Pictionary Fiesta

It’s Brad here. Neely’s on hiatus (she had quite a large volume of posts this last month!), so it falls to me to tell you about our latest adventure in the Iberian Peninsula.

This adventure happened close to home—actually, it happened at home, in our apartment in Seville. Surprisingly, we do sometimes stay in Seville.

Anyway . . . we had a party, our first house party! Despite our lack of long-time friends in Seville, our party was surprisingly well attended. The US ambassador to Spain couldn’t make it, but we did have Neely’s German friends from the language school and the other researchers that I know from the archive (the same ones that I have breakfast with in the mornings). Some of the researchers are permanent fixtures in the archive; they’ve been here for months or years. But some of the others are only in Seville for a period of weeks or days. So there’s always a new face or two around. At our party we had a few Colombians, a Chilean, and a few new gringos (in addition to the usual mix of Spanish and French).

from left to right: Enrrique (from Chile--Bev says he looks like Jesus), Magdalena (Spain), Vanesa (France), Caroline (France), and Rob (U.S.)

Researching in a foreign country can be an isolating experience. There aren’t that many opportunities to get to know other people when you spend your days reading old manuscripts by yourself. That’s why I wanted to throw the party, and that’s also why every single person that I invited actually showed up! Our tiny little apartment was bursting with over 15 people.

It was a bit cramped

Neely and I had a little bit of food for folks to munch on (“para picar,” or “to pick at”). A little ham and salami (I do love pork!), some cheese and membrillo (quince paste . . . mmm), even some dill dip “a la Pee Dee” (as Neely likes to call it) with Bugles chips (can you believe that they sell those in Spain!?!). And we found a recipe for a drink called “Agua de Sevilla” (Water of Seville) that was gone almost as soon as the first guests arrived. I offered Water of Seville to one guest, and he asked if that was some kind of special tap water.

Around 1:00 a.m., we played Pictionary. One of our friends from the archive owns the Spanish version of the game, and she brought it with her. The clues were in Spanish, so we usually had to take a few minutes to consult our Spanish-English dictionary before we could begin. As the artists drew, the other team members were screaming guesses in every language spoken in western Europe. Complete chaos . . . I hope the neighbors weren’t too annoyed.

It's a mountain . . . a whale . . . snowstorm . . . apple pie . . . a carpenter . . .

Since Neely and I are such fun people and amazing hosts (and since archival researchers are so desperate for human interaction), the fun lasted until 3:30. It was a great success; a good time was had by all.