Jerez: Home to the Happiest Mice in the World

Night out at Femke's was cool. It was nice to get away from the American group...until this girl Julie showed up around midnight, I was the only American there. The were a few Brits, a couple Dutch, 2 Germans, and this one guy who was half Spanish, half Portuguese but who was born and raised by his parents in S. Africa and a lot of other places. It was a good time. Even cheap sangria tastes awesome when mixed with minute maid juice, some sparkling wine, and A LOT of fresh fruit.

I went home when they went to the club because we had to meet at 9:15 outside of the University of Seville to travel to Jerez and Conil. The bus was very comfortable, no cheesy dubbed movies like in Argentina, but still pleasant. Most of the time I just slept or looked out at the scenery.

"Train" ride between bodegas

We arrived in Jerez around 11:00. The place was absolutely gorgeous. I'll post a couple pictures here, but if you want to see the bulk, check out http://picasaweb.google.com/nobodynew16 and see "Sevilla 2008" and all subsequent albums. We did many tours of bodegas. The first one we went to had a lot of barrels with the flags of countries on them, displaying the over 100 countries where this company exports their wine. We also took a train tour of the company, saw a few miniature vineyards, and slept through a little video about the history. Ok, maybe I was the only one who fell asleep. I was tired, and the room was dark.

We toured a couple more bodegas...I couldn't get over the smell. It was amazing--I was talking to either KG or Nano (Kevin Gericke and Jonathan) and one of them said if they could only smell one smell for the rest of their lives, it would be the smell of the bodegas. It was such a sweet smell. Our guide was really funny. He always made a point to say "our company" a lot and throw in some jokes. While pointing to a map of Andalucia, he mentioned "Here in Jerez we drink the sherry wine like medicine. A glass a day keeps the apple away--some country they prefer an apple; here we prefer the sherry wine."

As we walked to another bodega, he started telling us another story. "Here in Jerez we have some mice in the bodega..." When he started this, I thought I was going to here about mice drinking wine from the company...and I was right. Apparently there was a worker who was fond of mice back in the day, and to this day there is a tiny bowl of feed and a glass of wine put out on the floor for the mice. There are pictures on my picasa web of it--there's a tiny little ladder so the mice can go climb and have a sip.

We also toured the bodega where famous people signed their names on a barrell. People from the Royal Family of Spain, Spielberg, Churchill, Orson Wells, Picasso, Roger Moore, Chelsea Clinton...I guess a lot of people love the sherry wine.

We eventually went to the tasting room to try a bottle of Tio Pepe and some sherry. The Tio Pepe was very dry. I don't really like white wine, but it was ok. The sherry was very very sweet. Really too sweet to drink, but it probably tastes great for cooking. Allison was hysterical. If you're a fan of the office, you've probably seen the Dundies episode where Pam starts taking drinks from other tables. Well, Allison did steal a few unfinished glasses from the table next to us.

After that, we were all feeling the effects of having a couple glasses on an empty stomach. Therefore, the bus ride to the beach was very comfortable, except for the fact that I was STARVING. Seriously, I am still not used to this crazy eating schedule. Therefore, when we got to lunch, I ordered an entire plate of potatoes, a pork chop, and french fries...and then proceeded to completely clean my plates.

After lunch, I bought a pair of sunglasses before we hit the beach. It was great...wasn't too crowded because it was late in the season for the beach. I had planned on just reading and sleeping, but the waves were too fun, so we all went into the water. It was FREEZING. Now, everyone else thought it was perfect because they're used to cold beaches, but I was most recently at VA Beach in August, so I was not.

Ok, there isn't a non-awkward way to say this, but, we (we being the males on our trip) were a little taken aback at how quickly the girls on our trip embraced the "when-in-Rome" concept...i.e. bye bye bikini tops. That's all I'm going to say about that...honestly it wasn't really an issue. I was just so happy that I had eaten so much. I spent more time in the water than in the sand anyway. At one point all the guys had a contest to see who could sprint out the furthest without falling flat on their face. I was the first to fall (because I hit the water first), but not the shallowest in.

There are some just flat out drunks in my program. These girls were bringing bottles of wine in plastic bags out into the water and just downing them. Three girls weren't allowed on the bus home because they were too drunk (una chica no pudo levantarse sin caerse). Aranoa seemed so upset and we all felt bad for her as we waited on the bus. They eventually ended up staying and Aranoa took a later bus and the other girls took a cab back that cost over 100 euros. What I found even more shocking was that they still went out that night. ::shakes head:: I felt embarassed to be in their group as people looked at us on the beach and by the bus stop.

We went to a bull fight today, but I'll talk about it later...right now I want to sleep.