The flamenco show that we saw was called "El aire que me lleva" and the dancers were Andrés Peña and Pilar Ogalla. They were amazing! I have never seen anything like it. There is so much passion put into the dance, guitar, and singing. By far it was one of the best experiences I have had in Spain. Below is a sample of what the dancers can do, but it doesn't even come close to the real thing!
This is where we saw the flamenco show!
In the center of the city. We were completly lost this entire time. In Jerez streets are not labeled, maps are inaccurate, and the locals don't even know where to send you...quite interesting, but we worked past it!
The center of the city where we saw all of the street preformers. Some of it was improptu flamenco, but with elements of comedy. For example, there was a group of men dressed as aztecs throwing fake heads around and singing that we better come back or die! They were pretty funny and drew a huge crowd. We also witnessed a group of men dressed as old women doing the same type of thing.
The best park in the city where we hung out for a while before the tour of the bodega.
Our apartment for the weekend. We had a kitchen/living room, bedroom, and balcony! Not bad for about $20 a night :)
Oh and we also had roof access from where we stayed! It was pretty cool a night...I forgot to take pictures of that though. The weather was in the high 70s so we could hang out outside all day and night.
This is the sherry bodega that we toured. Tio Pepe is one of the most well know sherry companies in Spain and in many other parts of the world. Jerez literally means sherry, and the word sherry in english comes from english speakers trying to pronounce the town's name. We decided to take the tour in Spanish since that it what we are trying to learn...we got the general idea of it, but our tour guide was one fast talker. He found out afterwards that we weren't from Spain and asked us how we had been able to understand anything because even he knew he was talking fast. I guess it proves that we are all getting a bit better at Spanish!
The grapes...just not in season right now, but they will be growing by April and May.
So. Many. Barrels. Of. Wine. The funniest thing is that here they put out a mouse trap, but it isn't a typical one. They put a tiny ladder up to a glass of sherry. We actually saw a mouse come out and drink from it! They do this because when the bodega was first founded Tio Pepe found out that he could make extremely sweet sherries that even the mice liked to drink.
Victoria standing with even bigger barrels of wine!
Our 4 sherry samples. The dark one and first light one were extremely sweet and are supposed to be had with desserts. The middle two were dry for meat dishes. Overall they were pretty delicious!
The open air market with every type of food and handmade good for sale that you could imagine. Spanish music was playing, tents were set up as cafes and bars, and to top it all off, it was in the courtyard of the Alcazar!
Just one of the tents with all the kinds of things they were selling (ham, cheese, bread, olive oil, etc)
This is the Equestion School in Jerez. Unfortunately they only do shows on Thursdays in the winter and we go there on Friday. It was still a beautiful area though and very cool to see. Normally they have processions and shows in which the horses are trained to dance to music under the direction of their riders.
