Spain.....day 4 - 8/31/08

Today I slept in late and then went with Paquita and Elias to church. This was something that was a tradition when I lived in Spain 5 years ago so it was so special that they made it a point to continue the tradition of going to church together and then going to a bar called Indalo for a tapa y mosto afterwards. I hope I'm spelling that right but a mosto is basically wine before it is fermented, so pretty much grape juice. But it was something that my Spanish parents and I did every Sunday that I was in Spain. The mass in Spain is much different from the mass that I'm used to as there is almost no music and it only lasts about 30 minutes since the priest is the one that reads the 1st, 2nd, and Gospel reading almost without any breaks. What was cool was it was the exact same priest as when I lived here! For lunch we went over to Mickey and Anna's house because Mickey wanted to make me a lunch of Macaroni's "in honor of Ania (my nickname)coming back to Spain". They are so cute and said that this was the first time that they had so many people over to their house for lunch since Yolanda brought Sonia y Sergio too. This was the first time I have seen Sergio in 3 years and for those of you who don't know, he was the kid that I bonded with when I lived here. Since he is 8 years old now, he was more interested in playing with the computer than talking to me but he is still a very cute kid. I spent some time bonding with his little sister, Sonia who wanted to put makeup on my face.

Then I went with Mickey and Anna to see Hellboy 2 in Spanish which was pretty interesting! Yolanda and her boyfriend went with the kids to see the animated Clone Wars movie. Then, Mickey and Anna took me back to the center of town where they were having a parade to celebrate the end of "Las Ferias". What struck me is that for a small city such as Alcala de Henares, they still put so much work into the floats, costumes, etc.

After that we came home to watch the tennis player Rafael Nadal play in the US Open. Here in Spain he is a big time celebrity and they are very enthusiastic about his accomplishments. It was a really great day!