samba-reggae and Woody Allen

It's 2 am - scandalous! - and I just can't sleep, so I thought I might as well come here and tell you about my past few days and see if meanwhile sleep comes... Though I doubt it will because I've had quite some fun days this week!

On Wednessday evening I went to a concert of Brazilian samba-reggae music with a German friend from university. The concert was in a little club called The Black Note (http://www.pubyfiesta.com/base.php?name=pubportal&pub_id=000013), a very nice place to go if you're in Valencia and want to enjoy some live music, from jazz to samba. The band is called Tremolor (www.tremolor.es) and they're a group of Brazilians and Spaniards who have an eclectic style which is mainly inspired on Brazilian samba-reggae music. In other words, fantastic percussion on a very danceable beat! I had a great time and I danced until 2am! There were a lot of Brazilians in the room and after the concert, the band members came to the bar and mingled. Fortunately, my german friend knew some of them and he introduced me to them. How cool is that, huh? ;-)

On Thursday I -oh lucky me- didn't have class in the morning, which was very convenient as I only got to my bed around 3am the night before. I spent the rest of the day reviewing the paper I've written with Lena, the german girl of my economia social-class. It's very legislative (read: most of it is boring) and by consequence very hard for non-spaniards to understand, let alone write.

At 6 I went to capoeria class. It's great that I get to practice capoeira twice a week here, like that I'll really be able to get better. And when my muscles stop aching, they'll be happy too. It's for their own good. :-) And after capoeira I still had class until 9pm. At 9:30pm there was a concert in the Plaza de Toros, which is the arena where normally bullfights are held, where I was supposed to go with some friends but as I still had to shower and eat I just couldn't get there in time, so I canceled. A pity because I would've loved to see the arena from the inside without having the inconvenience of having to see an innocent animal get killed. Anyway, I didn't go to a concert and instead decided to have a glass of wine with Cécile instead.

Today I woke up and finished reading a chapter from the book I'm reading for my thesis. Then I went to Sevillanas class. Did I tell you I'm taking Sevillanas classes? Yup! Sevillanas is a dance that is familiar to Flamenco. I actually haven't discovered yet what the difference is. But it's really fun to be taking dance classes again! And if there's anything typically Spanish that I can learn here besides the language, it's either that or becoming a torero. Given my earlier remarks on bullfights, I happily prefer Sevillanas!

This afternoon I spent alone in my favourite café, with a cup of cinnamon-rose petals-tea (which was the high point of the afternoon), reading another chapter for my thesis. It's nice to be able to get out of my room and go somewhere else where I can study in a more relaxed environment. Sometimes I concentrate better in a public place than all alone behind my desk!

Tonight I had agreed to go to the cinema with Cécile. We had finally discovered that there is a small cinema in Valencia that shows films in their original version and we though it was close to our home, but after all it wasn't all that close so we decided to just rent a movie and watch it at my place. Then Morgane called asking if I didn't want to go out that night so I invited her over to see the movie too. Then I met Guillermo on msn and he asked me about my plans this night and I invited him over too. He brought a friend -and ice cream and wine, which made him double welcome!- so we ended up having a small dinner party+Woody Allen movie night.

Though we did have a little accident! When Cécile, who is quite tall, got up after the movie to leave, she banged her head against the luster, which is quite low, and she broke one of the lamps! Poor girl! We were lucky she didn't get hurt! There was lamp glass shattered all over the floor! And that's how I ended up vacuuming the living room at 1:30am, which is about an hour ago...

Hm, I am getting sleepy now... Good night!