Mushroom Gathering in Andalucia

Angela and I have been trying to hang out for awhile now but it just never seems to work out with our schedules, so when she invited me to a 2 day mushroom seminar I had to say yes. For me its more about experiencing different aspects of culture here in Spain and also improving my Spanish than it is about learning all the scientific details of the fungi family. When she invited me, it was right as the bell rang for school to start so quickly she explained that it was about wild mushrooms, it went on for 2 days, they would teach us about psychedelic mushrooms, there would be lots of interesting people, a special dinner prepared with different types of mushrooms and we would go out and pick our own on Sunday. So, AFTER agreeing to buy her last ticket for 10€ I started feeling uneasy about it. What if it was a bunch of hippies out in "el campo"(countryside) taking psychedelic mushrooms? What if they put them in the food and then I ate it and started fryin balls with a bunch of people I don't know that are saying a bunch of weird stuff in Spanish or try to get me to make out with them or something? Then I would have a horrible trip. My mind was racing with what ifs. I really had no idea what I had gotten myself into but I knew that I had made up my mind that I was going and had told Angela that I was going....so, I WAS GOING.

As it turned out I had nothing to worry about. It was a course at Casa Azul where they brought in some mushroom experts to teach people how to classify fungi and identify edible vs. poisonous vs. psychedelic mushrooms. We ate a big lunch prepared by the ladies of la Casa Azul made with all different types of mushrooms. After that, we all sat around and had tea. After tea everyone kept yawning and saying that it was "la hora de siesta" so we all closed our eyes and slept for a maybe 20 minutes max. It was just funny how everyone got really quiet after lunch, started yawning, snuggling up and laying their heads on their neighbor...then we all dozed off....me included. I heard them whispering while I was dozing off "la americana esta durmiendo la siesta" (the american girl is taking a siesta). I didn't care. I truly WAS sleepy from hardly sleeping the night before after my late night salsa class. My legs never will settle down and let me sleep after salsa. So, that day I was happy to have a little siesta even if it was with a group of strangers.

After the siesta we had another lecture by a guy with his docterate in mushroom biology or something like that. So Saturday ended up being 10 hours of all Spanish with lots of big scientific words and I was exhausted by the time I got home. I was supposed to meet up with them again the next day to go out to el campo and find mushrooms. I ended up waking up late and not going. I had been so tired and I knew that I had lots of stuff to do for the upcoming week, so I told Angela that I wasn't going to make it for the second day. I felt kinda bad and It would have been fun but next weekend Juliana and I are going to Morocco. Today, instead of mushroom gathering I did laundry and planned for my classes this week so that I will be all caught up and ready to go to Morocco for the puente. Puentes are when a holiday is attached to a weekend kinda like our Thanksgiving and you get the day off in between too. So, they call it a puente which means bridge in Spanish. We have a puente the weekend of December 4-7 so we're headin to Africa with a tour group. So, we should be nice and safe traveling with the group. Until Morocco my friends :) :)