Barbecue with the Choir Members = Best of Times!!
So getting my ass out of bed this morning was just painful... I literally sat up and fell right over on my side again. :P
But it was SO worth it! It was cold-ish and cloudy here today, but that didn't stop it from being a ton of fun. It started raining as we were driving out there, so for the first couple of hours it was raining all around us. But the house had a double-awning and even better it had a FIREPLACE!!! As we had been driving out there, I had been saying to myself, "All I want is a fireplace...it's so freaking cold. And I can't get my hopes up because this is not like "a house in the country" in the US sense of the phrase...there will be no fireplace...don't even expect it." And then there was!!!
I absolutely love spending time with the choir people. The fact that there are so many ages in the group, the fact that they're all nice, the fact that they bring wine to barbecues (hahaha), the fact that we can just talk for hours and hours...and then after food we can just break out into song because we can all sing!!
I took a crapload of pics, which I'll put up on facebook so the other girls in choir can get at them. We had a great time eating, taking pics of the whole deal... I was enjoying the wine. :) And we were all laughing it up together with Beni and Paco and ... I think the other funny tenor is a "Jose Maria" but I could be wrong... too many people in Spain have similar names. :P What's great is that everyone moves around talking to each other...it's not it's cliques of "the foreign kids" and the "spanish people"...everyone talks together, moving around constantly. :P And then the one that I'll call "Jose Maria" (it's a great fall-back name...when I actually figure out his real name, I'll put it in here) was grilling up fish and pig-on-a-stick (guess which one I opted for? :P) In truth, after all the tortilla, pan, empanada, potato salad (Spanish-style) and such, I didn't have any room for fish... but then Beni had me try some of his. It's not the easiest fish in the world to eat 'cause it's whole, so he had to move back the scales and get it off the bone... he fed me more bites than I actually scooped up myself. :P
The lady of whose house we went to (by the way, it was a house in el campo [the country]) was Anna. There are a couple of choir members who have families (one that has both husband and wife in the choir), so there were "little people" running around. Hehe, but these kids were really cute. The little boy of the couple who are both in the choir is named Maximo, and he can't be more than a year-and-a-half, two years old, but already he has these yellow plastic glasses....I think he's near-sighted. He's sooo cute. And who else am I forgetting? Oh, the choir director and his wife (who is a soprano, twenty years his junior and probably the best soprano of us all...then again, I think she's a voice major ^_~) made it, just a little late. And I think I've finally confirmed that Imma (a Sevilliana) and Stefano (a guy from Italy) are indeed dating, or at least together. It's cute. :) Sarah and Giselle (the American girls) didn't make it, but the girls from England, France, and Germany made it...including Laura's friend, Jenna. (She's so nice...I wish she was in Sevilla instead of studying in Barcelona, meaning she has to leave soon to go back.) ... I feel like I'm forgetting people, but whatever. I'm only keeping track of names here so I don't forget them in the future. :P
After dessert (torta...mmmm) and coffee ... and rum and coke, courtesy of Beni, we all started singing. (We actually started singing somewhere between the coffee and the copa. :P) I mean, there had been spurts of song the whole time... sometimes a Spanish song, sometimes us girls who speak English busting out a carol... It was great, 'cause it would come up in conversation first, and then we'd bust it out. Like "Silent Night". We sang it in English, Spanish and German, and then Stefano sang a bit of it in Italian. It was great! But anyways, we all sang together post-food... It very quickly turned to Spanish songs, and that was so great...to hear Sevillian songs! And we were all clapping along, and singing the bits we foreigners could catch of the words. And Beni and the mother of Maximo started dancing (traditional-style)! Then Imma and Paco danced! It was great!!
After that, Paco broke out copies of carols and a couple of other short songs (one from Pomp and Circumstance, actually :P), so we were all singing together. Then next thing I know we're walking out the door! Turns out we were going down the way to sing to the shut-in aunt of one of the ladies in the choir (Anna).
I have MISSED doing community service-type stuff with choirs. Her aunt really liked it (she's bedridden), and it was great to be able to share something like that with her.
The sun had already been setting when we left the house, so it was dark when we headed back. Michelle (another American girl), Beni and I were having a conversation about religion all the way back. Beni and I see rather eye-to-eye, or have similar beliefs, I think. Not in the Adventist sense, but in the sense that we're both kind of outside the church (for me, that's been the case for a little while) but we still have our faith and beliefs. Beni has a humanitarian view of things... I'm not sure if he was raised Catholic or what, but he isn't anymore if he was. Anyways, it was really interesting being able to express ideas about God not only with someone from a different religion and a different culture, but also in a different language! And to really be able to communicate what we meant, what we believed. . . Helps, too, that we both agreed on so much.
