La Casa de Carmen

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Casa de Carmen
The night after we returned from Córdoba my roommate and five of our classmates of the female persuasion all went to the new flamenco show in town, La Casa de Carmen. Like the Carbonería the Casa de Carmen is a sit down show, but at a bit higher level of quality. The entry fee was 12 euros and no seat was more than 20 feet from the stage. The ambience was indeed that of a late 19th century brick house turned 1920s Spanish bar with a big wooden stage built under a vaulted, glass skylight (because everyone can identify with that ambience). Tonight the dancer was actually a man, and the singer a woman (the reverse of the Carbonería). As you can see from the pictures, he worked up quite a sweat, and I thought I might lose an eye from the pieces of the stage that his slamming, tapping shoes actually chipped out. Personally, I’m not enchanted by flamenco dancing, but every one of us agreed that best part of the whole show was the spectacular guitar work done by the gentleman in the right corner. In our opinion the peak of the entire performance formed around his ten minute guitar solo.
Afterwards, we found a great Italian restaurant on La Calle Bétis called Mama Mia’s. I had the best spaghetti I’ve had in Europe (which still is a crying shame compared to my mother’s), and the best pie I have had in Spain (and come to think of it, the only pie). As the pictures indicate, Kristine managed to add another two bottles of Coke to her global Coke bottle collection. The waiter had the most puzzled and shocked expression as he reached to gather them up after dinner only to have them leap out from under him and under the table with a big smile from Kristine. He got the picture, laughed and walked away. As several free desserts and various other things have attested, our girls seem to be able to get just about anything for free around here with a few smiles or helpless foreign girl pleas towards the predominately male server population in Spain.

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Photos

Baila Bien
This is not Carmen, however, this lady danced so fast and hard that I was worried she would fall right on us in our first row seats (nobody seems to want the front row in Europe either).

Front Row
The party: Nichole, Jared, Kristi, Blonnie, Julia, me, and Kristine behind the camera.

The main show
Tonight the main 'bailador' was actually this guy, the lady on the right was the singer. Killer scarf man.

Sudo
So I figured if we didn't get hit by a chunk of the stage that his feet chipped out, we'd probably still get a fine misting from all the sweat. It wasn't hot inside, but I think he might beg to differ.

A tale of love
Most of the songs tell some kind of story. I wish I would've been able to get a picture of the guitarist doing that awesome solo, or better yet a video.

He didn't stand a chance
Kristine showing off her hard won Coke bottle's from Mama Mia's Italian restaurant.

The Calle Betis
This riverside street is definitely the life of the night on our side of the river in the Triana district. Full of people from sunset to sunrise. You can see the Puente de Triana in the back that was built by Eiffel (the guy from France)I think for one of the world's fairs or something.