The Spanish-American Wedding

Dinner/joint bachelor-bachelorette party

Wednesday night (the day before the concert) we all met up for dinner at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. Yes, the home of Real Madrid, Spain's soccer "powerhouse" (although they haven't won a title in over 3 years) has its own restaurant. And it was actually pretty good food. My two favorite Spanish soccer teams happen to be the bitter rivals of Real Madrid. Atlético de Madrid, the crosstown foe, and FC Barcelona, the two-time defending Spanish Champions as well as reigning European Champions.
So I arrive on time, which in Spain means I was a good half-hour early, along with Raúl, a friend of Sergio, Roberto's brother.
Timeout: Family tree time. Roberto is my friend the groom, who lives in North Liberty, was on the diving team at Iowa and now works in CR. Sergio is his brother who I met at Roberto's graduation from Iowa and now hang out with regularly in Madrid. Jackie is the bride who I used to work with at Sports Camps at Iowa and she now teaches Spanish at a high school in CR (but not the same one as me)
OK, now that you're caught up, on with the dinner. Sergio was in charge of the event, therefore all of his friends started showing up. I knew most of them because I have gone out with them several times in the past few summers that I have spent in Madrid. So I am there catching up with the group and some of Roberto's friends start showing up. Meanwhile, the bride and groom's tardiness is approaching an hour. The Spaniards decide to go in and sit down. Shortly after, Jackie and Roberto show up with the troop of Americans who had come for the wedding. Having arrived with the Spaniards (and knowing more of them than I did of the Amercians), I sat with them. I soon saw that the room was divided in half. One table of Americans and one table of Spaniards, plus me. I was fine with that. We ordered some drinks, watched a bizarre dance/acrobatics show, then finally ate. I was starving at this point. Dinner was nice, not too expensive, then we went out for drinks.
The joint bachelor/bachelorette party was a good idea. No tacky, out of control party atmosphere like in the US, just a good group of people going out and getting shit-faced. Or at least, I think they got shit-faced. Being a Wednesday night, I had to bail early (2am-ish) because I had class the next morning.
Concert Thursday--see previous post. It was awesome.
Friday was the day of the big wedding. I, of course, was early. This time I was actually early because I didn't know how long it would take to get to the church. The church was gorgeous. 19th Century, Neoclassical architecture, decorated with paintings by Francisco Goya, one of Spain's most famous artists. This was the church where I first went to mass in Spain on my high school trip we went here for Easter. Real Basilica de San Francisco el Grande, or if your Spanish is really terrible, the Royal Basilica of Saint Francis the Great.
The wedding was beautiful, with a blend of American and Spanish traditions. For example, Jacke had her sister and one of her friends walk down the aisle (unheard of in Spain--it's just the bride and groom there). One of the readings was in English, but the rest of the mass was in Spanish. They exchanged rings and, as is Spanish custom, exchanged coins as a symbol of sharing the wealth and finances of the family.
Then we all boarded buses and went to the reception at a beautiful banquet facility on the outskirts of Madrid. There was a pond with fountains and swans as we walked into the garden area. The cocktail hour was great, with all kinds of awesome appetizers. We took our seats for dinner, and I was with Jackie's sister and aunt, along with the entire family of the girl Roberto coaches in diving. The girl is a former Kennedy student and her brother goes there now, so I knew them somewhat. At least enough to make conversation, which is better off than I would have been with any of the other Yankees. The dinner was spectacular. Roberto's dad is the owner of a winery and is a wine distributor, so the wine was some of the best Spain has to offer, needless to say it was unbelievably good. Gazpacho, salad with shrimp, crab and lobster, then steak with foie -gras (which I happily scraped to the side) and a potato cake. Not quite as good as the potato cakes at Atlas, but the steak was to die for. Dessert was chocolately and then after dinner liquers and coffee. The Americans (this time I was seated with them), apparently not used to drinking so much wine with dinner, were out of their seats before dessert was served and became a bit unruly. A traditional singing group, La Tuna, came in and went around the room during dinner singing traditional Spanish songs. When they got to the American corner of the room at the end of dinner, that side of the room became a free-for -all. Everybody was up taking pictures, dancing and singing (I have no idea what words they were making up), while the Spaniards just sat and stared, with a "what the hell is going on" look.
Everybody got a free bottle of wine to take home, with Jackie and Roberto's name on the label.
The dance was great, lots of drinking and the Spaniards showed why they were pacing themselves at dinner. Again, the mixture of traditions as Jackie and Roberto showed a video they had made of pictures of them and their friends, etc. Pretty standard at American weddings, but the Spaniards had no idea what this was all about.
The last bus back to the city was going to leave at 5am, a little earlier than expected, but there was a delay because there wasn't enough room for everybody. Somehow, people found rides in cars and those of us on the bus entertained ourselves while we waited for things to get sorted out by singing soccer chants. Anytime Spaniards are in a group with nothing to do, sooner or later, the soccer chants come out. I had a few in me, so of course I joined in. This time it was the Americans' turn to use the "what the hell is going on" look. They surprisingly were still alert, given the late hour, although there was one really trashy seventeen-year old who needed a babysitter or at least someone to keep her from removing her dress in front of everyone on the dance floor.
I declined the post reception party at the Americans' hotel (which later reports show as basically a contest to see which Spaniard could get into drunk girl's room first) and went home. I got back around 7am and crashed. I slept through the better part of Saturday and eventually got a little but of reading done for class, although not nearly what I was assigned.
All in all, it was a great time, and well worth being behind all week-long in my classes.