Back at the house, we all chilled in the warmth for a bit, and then slowly but surely people started leaving. I stayed quite a while longer than Laura, Jenna or Sarah, hanging out with the Spanish peeps, Michelle, Alice, etc. "Jose Maria" and another guy broke out a guitar (it had been broken out earlier in the afternoon, so I guess it was re-broken out), and we all had some laughs at their crazy songs. It was getting colder by the minute outside the house, so I would go back in every little bit to warm my hands up by the fire. But it was just so much fun to hang with everyone...and laugh...a LOT! Hahaha.
Beni took Alice and I home. On the way (because where we were was about 30 mins from Sevilla), we had this amazing talk about relationships, age differences, and maturity. It was fantastic. I learned a lot about Beni. For one thing, I learned that I am never going to guess anyone's age in this country again. :P Beni is 38!!! But he really does look closer to 30, and he told me he gets that alot. Plus, he doesn't act like a 38-year old. He has a much more youthful life (full of travel, full of fun, full of socializing)... as he said, he lives in his own way. He said he'd never gotten married because he just isn't there yet...he's got lots he's still doing for himself (which I completely understand). He's had a few serious girlfriends, but then they got to point where they were asking Beni why he wasn't asking them to marry him, and that usually ended the relationship 'cause he just wasn't ready to settle down, have kids, etc.
We were also talking about different maturity levels. When Alice and I told him we were both 21, he gave us almost the same look we'd given him... he was like, "To me, you girls are much more like women... very mature. Talking to you, I did not get the impression you were 21." And then he added that he had thought Laura and Sarah were that age... we've just all struck him in different ways, I guess. Beni was also talking about how a lot of 20-yr olds are still rather crazy (guys and girls): always out at the discotecas and such, which Alice and I agreed with...we both have friends that are more the partying type than us. Plus, guys our age are ridiculous. Beni and I had been talking about this earlier in the day... he said something like, "Heh, 27 is when a guy STARTS maturing" (<--That's a horrible translation of how he put it, but it'll do.) But it's true, older guys are usually more mature, have more experience with women (something important, I've decided) and usually have themselves sorted out (meaning they know what they want to do with their lives). [Qualifying note: At no point did we say that there aren't exceptions to this...I know some very mature and level-headed guys my age... but here's the problem: They're my friends!! Haha, they're not dating material. XP I need to meet guys like that which aren't already my friends, hahaha!] But it's like, yeah sure, I like going to the discoteca/club. But I can't do it every night. (Two nights in a row this weekend has already seemingly given me a cold. :P) And with a significant other or someone I was trying to get to know, it wouldn't be worth it. You can't talk in a club for anything. Clubbing is more for going out with your girls. For me, I'd rather go out to a bar and have a copa, or chill at their house or in the house of one of their friends, chatting it up while having a drink. Or warming up a frozen pizza and watching a movie. :) It's still DOING something without having to do something big all the time, you know? Beni and I were both saying this, and I think it just makes sense. I mean, I could happily pass hours with a bottle of wine and good conversation. ***(And let me say, if I do not get the impression that I can talk to a guy for hours, there's no way I'd be with that guy. I HAVE to be with an intelligent guy who I can have long conversations with... if after 20 minutes I'm staring at him blankly across the table with nothing to say, it's a sure sign that it will never work. :P And long conversations aren't just for the "getting to know each other" period... it won't last if we can't continue to have long convos after we've gotten to know each other. There's a crap load of things to talk about... even new things to learn from each other and about each other. :P You know what I mean? ...Sorry, that was a long ass tangent.)***
But that led into the next bit of the convo, where we were all talking about age difference. Alice said some really great things, which I agreed with: for her and I, age is not really the issue. The issue is where the people are at in life. If we've got a lot of plans for our lives and aren't ready to settle down, we can't be with people who want us to do that. Wouldn't matter if they were our age or older (though it'd more likely be older men wanting to get married). We care about having things in common...common interests, common intellect, common beliefs, common enjoyments, etc. And to Beni, it doesn't matter. He said that he has a different mentality than many 30-yr old women. When we asked him what he meant, he said that 30-yr olds have a much sadder view on life (I got the sense he meant cynical). He said that he enjoys the way that younger women look at the world while still being mature and not naive. He was like, "I do not like the girls that are immature or ...well, the ones that are still girls. But for example, talking to you two feels very comfortable, like talking to two mature women. It's easy to have a conversation with you two." Plus, he couldn't put his finger on what it was about Alice and I that struck him as older than, say, Laura or Sarah... it's just the way we come off, I guess. [This is hard to write in here without it sounding like a sleazy older guy saying something to younger women that they want to hear. You just have to take my word for it that the context of the conversation and just the way Beni is makes that an impossibility. We'd all been talking together as friends, fellow choir members and equals all day on a number of topics. This one was just another in the progression of things.]
