ANDALUCIAN DANCING HORSES

Last Wednesday, we went to a Flamenco show. You know the dance -- passionate, colorful, fast-tapping heels, twirls and swirls and castanets. It was great fun, and had we had the foresight to take the camera with us, we would share photos. Alas, we did not, so we will not.

However, the next evening, we went to a dancing horse show. Really, it's "dressage" (or, as they say here, "high school") but it really just means "dancing horses". These are beautiful horses bred and trained here in Andalucia and it seems to be a point of pride here. They must be the Spanish cousins of the Lippizan stallions in Vienna (the horses you've heard of). We remembered the camera and even dared to try out its video feature, which rarely occurs to us, but we were so inspired by Nolan's fishing video on the Johnson Family blogspot, that we are now going to attempt to post our video of the cabriole (that's the jump and kick dance move.) Good luck to us and happy horse show to you. (OK, video upload not working; you'll have to do with still shots.)

Our current status: we flew to Barcelona today and are holed up in a small but immaculate Holiday Inn in Girona, just north of Barcelona. Tomorrow morning, we fly to Ibiza, an island in the Mediterranean a bit south of Mallorca (the island you've heard of). We're looking forward to a week of low-key beachin' and bummin'. It's been difficult to get internet connections this week and we don't expect that to change soon, but we will do our best to keep you updated on our Grand Tour.

(Something's wrong with my cookies. These crumbs of literary info will have to do for now, minus the visuals. Imagine horses . . . dancing . . . )