(no subject)
So I went to Jerez yesterday. 45-year-old Holland Lady was there (she left at the end of the trip and is now travelling Andalusia with her husband), and I met Assertive 23-year-old French Girl, Silly 20-something-year-old Korean Guy, and 20-year-old Greek Girl From Cyprus.
The horses were gorgeous. They were mostly all white, perfectly groomed and trained, and very noble. They were saved from extinction by a bunch of Cartusian monks (at least I think that's the translation of Cartujano) who were under the vow of silence. In the museum I mentioned, some of the paintings I saw were based on these guys as well, so that was kind of cool. None of the people in the paintings had their mouths open and none of them looked at each other. Took me a while to realize that. Yay, monks.
The wine was the best part, though. I tasted oloroso dulce sherry wine, which is the only kind of wine in the entire world that doesn't have origins from France (or so the tour guide claims), and it was to die for. It was smooth and had a nutty aftertaste. As my mom would say, yummarish! I also tasted Fino wine which was dry and smelled like the woody cask it was stored in, and I tried Croft which was a bit too sweet for me but also very good. What was funny was that we had potato chips to go with the wine instead of cheese. One of the girls told me that it was to get rid of the taste of the wine so you could try several kinds without mixing the flavors. Makes sense.
Today I'm supposedly going to go on a picnic with my friends from my program and with my language partner Carla. We'll see how that works out.
P.S. I now love Korean music. I was sitting with the Korean guy on the bus to and from Jerez, and every song that he let me listen to on his MP3 from Korea, I loved. It's very peppy and happy and the language sounds great. It's not related to Chinese or Japanese at all (except in writing because everyone borrows the Chinese characters), and it kind of sounds like English--but only in the intonation, of course. I couldn't understand a word.
P.P.S. Damn! The sun is really shining up a storm here. (I think that's the weirdest use for that expression that I've heard in my life. I should get a prize for that.) It's now a lot hotter and really bright and sunny. It's actually really uncomfortable at the moment, so I'm going to stop writing.
The horses were gorgeous. They were mostly all white, perfectly groomed and trained, and very noble. They were saved from extinction by a bunch of Cartusian monks (at least I think that's the translation of Cartujano) who were under the vow of silence. In the museum I mentioned, some of the paintings I saw were based on these guys as well, so that was kind of cool. None of the people in the paintings had their mouths open and none of them looked at each other. Took me a while to realize that. Yay, monks.
The wine was the best part, though. I tasted oloroso dulce sherry wine, which is the only kind of wine in the entire world that doesn't have origins from France (or so the tour guide claims), and it was to die for. It was smooth and had a nutty aftertaste. As my mom would say, yummarish! I also tasted Fino wine which was dry and smelled like the woody cask it was stored in, and I tried Croft which was a bit too sweet for me but also very good. What was funny was that we had potato chips to go with the wine instead of cheese. One of the girls told me that it was to get rid of the taste of the wine so you could try several kinds without mixing the flavors. Makes sense.
Today I'm supposedly going to go on a picnic with my friends from my program and with my language partner Carla. We'll see how that works out.
P.S. I now love Korean music. I was sitting with the Korean guy on the bus to and from Jerez, and every song that he let me listen to on his MP3 from Korea, I loved. It's very peppy and happy and the language sounds great. It's not related to Chinese or Japanese at all (except in writing because everyone borrows the Chinese characters), and it kind of sounds like English--but only in the intonation, of course. I couldn't understand a word.
P.P.S. Damn! The sun is really shining up a storm here. (I think that's the weirdest use for that expression that I've heard in my life. I should get a prize for that.) It's now a lot hotter and really bright and sunny. It's actually really uncomfortable at the moment, so I'm going to stop writing.