Yesterday was the great annual Canterbury wine extravaganza, also known as the Vendimia Grape Harvest. Surprisingly most people were on time to meet at the office at 8:30 in the morning. I say surprisingly because the night before was spent at a Russian restaurant for our end-of-class dinner, and our hard-working and responsible group of English teachers knocked off about 4 bottles of vodka and several more of red wine. The next morning, none the worse for wear, we all took a bus to San Martín de Valdeiglesias, a 12th century Crusader town, about an hour outside of Madrid, and then the bus driver dumped us on the side of the road so we could walk to our first destination of the day- the vineyard of Manolo, a local grape-grower. Armed with steak knives and paint buckets, we divided into teams of two, and then each team set off down a row of vines, cutting off the bunches of grapes from each plant and then moving along to the next one in our row. Megan was my partner, and we were just having a good time, talking, eating handfuls of grapes, and moving along at a nice pace. We didn't realize it at first, but when we finally looked up from our work to take a short break, we saw that we were smoking all the other teams. They were barely half-way along their rows and we were almost to the end of ours! The two of us must have some sort of speedy grape-harvesting gene that we've never tapped into before. Maybe we had migrant worker ancestors or something. Anyway, when the time came to finish up and head back to the bus, we were half-way along our second line, and no other team had even finished their first. Glorious victory! Not that we were officially racing or anything, but it felt nice to be recognized for doing a good job. Until the ever-popular Johnny B decided to act like he was part of our team and stole our sunshine. He got a hug from Manolo and invited to his house. Manolo even offered Johnny his own bed to sleep in, as long as his wife wasn't in it...
After we washed our sticky fingers and got back on the bus, we headed to the local town bodega, or winery, called Don Alvaro de Luna, to see how wine is made. I have never been in a factory that actually smelled good, but this whole place smelled AMAZING. After a brief tour of the building (see Vendimia Grape Harvest photo album) we entered the last room, and discovered a veritable appetizer feast laid out before us and quite a few bottles of different kinds of wine for us to taste. Honestly, I am not a huge fan of wine, but I kept my duty as a devout student of culture and forced a few swigs down my throat. The red one was pretty rough, but the pink one was ok. I didn't even try the white one because, in my limited experience, white wine tends to taste like a mixture of vinegar and vomit. The vast majority of the other teachers on the trip would disagree with me wholeheartedly. Quite a few lushes in this bunch. In less than five minutes, the bottles were empty and everyone was getting happy. I got happy when one of the workers gave me a few corks to take home. Then, already full from the appetizers and heading toward a local farm for a barbeque, everyone climbed back onto the bus, and off we went towards our third destination of the day.
Again dumped on the side of the highway, we took about 10 minute hike to a small farm in the countryside. It was such a beautiful location (again, see pictures) and such a beautiful day for a barbeque. The sun was shining and a warm breeze was blowing, and there were lots of things to explore. Mom and Dad, I think we should have our next family reunion out there. What do you think? Anyway, several local musicians were playing some nice guitar music and there were copious amounts of sangria for everyone to indulge in, so the party got off to a promising start. The food consisted of different types of sausages, rice, salad, baguettes, garbanzo beans, green beans, white figs, and watermelon. Turns out the most delicious sausage was blood sausage, but the name didn't deter me from eating about five of them. Everyone was getting good and drunk (except me, of course) so I decided to take a nap. What I wouldn't have given for two trees and a hammock! I stretched out on the ground with my backpack for a pillow, and closed my eyes. With the sun on my face and the dried animal feces that it turned out I was laying on being nice and comfy, I almost fell asleep. I very well would have if some hippy Spaniard hadn't decided to bring out his flute and play some improv with an accompanying bongo. It was probably the worst music I have ever heard. Music, what a joke. Imagine a ten-year old who just learned to play the scales on his flute and is practicing them, when all of a sudden, a giant bumble bee flies into the end of his flute. The resulting squeak and frantic blowing of air and pushing of buttons to eject the bee is exactly what this man sounded like while playing his groovy improv. Needless to say, it was a rude awakening from my dream-like state. The rest of the party followed with some good flamenco music (after our favorite flautist decided he had done enough damage), a bit of dancing, and more drinking. When 8:00pm rolled around and we were informed that if we weren't back on the bus in fifteen minutes, we would have to walk home, the party broke up and we collected our things and headed back down the road. We were sad to go, but it had been such a full day that we were tired and most were drunk, and everyone knew it was time to head out. On the way back to Madrid, I got chatted up by the both drunk and high guitar player who entertained us at the beginning of the party, and spent the next hour leaning away from him and supplying short and vague answers to his very philosophical questions. So there you go Joaquin, I guess I do get hit on sometimes. But they have to be drunkenly obvious for me to realize it. So...that was my day as a grape-harvesting, wine-tasting, blood sausage-eating Spaniard wannabe. Chalk it up as one of my favorite days so far!
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