And let's just consider a case like Beni ('cause he's the oldest guy I know that I think is fun to hang out with ... so he makes the best example. :P) The fact that he's 38 is only phasing when you think about it in terms of customs... everyone has something to say when there's nearly 20 years difference between a couple. But the choir director and his wife have that age difference and get along fine. My grandparents on my dad's side were 10 years apart. I can see how couples like that work...esp. depending on lifestyles. To me, Beni totally reminds me of person in their late 20s, early 30s because of his lifestyle. I don't think I'd EVER have guessed he was 38, and knowing it doesn't change the fact that he's fun to hang out with, a great conversationalist, a nice gentleman in a friendly way with all of us girls... As for dating... well, I have a hard time seriously considering the example 'cause I'm too practical. Even in an imaginary setting, I start throwing things in like "But I don't live in Spain, I live in the States, and am returning in 6 months... and I have my own life, my own dreams...and I know that he's got one career right now, and is going to finish up his education for his second career in the next year, plus he's always traveling...so there's no way, you know?" That's how the internal monologue goes. :P So after starting this topic, I find I can't write an answer here because I can't get past the preposterous nature of it all! :P Hahaha. But just passing the time is a different story, and he makes an awesome friend. :) (Hehe, a friend that's 20 years older...it just cracks me up. :P He is officially the oldest "friend" I think I have that isn't a "friend of the family" [meaning the family knew them before me :P]).
Anyways, this is getting loooooong. The point is that there were just a lot of things that made this day great: Great food, great company, great conversation, great singing, great cultural experiences, great pictures, great times had by all. I am so glad I got to spend the time with these great people, and I am SO glad I joined the choir. Awesome, awesome experiences. I'll probably take these home as the best experiences of my time in Spain. :)
I would definitely call this the best weekend I've had in Spain so far. :)
But it was SO worth it! It was cold-ish and cloudy here today, but that didn't stop it from being a ton of fun. It started raining as we were driving out there, so for the first couple of hours it was raining all around us. But the house had a double-awning and even better it had a FIREPLACE!!! As we had been driving out there, I had been saying to myself, "All I want is a fireplace...it's so freaking cold. And I can't get my hopes up because this is not like "a house in the country" in the US sense of the phrase...there will be no fireplace...don't even expect it." And then there was!!!
I absolutely love spending time with the choir people. The fact that there are so many ages in the group, the fact that they're all nice, the fact that they bring wine to barbecues (hahaha), the fact that we can just talk for hours and hours...and then after food we can just break out into song because we can all sing!!
I took a crapload of pics, which I'll put up on facebook so the other girls in choir can get at them. We had a great time eating, taking pics of the whole deal... I was enjoying the wine. :) And we were all laughing it up together with Beni and Paco and ... I think the other funny tenor is a "Jose Maria" but I could be wrong... too many people in Spain have similar names. :P What's great is that everyone moves around talking to each other...it's not it's cliques of "the foreign kids" and the "spanish people"...everyone talks together, moving around constantly. :P And then the one that I'll call "Jose Maria" (it's a great fall-back name...when I actually figure out his real name, I'll put it in here) was grilling up fish and pig-on-a-stick (guess which one I opted for? :P) In truth, after all the tortilla, pan, empanada, potato salad (Spanish-style) and such, I didn't have any room for fish... but then Beni had me try some of his. It's not the easiest fish in the world to eat 'cause it's whole, so he had to move back the scales and get it off the bone... he fed me more bites than I actually scooped up myself. :P
The lady of whose house we went to (by the way, it was a house in el campo [the country]) was Anna. There are a couple of choir members who have families (one that has both husband and wife in the choir), so there were "little people" running around. Hehe, but these kids were really cute. The little boy of the couple who are both in the choir is named Maximo, and he can't be more than a year-and-a-half, two years old, but already he has these yellow plastic glasses....I think he's near-sighted. He's sooo cute. And who else am I forgetting? Oh, the choir director and his wife (who is a soprano, twenty years his junior and probably the best soprano of us all...then again, I think she's a voice major ^_~) made it, just a little late. And I think I've finally confirmed that Imma (a Sevilliana) and Stefano (a guy from Italy) are indeed dating, or at least together. It's cute. :) Sarah and Giselle (the American girls) didn't make it, but the girls from England, France, and Germany made it...including Laura's friend, Jenna. (She's so nice...I wish she was in Sevilla instead of studying in Barcelona, meaning she has to leave soon to go back.) ... I feel like I'm forgetting people, but whatever. I'm only keeping track of names here so I don't forget them in the future. :P
After dessert (torta...mmmm) and coffee ... and rum and coke, courtesy of Beni, we all started singing. (We actually started singing somewhere between the coffee and the copa. :P) I mean, there had been spurts of song the whole time... sometimes a Spanish song, sometimes us girls who speak English busting out a carol... It was great, 'cause it would come up in conversation first, and then we'd bust it out. Like "Silent Night". We sang it in English, Spanish and German, and then Stefano sang a bit of it in Italian. It was great! But anyways, we all sang together post-food... It very quickly turned to Spanish songs, and that was so great...to hear Sevillian songs! And we were all clapping along, and singing the bits we foreigners could catch of the words. And Beni and the mother of Maximo started dancing (traditional-style)! Then Imma and Paco danced! It was great!!
