¡Hombre!

Saturday, September 6

People say "hombre" here for "dude" or "man." One of the Spanish students who was showing us around the first few days said it, and we all got really excited that younger people here say hombre. Then I was in a cellphone store and the clerk who was helping me started a sentence off with hombre, which made me pretty happy since he wasn't old but also not exactly young. But it gets oh so much better. Tonight at dinner my host mother (a grandmother) said to me, "hombre, si quieres..." Yep, my night has been made.

We went to Villena yesterday to see the Moros y Cristianos festival. It's a multi-day festival that kicks off with a massive parade of people dressed up in costume. And I really do mean massive - the parade starts at 4 in the afternoon and ends sometime between 10pm and midnight. Groups of people in extravagant costumes, dressed up as either moors or christians, march past in lines, with one person out in front brandishing a sword or riding on a horse (or camel!). One group had a cannon that shot giant pieces of confetti into the air, and almost every group was followed by a marching band. And the groups just kept coming. The Solano Stroll would cower in a corner in shame if it ever visited the Villena version of the Moros y Cristianos festival. We were there for a little less than 2 hours and it's hard to believe that we only saw a fraction of the parade. I managed to take about 200 photos, some of which will eventually make their way online. On what couldn't possibly be a related note, today my computer told me that it was full. I can't say I ever thought that would happen. Too bad my optical drive is broken so I can't just offload some stuff onto CDs. Looks like I'll be doing some itunes housecleaning in the next few days.