Jerez from fresh eyes

Sharing a place you love with people you love can be tough. It's like introducing your parent's to a new boyfriend. You want them on their best (but most fun) behavior, you want them to be in the best mood they've ever been and you want the interaction to be effortless. It's a lot of work and a lot of chance. So for my parent's first full day in Spain, I decided to stick with something I knew, and I took them up to Jerez.

I hadn't been up to the show in Jerez in a very long time. Almost a year, actually, and I definitely hadn't been there as a casual tourist, as the last several times I'd visited, it had either been to go to the feria, take guests or shop at the fancy new Ikea.

Boss man Andrew let me drive his car (HELLS YA!) which was great because I was a little worried about Betty making the whole trip up and back without incident (and she was still having trouble going in reverse, which would be a pain in the butt parallel parking on the windy hilly Jerez streets - the home of my first uphill start and subsequent almost-wreck with a vanfull of guests).

Unfortunately, just like your boyfriend may not behave on his first parental meeting, Jerez did not treat my parents well. On top of massive jetlag, the weather was uncharacteristically freezing. It was raining a bit, foggy, cold and miserable. Great. Thanks Jerez.

We grabbed breakfast sandwiches, spent a couple hours at the horse museum at the Fundacion Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre. Then watched some of the horses warm up before the show.

If you've never been to Jerez and have an extra hour or so, it is absolutely worth it to visit the Royal School and see the horses dance. The exhibition here is the original, if you've ever seen circus horses or the famous Lipizzaners, this is where there tricks that they learned all came from. The movements are all either war or ranching related, with some of them being to fend off other soldiers and some meant to fend off charging Toros. It's really an amazing spectacle.

Unfortunately, it seemed the only solution was to get out of town, and as I drove us back towards San Ambrosio, we realized the weather on the beach was pretty good, so we pulled off at Cadiz and stopped into a beachfront boardwalk cafe for a light lunch and a thaw.

And some beer. Beer makes you forget all the misery you suffered earlier, right?