Luisma Visits
We were visited this weekend by a friend that we met in England, Luisma. He's from León, and last June we visited him there. This year, he took time from his vacation in Spain to come up to visit us.
Having some drinks before lunch.
After lunch on Saturday, we spent 3 or 4 hours at the beach. The water, though shockingly cold upon first entry, was quite nice, and we had fun playing in the waves like the children around us. Marga said that there was a time while we were sunbathing that both Luisma and I were snoring loudly. We all three got just the right amount of sun, a light, even sunburn across the whole body.
On Saturday night, we had a end-of-course dinner hosted by our ballroom dancing instructor. It was in a town about 40 minutes away, and there were about one hundred of his students from all over the region (my class is only a dozen people).
Our table for dinner.
From near to far: Marina, Manolo, Maria Jesíºs, Ramón, Marga, and Luisma. (Ramón and Manolo were the two that I played golf with earlier this year.)
Augustín, Ana, Isabel, Sagrario, Ana, and Manu. Manu and Luisma were the only guests that weren't regular students.
Augusín insisted on taking a picture with me in it, spouting some parable about people who dress in green being handsome.
Our professor, Luismi (short for Luis Miguel), gave a demonstration of a pasodoble, an extremely Spanish style of dance where the man leads the woman around with motions similar to bullfighting. ¡Olé!
Although the area was very well lit, it was just dark enough to make photography difficult.
This dance is called Bachata.
Luisma, with only a five minute intensive course by me earlier at home, gives merengue a try.
Out of step, but good posture.
Manolo gives Sagrario a whirl.
Augustín dances with his wife, Ana.
Manolo is an excellent dancer.
One, two, cha-cha-cha.
This move is called the "butterfly".
This is the "hexagon". It's a very tangoesque move adapted to cha-cha-cha.
A fancy back-to-back move, not recommended for beginners.
We returned home around 4:30 AM, but were up and out at the bars again at 1 PM for our pre-lunch beverages. After a fine lunch of steak, peppers, and salad, we headed to Santander to see the only "must see" attraction in Santander, the Palace of the Magdalena.
This whiskered fellow lives at the public park that the palace grounds has been converted into. Even though he's not a walrus, I think we'll call him Paul. It was feeding time and the sea lions were making huge belching noises that made the origin of their name obvious.
Hear them belch roar.
These elegant gents were headed to a nearby wedding.
