Shoes and Valencian Theatre

Yesterday (Friday, that is) after Sevillanasclass I went to the city centre to buy... shoes! Lots of them actually! The first pair I had to get are Sevillanas shoes, the shoes specific for the dance I'm learning. They only sell them in specialized stores, and my teacher had recommended one on the other side of the city, so I took the metro to the centre and set out to explore this new part of town I had never been to before, in search of the store. I ended up discovering a nice part of town, older than the part I live in, with lots of little shops. It was about 5 in the afternoon - the best hour to be in the city, I think, because siësta has just ended, so people are getting out on the street again and shops are opening up. But this time of year, the light is most beautiful at 5: it's the warm light of the end of the day, which vanishes one hour later.

I finally found the store and bought myself a pair of sevillanas shoes. They're not expensive at all - only €14! I figured that to be that cheap, they had to be made in China, but they're not, they're made in Spain! Really puzzling for an international economist (well, economist to be, like me) who has always learned that apparel and shoe industry are a dead end in Europe. How can Spain-made shoes be so cheap? Maybe they make them in Ceuta (the Spanish enclave in Morocco). When I'm a profissioned sevillanas dancer, I'll stimulate the Spanish apparel industry by buying the whole sevillanas outfit, like the ones you can see in the store's showroom!

After buying my sevillanas shoes, I walked back to the city centre, more specifically to Calle Colón where all the shops are. One shoe shop after the other, an absolute paradise for someone who's just got her father permission to use her creditcard to buy a pair of - urgently needed, that is - boots! Funny thing here is that if you want to try on shoes, they make you put on little plastic socks before trying them on. Very hygienic. After a good hour of trying out several pairs of shoes at several stores, I bought a lovely pair of boots, light brown leather, slightly cowboyish, very comfortable! Let's not deny it: shoes make a girl happy!

I went home, made a salad for dinner and showed off all my new shoes to my frowny boyfriend who doesn't get that shoes can make a person so excited. Tsss, boys.

That night I went to the Theatre of Mislata, a small town adjacent to Valencia, to see a theatre piece in which two of Lena's flatmates act. The piece was called 'Ciutat de Cors'. Those of you who speak Spanish will have noted that that is nót Spanish. In fact, it's Valencian, and the whole piece was in Valencian! But as Valencian and Spanish are quite alike, and the actors were very expressive, we understood the whole story. It was an incredibly funny piece and I enjoyed it a lot, even if I didn't understand 100% of what was being said. After the theatre, I had a drink with Lena and her two German friends Claudia and Steffi. Apparently, you can get German beer anywhere! It was a very fun night. To go home, I took the night bus on the Plaza de Ayuntamiento. As I approached the Plaza de Ayuntamiento, I saw the bus was there, so I ran to catch it. But Ayuntamiento is a square paved in marble, lovely to see, but horrible to walk on when it's wet, so I slipped as I ran across a splash of water and sprained my ankle! Luckily, I still caugth the bus, but ouch!

So today I stayed home with my sprained ankle and lovely boots. :-( Well, I had a lot of homework to do, so I had to stay home anyway. I also did my laundry, and here you see it hung out to dry beneath my kitchen window, amidst the palm trees. Very mediterranean, isn't it?