I arrived in Granada around 2:30 in the morning friday night. We didn't want a hostel so we went dancing all night instead (because that makes sense?). After the discoteca closed we ate breakfast near the bus stop and waited for the bus to take us outside of the city to this location. The adrenalina libre company is owned and operated by a wonderful guy (half french, half spanish, at least bilingual and quite good at other languages) that took us all through the steps quite well. He also had his kids along, and after I did the first jump his little boy let me pick a lolly pop out of his little bag because he said I did such a good job. Sam did not get any such offer. After having jumped the first time, and not knowing when our next opportunity will be to try again, Sam and I both opted to pay a little more for the second jump. For whatever reason the second jump was way harder for me. Perhaps because it was so soon after the first one that my heart was still racing? For whatever reason I hesitated quite a bit, but finally the owner looked at me and said (in spanish I think? can't even remember!) "you know how I know you're going to do this jump? you're still smiling." And after that it was easier to brace myself and go again. The second time I wasn't nearly as loud, and having tried it the first time I could relax a little and experiment with the swinging and spinning. Really quite fun.
After that we had to get back to Granada and then back to Sevilla, which didn't happen until 9 pm. We got off the bus and I gave Sam a quick tour of the most important things in Sevilla while it was still a little light out. Finally we arrived back in my apartment so I could put my stuff down and we could grab a little food. Antonio, although always an extremely pleasant fellow, never really chats freely with me, but he absolutely LOVED talking to Sam. Maybe a guy thing? They talked all about soccer and favorite teams, best games, best players. It turns out Antonio is.. the 67th fan of the Seville team, which means he's been paying fan dues and faithfully following this team since their very first year. A pretty big deal. When I asked him by myself I think he told me he liked to watch soccer and left out the details. If Antonio had to pick between barcelona and real madrid he'd go with barcelona for sure, because all of his family were rojos during the war, and his dad was killed by Franco. Madrid's head people are still conservative and connected with the old nationalist party so Antonio would never follow them.
I had an inkling of their old allegiances when Ana told me how very poor they were when they were my age, with no money for school or travel they started working immediately and never left Spain. She said after the war they had nothing. I know the war was terrible for everyone but that's definitely something you're less likely to hear from the winning side, no?
So basically with Sam in the house for an hour I learned a ton more about my family here, and they were extremely friendly and polite the whole time (offered us something to drink aside from water, for the first time I've been here in 8 weeks), and they were extremely generous to let Sam come by and meet them.
All in all it was an extremely successful weekend.
now it's the last week of classes. A paper due Thursday, an exam Friday, a farewell activity tonight, LOTS of people to say goodbye too, and a little last minute purchases to make, and then I'm off to Avilés!
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