After that, Paco broke out copies of carols and a couple of other short songs (one from Pomp and Circumstance, actually :P), so we were all singing together. Then next thing I know we're walking out the door! Turns out we were going down the way to sing to the shut-in aunt of one of the ladies in the choir (Anna).
I have MISSED doing community service-type stuff with choirs. Her aunt really liked it (she's bedridden), and it was great to be able to share something like that with her.
The sun had already been setting when we left the house, so it was dark when we headed back. Michelle (another American girl), Beni and I were having a conversation about religion all the way back. Beni and I see rather eye-to-eye, or have similar beliefs, I think. Not in the Adventist sense, but in the sense that we're both kind of outside the church (for me, that's been the case for a little while) but we still have our faith and beliefs. Beni has a humanitarian view of things... I'm not sure if he was raised Catholic or what, but he isn't anymore if he was. Anyways, it was really interesting being able to express ideas about God not only with someone from a different religion and a different culture, but also in a different language! And to really be able to communicate what we meant, what we believed. . . Helps, too, that we both agreed on so much.
Back at the house, we all chilled in the warmth for a bit, and then slowly but surely people started leaving. I stayed quite a while longer than Laura, Jenna or Sarah, hanging out with the Spanish peeps, Michelle, Alice, etc. "Jose Maria" and another guy broke out a guitar (it had been broken out earlier in the afternoon, so I guess it was re-broken out), and we all had some laughs at their crazy songs. It was getting colder by the minute outside the house, so I would go back in every little bit to warm my hands up by the fire. But it was just so much fun to hang with everyone...and laugh...a LOT! Hahaha.
Beni took Alice and I home. On the way (because where we were was about 30 mins from Sevilla), we had this amazing talk about relationships, age differences, and maturity. It was fantastic. I learned a lot about Beni. For one thing, I learned that I am never going to guess anyone's age in this country again. :P Beni is 38!!! But he really does look closer to 30, and he told me he gets that alot. Plus, he doesn't act like a 38-year old. He has a much more youthful life (full of travel, full of fun, full of socializing)... as he said, he lives in his own way. He said he'd never gotten married because he just isn't there yet...he's got lots he's still doing for himself (which I completely understand). He's had a few serious girlfriends, but then they got to point where they were asking Beni why he wasn't asking them to marry him, and that usually ended the relationship 'cause he just wasn't ready to settle down, have kids, etc.
