Friday, December 5, 2003

It looks like Paco Fernández Vargas may come to California with Concha Vargas this May. Carlos Heredia was supposed to come but he has just backed out.

Sunday, December 7, 2003

Paco Fernández is definitely coming to California (instead of Carlos Heredia) with Concha Vargas on May 23, 2004. We are ecstatic and want to urge all the guitarists to take classes with him. As I have written so often, he is a great guitarist and a great teacher, a unique combination.

Also, he has a DVD for sale, which we will be selling for $30 each (NTSC format). It is a four generation video, showing grandfather, parents, Paco and siblings, and Paco’s daughter. It starts off with Paquito’s parents, Curro Fernandez and Pepa Vargas (Familia Fernández) showing old family photos from their personal album. Then the second cut features Paco playing guitar and singing a song he wrote for his daughter Soleá, when she was born. His wife, Pilar, is sitting on a chair holding Soleá. The third cut features Paco’s brother, José Fernández dancing por Bulería. The fourth cut features Paco’s grandfather, Curro’s father, Abuelo Juan José singing Soleá de Alcalá. The fifth cut features Paco’s sister, the famous singer Esperanza Fernández singing a Bulería to her son. The sixth cut is a Bulerías Fin de Fiesta with the entire Familia Fernández. The last cut is an interview (in Spanish) with Curro and Paco Fernández.

We don’t have room to bring back too many, so please let us know ASAP if you want one. We will be home late December 10.

Monday, December 8, 2003

We are busy getting ready to leave. Of course, I forgot about the perpetual Spanish holidays. Saturday and Monday were holidays and the stores are closed. We have been visiting with people and that too has us behind in our packing. Paco returned from France yesterday, exhausted. We were supposed to see him last night, but he went to sleep instead. He said it was very very cold in France. Concha pulled a muscle in her back so we haven’t seen her either. But we ate lunch with Paco and Pili today around three o’clock in Triana. We went to Casa Manolo and it was filled with people. Pili’s parents ate there too with their two grandchildren, Vicente (five-year old son of Pili’s brother) and Solea. Yesterday Freddie spent time with Pili’s father, Andres Dominguez, who made some minor adjustments to Freddie’s new guitar. Freddie went down again to the shop this morning to pick up the guitar. Although it was a holiday, Andres spent time working at his shop as he also did on Sunday. He enjoys his work and is a true artist, both in guitar construction and repair and also in it decoration. The intricate and ornate inlay designs he puts on his guitars are truly unique as well as beautiful.

Rubina met us here at the house this afternoon and Paco signed the contract for California and Canada. Now it is official. It is not as good as other contracts he is used to getting, for example, when he works with Juana Amaya, but he is glad to be visiting us. So I see that California is lucky to be getting him again.

Saturday we ate lunch at Pili’s parents’ house. Her mother cooked us a Gypsy garbanzo bean stew. It was wonderful. I looked at old photos of Pili. We were surprised at how much Solea looks like Pili did as a child. I always thought that Solea looked more like Paco but now I see that she is the spitting image of her mother when her mother was a child.

Sunday we slept a lot and packed a little and ate dinner at El Cordobes (Bar La Mezquita). We don’t eat there as much as we have in the past, (because we eat home more) but they always treat us wonderfully. We are invited tonight for a late dinner (on the house), but I am not sure if we will make it. It is raining still, for days and days. We took down the wet laundry that was on the line and hung it inside the house and it is finally dry. We can now pack the last tee shirts, jeans, socks, and underpants.

The airlines told us we have a twenty-kilo limit per suitcase, and three of the suitcases already weigh twenty-three kilos. I need to call tomorrow to see if they are strict about that. If so, is it better to have two more overweight or three a little overweight each! We were allowed more weight on the way over. And we have left a lot of things here for next year, like my belly dance costumes (which weigh a lot) and a lot of unused video recording tapes, which also weigh. The CDs we are bringing back don’t weigh that much. And we sent back, by boat, two boxes with some of our extra things and the beautiful tiles we found in the trash. But we did buy a lot of shoes. I guess forty kilos is not that much.

It is raining, raining, raining and Toshi just left.

Sunday, trying to be a little on top of things, I called the airlines to confirm our reservations. The message on the answering machine said that the American Airlines office in Spain would not be open until Tuesday because of the holiday. So I went up on the web to get our seats and to check in and/or confirm our flights. I could only find my reservation up there and I panicked. So I used our phone card and called the 800 number in the USA and was on hold for half an hour. But, when they finally got to me, they did have Freddie’s reservation in the computer and everything is OK. So I got us our seats.

I just had my last Toshi appointment while Freddie had a lesson with Paquito. Now Freddie is having his last Toshi appointment. Tomorrow a lady comes to clean at two o’clock and in the afternoon I need to return our phone to the Telefónica phone store. Today in Triana, walking from the restaurant, we passed a closed store with some pants I wanted, so Pili asked me if I wanted to go there in the morning tomorrow. But by tonight I think the thought overwhelmed her. Soleá is sick and threw up in the restaurant. Pili took her straight to the doctor’s from the restaurant and Paco, Freddie and I took a taxi to the house so Freddie could have his guitar lesson with Paco. If I have energy, I might go to the store tomorrow without her, but probably I won’t. I always get nervous about getting out of here. Once we are in the plane I will feel better. Freddie and I are both over most of our cold but neither of us has any energy and we seem to sleep a lot and not do much.

Delia and Francesca-Diana were going to come over tonight to say goodbye but they had an infestation of ants in the bedroom and Francesca-Diana was stuck cleaning everything because Toshi had to work. Delia might stop over tomorrow during the day to say goodbye. She told me that dancer Jairo Barull’s father had died yesterday. He was supposed to be a great dancer in his time and he taught Jairo and I think Juana Amaya too (he is her cousin). He was Carmen the cleaner at the Carboneria’s ex husband (Jairo is their son). He was from Moron and is related to many artists here.

I told Paco and Pilar tonight when I heard the news and they were shocked. Paco immediately crossed himself. Apparently he had been in the hospital and we know how dangerous that is in Spain. Speaking of hospitals, Rebecca is out and is doing better but she wants to go home to the US for a while and will leave here on Friday. Spanish hospitals are traumatic. Freddie says they diagnosed Rebecca with passing gas, says Freddie. His theory is that she ate beans (fava beans) and had to pass gas. Rebecca told me that they never quite figured out her diagnosis. That seems to be typical for Spanish hospitals.

So Freddie and I are ready to leave Spain, finally. We are tired of rain and sickness. Will California also have rain and sickness? Will we wish we had stayed in Sevilla instead? I feel like I want to sleep and re-start yoga when we return. I know that eventually I will feel like practicing again. I saw a video tape today of one of Freddie’s cajon classes with Torombo and I was dancing on it and I looked good! I was surprised. I want to remember the choreography I learned from Torombo. I know this break from dancing will do me good but it is hard for me to think that I will ever dance as well as the dancing I saw myself do on the tape!

And so we leave Sevilla. We are mostly packed and I want to send one last Chronicle out before we fly. I hate packing.

SPAIN CHRONICLES 2003

Sept 14 – 15 Writings
Sept 17 – Oct 4 Writings
Oct 5 -12 Writings
Oct 17 – 20 Writings
Oct 25 – Nov 2 Writings
Nov 4 – 9 Writings
Nov 11 – 17 Writings
Nov 23 – 24 Writings
Nov 25 – Dec 2 Writings
Dec 5 – 8 Writings
Dec 10 – 14 Writings