Spain Uniform

I have adopted a very regimented uniform for my trips to Spain. I have a two pairs of travel pants that I wear and roughly five or six different shirts. My favorite pair of official Spain pants dates back to my first trips to Spain in 1999 (or thereabouts). The shoes are brown walking shoes. The pants are tan or green. The shirts are some kind of subdued solid color with a understated pattern. This uniform matured fully in 2006 out of a desire to look not quite so American. It's not so much that I've got a problem with being a US citizen. Rather, I'd prefer to minimize being pigeonholed immediately. This is crazy, I know, being 5 feet 14 inches, but it's a step up from the classic American sneaker/short ensembles that I wore on my first trips to Spain. As I look back over my pix from the last three trips, I see the same two pairs of pants over and over and the same shirts over and over. You'd have a hard time telling that there were multiple trips. You can see the same outfit in these two pictures.

Here I am with Mom and Brad in a bar on the Plaza Mayor of Utrera in 2006. I had a vague interest in visiting Utrera because my favorite flamenco singer, Fernanda de Utrera is from that city. Also, an acquaintance of mine, El Yiyi, a flamenco singer based in Santa Fe who is also from Utrera. I wanted to see this mystical place from which so many flamenco musicians arise. It's mostly industrial these days, but the plaza was nice enough.


Here I am four years later with Lisa on our honeymoon sitting on the Plaza Mayor of Cardona. We just missed their yearly festival by a couple of days. Each year during the festival, they make a bullring in the main city square. On the day we arrived they were in the process of dismantling the temporary stadium that served as the setting for this picture.