We were also talking about different maturity levels. When Alice and I told him we were both 21, he gave us almost the same look we'd given him... he was like, "To me, you girls are much more like women... very mature. Talking to you, I did not get the impression you were 21." And then he added that he had thought Laura and Sarah were that age... we've just all struck him in different ways, I guess. Beni was also talking about how a lot of 20-yr olds are still rather crazy (guys and girls): always out at the discotecas and such, which Alice and I agreed with...we both have friends that are more the partying type than us. Plus, guys our age are ridiculous. Beni and I had been talking about this earlier in the day... he said something like, "Heh, 27 is when a guy STARTS maturing" (<--That's a horrible translation of how he put it, but it'll do.) But it's true, older guys are usually more mature, have more experience with women (something important, I've decided) and usually have themselves sorted out (meaning they know what they want to do with their lives). [Qualifying note: At no point did we say that there aren't exceptions to this...I know some very mature and level-headed guys my age... but here's the problem: They're my friends!! Haha, they're not dating material. XP I need to meet guys like that which aren't already my friends, hahaha!] But it's like, yeah sure, I like going to the discoteca/club. But I can't do it every night. (Two nights in a row this weekend has already seemingly given me a cold. :P) And with a significant other or someone I was trying to get to know, it wouldn't be worth it. You can't talk in a club for anything. Clubbing is more for going out with your girls. For me, I'd rather go out to a bar and have a copa, or chill at their house or in the house of one of their friends, chatting it up while having a drink. Or warming up a frozen pizza and watching a movie. :) It's still DOING something without having to do something big all the time, you know? Beni and I were both saying this, and I think it just makes sense. I mean, I could happily pass hours with a bottle of wine and good conversation. ***(And let me say, if I do not get the impression that I can talk to a guy for hours, there's no way I'd be with that guy. I HAVE to be with an intelligent guy who I can have long conversations with... if after 20 minutes I'm staring at him blankly across the table with nothing to say, it's a sure sign that it will never work. :P And long conversations aren't just for the "getting to know each other" period... it won't last if we can't continue to have long convos after we've gotten to know each other. There's a crap load of things to talk about... even new things to learn from each other and about each other. :P You know what I mean? ...Sorry, that was a long ass tangent.)***
But that led into the next bit of the convo, where we were all talking about age difference. Alice said some really great things, which I agreed with: for her and I, age is not really the issue. The issue is where the people are at in life. If we've got a lot of plans for our lives and aren't ready to settle down, we can't be with people who want us to do that. Wouldn't matter if they were our age or older (though it'd more likely be older men wanting to get married). We care about having things in common...common interests, common intellect, common beliefs, common enjoyments, etc. And to Beni, it doesn't matter. He said that he has a different mentality than many 30-yr old women. When we asked him what he meant, he said that 30-yr olds have a much sadder view on life (I got the sense he meant cynical). He said that he enjoys the way that younger women look at the world while still being mature and not naive. He was like, "I do not like the girls that are immature or ...well, the ones that are still girls. But for example, talking to you two feels very comfortable, like talking to two mature women. It's easy to have a conversation with you two." Plus, he couldn't put his finger on what it was about Alice and I that struck him as older than, say, Laura or Sarah... it's just the way we come off, I guess. [This is hard to write in here without it sounding like a sleazy older guy saying something to younger women that they want to hear. You just have to take my word for it that the context of the conversation and just the way Beni is makes that an impossibility. We'd all been talking together as friends, fellow choir members and equals all day on a number of topics. This one was just another in the progression of things.]
And let's just consider a case like Beni ('cause he's the oldest guy I know that I think is fun to hang out with ... so he makes the best example. :P) The fact that he's 38 is only phasing when you think about it in terms of customs... everyone has something to say when there's nearly 20 years difference between a couple. But the choir director and his wife have that age difference and get along fine. My grandparents on my dad's side were 10 years apart. I can see how couples like that work...esp. depending on lifestyles. To me, Beni totally reminds me of person in their late 20s, early 30s because of his lifestyle. I don't think I'd EVER have guessed he was 38, and knowing it doesn't change the fact that he's fun to hang out with, a great conversationalist, a nice gentleman in a friendly way with all of us girls... As for dating... well, I have a hard time seriously considering the example 'cause I'm too practical. Even in an imaginary setting, I start throwing things in like "But I don't live in Spain, I live in the States, and am returning in 6 months... and I have my own life, my own dreams...and I know that he's got one career right now, and is going to finish up his education for his second career in the next year, plus he's always traveling...so there's no way, you know?" That's how the internal monologue goes. :P So after starting this topic, I find I can't write an answer here because I can't get past the preposterous nature of it all! :P Hahaha. But just passing the time is a different story, and he makes an awesome friend. :) (Hehe, a friend that's 20 years older...it just cracks me up. :P He is officially the oldest "friend" I think I have that isn't a "friend of the family" [meaning the family knew them before me :P]).
Anyways, this is getting loooooong. The point is that there were just a lot of things that made this day great: Great food, great company, great conversation, great singing, great cultural experiences, great pictures, great times had by all. I am so glad I got to spend the time with these great people, and I am SO glad I joined the choir. Awesome, awesome experiences. I'll probably take these home as the best experiences of my time in Spain. :)
I would definitely call this the best weekend I've had in Spain so far. :)