday was so accomplished at this that the motion of his legs was blurred and he scooted across the stage like a cell phone placed on vibrate, ringing and sliding across a desk. This flamenco show was also accompanied by some excellent sangria.

Yesterday I went to the movies with some Spanish students. They wanted to practice their English so we saw "Death at a Funeral" in English, with Spanish subtitles. It was a fun movie, with its occasionally smart and dry British humor, but not necessarily memorable. Then we met up with some other American students and went to a bar called Las Cuevas del Sésamo, which was once frequented by Ernest Hemingway, amongst other canonical writers whom I don't recall at the moment. It was a delightful experience, very reminiscent of Rick's from "Casablanca." Low-key music was provided by a pianist in a bow tie, one table away from ours, lifted straight out of the 1940s. Immediately after leaving this bar, we tempered the high-culture weekend with a trip to McDonald's, because everyone seemed to be in the mood for some greasy food.

Today is for catching up on some reading, for both homework and leisure. Adiós.