Ok, so friday night my roommate and I went to the house of the Law Professor who organized this whole trip for me. He is a friend of the Director of the Global Internship Program at Georgia Law so the two of them worked together to make this 7 week work "adventure" for me. So last friday night he invited my roommate and I over for dinner. It's amazing how different the cultures are. So, he has 6 children, 4 of which live with him and his wife. The 4 that live there (all boys) range in age from 24 to 32. So....Meg, you gots lots more time living at home now! People in Spain, b/c of the high prices of the apts and the culture, tend to live with their parents until they get married. So it's not unusual to have a 30 year old male still live with his parents. Besides that initial shock to me, the dinner was pretty amazing. His wife went all out and there was tons and tons of food. I'm not a huge fan of spanish food but nothing was bad. There were like 4 courses though. Well 5 if you include the after-dinner, on-fire drink. Not really sure what was going on but I think it's a tradition in the Galicia region (west of Pamplona) to make this type of drink which includes alcohol, apples, coffee beans, and who knows what else. Then you light the whole thing on fire. It was pretty cool but tasted TERRIBLE!!!!
The Professor prepares the deadly drink.
The fam and me
Their 2nd story patio - Spaniards LOVE flowers!
Saturday I tagged along with my roommate and her friends (as usual) to visit a couple churches in some small towns about an hour and a half from Pamplona. They were pretty cool. I sat out on the one that cost money to enter. You see one church, you've seen them all :) We had a nice picnic outside and watched a wedding finishing up.
Wedding (bride and her brother and guests)
Old church
Town hall
Sunday I didn't really do anything except go to a restaurant at the Plaza de Castillo and read, eat, and drink a beer. Then I rented "Slum Dog Millionaire." If you haven't seen it, go! It was amazing!!!!!
So like I said before, this week I am visiting a law office in Pamplona. I have come to realize that it is the most prominent law office in Spain, and the lawyer I am observing is the most prominent lawyer here. His dad used to be. In fact, his dad is known all over Pamplona as arguing a case before the Country's Supreme Court. Anyway, this week the lawyer gave me a case he's working on to look over. I read everything (in spanish) front to back. Quite interesting. I don't want to go into too much detail but it is an attempted murder case. As you can imagine, there aren't many murders or attempted murders in Spain and especially Pamplona. Maybe 4 a year in Pamplona, if that. So this case is kind of a big deal. So today the trial started. It was pretty interesting b/c I knew the case inside and out so even though I couldn't always understand what the witnesses were saying, I got the gist of it. And things got heated! Of course, when you have someone who tried to kill you, you kind of assume things will get heated. And trials are a lot more informal in Spain so there was some yelling. The best part was when the client (the one who almost died) of my lawyer couldn't remember the name of something. So his wife in the audience piped up with the name like it was the most natural thing in the world. That's happened before too - the judges allow the audience to participate. Unfortunately I didn't have anything to add. Oh, and there are 3 judges and 2 prosecutors FYI. The first prosecutor represents the state and the 2nd represents the client (guy who almost died). Oh, and of course everyone was wearing jeans and the most sloppiest shirts you've ever seen.
The trial should end tomorrow and I'm quite excited. I'm also reading about this other case where the trial is unfortunately taking place in September when I won't be here. But the case is known by everyone in the city b/c it involves a murder that happened last year during San Fermin. Sadly, my lawyer is defending the alleged murderer :( But the case is about a 27 year old Doctor (resident) who "accidently" killed a 19 year girl when they were in his room. I'm going to leave it at that. As you can imagine, as both people are from Pamplona, it's a huge story here. Especially considering the guy's parents are both prominent Pamplona Doctors. Too bad I won't be here for that case. Here's a link to the story although it's in Spanish:
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