Pomegranates and processionals

Palabra del día: trompa
Translation: french horn
Frase: Aprendí en domingo que es muy dificil andar y tocar la trompa al mismo tiempo.
Translation: I learned yesterday that it's very difficult to walk and play the french horn at the same time.

Comida del día: Granada
Apparently Granada is not only a city, but is also the Spanish word for pomegranate!  No one seems to know if the city was named after the fruit, if the fruit was named after the city, or if the the two names are unrelated.  Whatever the case may be, this week was the start of pomegranate season and I keep seeing pomegranate trees around the city full of fruit that is begging to be picked.  Yesterday we had a salad with pomegranate seeds in it - it's definitely worth a try!

Foto del día:

This is the giant statue of a naked woman in Armilla (sorry, it's sideways!)  It's the landmark that tells me to get off the bus when I get to band practice.

There have been times over the last month when I have started to forget that I'm in Spain, and then something happens that destroys all doubt that I could be living anywhere else.  Last Sunday night was one of those moments.  It was also the first time in my life that I wished I had been forced to play in a high school marching band.

Last Sunday I had the unique opportunity of playing in a religious processional with the band that I joined.  The procession was for the patron saint of the town of Armilla, which is where the band is located.  Religious processionals are quite common here, especially during Semana Santa (the week of Easter).  Each town or city also has a patron saint, so there are processionals throughout the year in various places.  In a religious processional, an ornately decorated statue of the Virgin is taken from a church and marched around the town, trailed by burning incense and a band playing traditional Spanish marches.

If I had played in high school marching band, walking while playing would have been easy.  But I didn't.  And as I've learned from flamenco class, I'm also not a very coordinated person, so walking and playing at the same time was extremely difficult for me.  In addition, I hadn't rehearsed most of the music and had trouble reading it, especially once it got dark.  However, all of the other people in my band, who were pros at walking and playing and even had some of the marches memorized, assured me that the first procession was always difficult and said that I didn't need to play if it was too hard.  So I spent about half the time playing and half the time pretending to play while trying to wrap my head around the fact that this experience was actually my real life.  The best part of the evening was that a big group of people from the band, plus two of my friends from IES who came to watch, went out for tapas afterwards.  Everyone was really friendly and I even managed to make a few jokes in Spanish. It's nice to finally get to know some Spanish people!

Some other highlights of this week:

• IES organized a cooking class for us!  It turned out to be more of a demonstration, so I didn't actually learn how to cook.  But I got to watch the chef make lots of delicious food, and then eat it, of course. The menu included salmorejo (an andalusían soup similar to gazpacho), tortilla Española, paella, and a custardy dessert sort of like crem brule called natillas.
• I went on a beautiful hike last weekend to a park above the Alhambra (see photo below!).
• I finally have access to the website for my course at the University of Granada.

View of the Alhambra from my hike last Saturday

And a few lowlights (because life here is almost perfect but not quite):

•  It took me an hour and a half to get from my university class to band rehearsal on two different buses on Monday.  The good news is that from now on a band member's mom who works at the university will be able to drive me!
• I didn't get access to the readings for my university class until the day before an essay was due, so I had to do it all in one day
• When I tried to go to my new favorite internet cafe/ vegetarian tapas bar to do said essay, it was closed because the owners are on "personal vacation" this week.  Does that sort of thing ever happen in the US?  People here really know how to relax!

And to wrap things up, another Lorca quote for you to chew on:
Un muerte en España está más vivo como muerto que en ningún sitio del mundo.

Translation attempt: A death in Spain is more alive than in any other part of the world.