Friday: our final exams. The last day of Exam Week in Spain until the next semester begins. Listening comprehension, oral, written, reading comprehension, death. We leave the class with some of us feeling confident and some extremely sad. Luckily I fall on the confident scale. After a quick lunch I head out to the beach to lay out and take advantage of this upper 60s weather and lack of clouds. When the sun set we decided to go to the grocery store to pick up some things and then head home until 10:30. When 10:45 came around, I made my way to the beach and met up with Kirsten and Jacqueline. Jordan and Matt still weren't there so we ended up sitting on a wall by the boats talking.
From the other side of the beach we saw 2 people heading in our direction. They came over, said hello, thought we were there for the Erasmus party but then decided to join us instead. We hopped off the wall and made a pow-wow in the sand with our new friends Liz from Southern New Hampshire and Geoff from the Alps in France. After putting on some music and talking another person walked towards us. Now Liz is 23 and Geoff is 19 so we mingled pretty well. The man who walked over had clearly lived a hard life and decided to try to forget it by drinking copious amounts of boxed wine. He sits next to us. Inches from me. INCHES. Awkward silence. I grab my obnoxiously large "dungeon key" in my pocket. Geoff speaks up for us all, thinking the drunken stranger will go away but it only keeps him longer. I pretend to be from Belgium and Jacqueline from Sweden to create a language barrier but this man spoke too many languages. We started in French, then Italian, then English, and then Spanish. A well educated homeless drunk I'd say. He peed his pants. Finally the awkward situation was too much so I looked at the French guy, tapped my watch and said "T'es près?" I got a "oui" and then we all get up and walk down the beach.
We create another circle farther away in the shadows when someone else stumbles upon us: a girl from Germany and a guy from Italy. Erasmus. We like Erasmus. The circle gets larger and then the rest of my American friends head over with all of our German friends, Australian friend, and a new guy from Madrid/the UK. We talk, laugh and listen to music, new friends and old, until about 1 or 1:30 and then started walking into the city to one of our "favorite" places: Nahú. The bar is packed so full that it is impossible to not be all up in somebody's business. Advantage: You don't have to buy drinks. Disadvantage: No room to dance. A mix of American, European and Arabic party/dance/house music blasts through the bar. Little circles form and a constantly moving line down the center is for the bathroom. Let me reiterate the lack of personal space. We teach the German girls how to dance American, and they teach us how to dance European. Glasses fall off of shelves everywhere (I knocked over and shattered 4 from being bumped into so much). Of course we run into Davide....He's everywhere, and at around 4 we decide to leave and just go home instead of going out (I'm going to Córdoba in 4 hours). I still haven't reached a full tolerance for Spanish nightlife: i.e. starting at 3am and walking home at 7am. It's really a cultural experience.
Here is what I've learned: Spain is a purely social culture. At night everyone young is in the streets talking, then they go to the bar, and then they go to the club. It isn't a subculture that does this, it IS the culture. My host-father constantly asks if I'm going out and if I say "no, I have to study" or "no, I got school tomorrow", he looks at me confused says something along the lines of "but it's so boring in the house at night" and then lets it go. Today was a special since it was a Friday and we were celebrating the end of our Spanish course. I still haven't been to a club yet here, but I'm sure I'll get to it eventually. This weekend, no. This weekend is for beautiful and historic Córdoba. La Mezquita, tiny roads, Spanish soul, and cultural treasure trove!!
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