I am getting ready to go to Spain. It is very odd. I booked the trip in January and February, but after then I have given it very little thought. It has been an odd spring between the normal wackiness of APeX, writing a book, and publishing another. My days have been very full. I have enjoyed it. Because of the all the activity I haven’t been looking too much to the future. In a little more an than 24 hours that future is going to come.
I am going to Granada, Spain for a little more than a month. I will be studying Spanish and Flamenco Dancing. Yes, I said dancing. When I was doing my investigation in to schools in Granada I came across about six. As far as I could tell by looking at their web sites, they all looked about the same. Same cost. Same student to teach ratio. Same housing. Same number of hours a day of class. Really all the same. Except for one, Carmen de las Cuevas. The school is a language and flamenco school. Most language schools will have a few cultural classes for the foreigners, but these are built only to give the student a taste of the local. This is different. This is a full on flamenco school. They teach dance, rhythm, and guitar. There are two types of classes, at three levels. To move form the intermediate to the advanced level it takes about 12 weeks.
My reasoning for picking this school goes something like this: Two years ago when I did a month in Ecuador I spent my free time with the other people I went to school with. It is so simple it makes sense. These are the people I had lunch with and traveled on the weekends with. I was so much a foreigner it made sense this was my peer group. We were all out of place together (and all spoke English). So, in a lot of ways, my peer group was chosen for me. I could have not hung out with them, but I would have been on my own. I figured if, once again, I was going to have my peer group chosen for me, why not have it be a bunch of dancers.
While I am their I am going to be taking four weeks of Spanish lessons and two weeks of beginner flamenco dance. Already the dancing has created some problems. They type of shoe/boot that you need for flamenco dancing is a one that has a very hard soul and in most cases what is called “nails” in the toe and heal. Nails are like taps, expect they are built flush into the sole. About two months ago it just kinda of dawned on me that I needed to think the boot thing through. When I was in Ecuador, I realized that if I lost my shoes I was in trouble because I would not be able to find new one. My feet are size 13 and to find anything larger than a 10 1/2 in Latin America would be a miracle. So I e-mailed the school inquiring if I would be able to find boots my size in Granada. The answer, “No.” So I did some research on-line and was able to find boots my size at Flamenco Export (which I had to pay a premium to get the larger boots). About a week after I ordered my boots, I was following up on my order. After a week the order was “still in process”. After e-mailing them back I found out the order was still in process because the boots were still being made because they don’t keep boots that large in stock. In order to avoid mailing trouble, we have arranged for me to pick up the boots at the shop in Madrid when I arrive on Saturday.
Excitement: Today I get to do my back to school shopping, which is always fun. New pens and note books. I don’t need a new back pack because I have a great one from the trip to Ecuador. I was temped to get a new lunch box, but I don’t want to haul it to the other side of the world. I am looking forward to a country I have never been to. I am excited to meet the other students. I am excited to dance.
Concerns: I don’t know how excited I am to be an American in Europe right now considering the state of the world. I don’t have concerns for safety, but I just don’t want to be seen as an “ugly American”. I might just become Canadian for a month. “Hola, eh?” “¿Come estas you hoser?”