Feliz Ano Nuevo

First the Good News. Yes, that is with caps. My friend Paul has located his brother-in-law and he will be coming back to the US soon. Thanks to everyone for the prayers.

Now, New Year’s Eve. Before I got here, I’d hope I’d be able to spend New Year’s in Barcelona. But, alas, Barcelona is out of the driving radius (we’re only allowed 5 hours away). Most of my friends had left to go back to the States this past week so I was looking for someone to hit a local town with. I was talking to someone else I knew, Joe, and he wanted to out on the town, too. There was a get together on base but I can celebrate like an American any other year. I wanted to be out in Spain for it.

So we took a cab into town a little bit after 11 PM. As we were driving downtown, we noticed the town looked like a graveyard. No one was out. We got out of the cab and walked around a bit and everything was closed.

So we walked into a small bar/restaurant. It was the only place we could find that was open. We sat down and the guy working there came over, speaking good English, asked us if we wanted to eat. I hadn’t eaten in about 20 hours so we did. I ordered a grilled chicken breast and it was great. Covered in butter and garlic, too. We were in this bar when it hit midnight and celebrated with the folks there.

It’s a Spanish custom to eat 12 grapes at midnight. On TV they show some clock/bell tower and each time it rings, they eat a grape. The guy had brought each of us out a cup of 12 grapes. So when in Rome…

Something to keep in mind that I’d never given much thought to. The grapes we eat in the states are seedless. Here, they have seeds and when you are not used to them, it catches you a bit off-guard. Plus, they were really bad grapes. I ate about 3 and said to heck with the Spanish way and just finished my beer.

We stuck around until about 12:30 and then went out and now the people were starting to show up downtown. What we were told later on in the evening is that the Spanish tend to celebrate New Year’s at home with the family, doing the grape thing, and afterwards they go out and party.

By 1 AM it was pretty crowded. Now, there are two areas of town where people can go to the bars/clubs. On of the areas is down a side street and it is where most of the younger crowd hangs out. By younger, I mean 16 to about 22. That’s where we started (Joe’s call). The other is over by the bull-fighting ring.

Joe was eager to get out and wanted to dance with as many Spanish gals as possible. So we went into the first club and it was filling up. I stood around holding my beer while Joe experienced, first hand, Eric’s High School Dating Experience (TM). *Every* girl he asked to dance turned him down. Some of them even gave him dirty looks and some just looked away.

There’s nothing wrong with Joe and he’s a good dancer (the American girls say). He couldn’t figure it out. We hung out there a bit longer but I told him I was by far the oldest normal guy in the place (there were a few 40+ dirty and crazy looking guys hanging out by the bar staring at the barely clothed girls). So we ventured up by the ring.

I felt much more at ease here. The first bar we walked into I ran into Frank from the first time we went out in Moron.

I walked up to him and said hi and Feliz Ano Nuevo. He was surprised to see me and greeted us back. Then he proceeded to speak about 150 MPH (241 KMH). What part I did understand was that Michael was working next door and we went over to see him. After saying hi to Michael and getting our pictures taken with him and Frank (I brought my camera this time), Joe and I ventured around to the other bars. We ran into about half the people that work at our hotel.

At another bar around the bull-fighting ring we ran into Rosa. Rosa is an attractive woman who works on base at the chow hall. I’ve talked to her a couple times before. We went over and said hi and basically spent the rest of the night with her and her friends and sister.

Long story short (I’m tired), we ended up walking back to our hotel at about 7 AM. And the Spanish were still partying when we left.

It was a great time and I’m so much happier having spent New Years with the Spanish rather than on base.

Oh yeah, and we figured out why Joe was going through the Eric Moyer High School Experience (TM) with the ladies. Rosa and her sister told us that Spanish women won't follow a guy out to a "dance floor." They dance where they are and we're welcome to dance in those spots near them. But don't ask them to go anywhere to dance. So Joe doesn't have to worry. There was a good reason he was being treated like a scrawny, unattractive nerd! And it wasn't that he was a scrawny, unattractive nerd.

Regarding the score below. Joe S should have read closer. Ang only got one point for her two part posting. So Joe gets penalized by not having his comments on Dec 30th are not counted.

Current score:
Ang 7, Joe S 6, Sis 5, Sis-in-law 3, Tara 3, Sarah 3, Pops 2, Heather S 2, Carly 2, Chad 1, Me 1.