Smoking Sevillians

I´ve made my peace with my language classes. I´m going to do them on my own terms and that means I´m stepping away from the frustration inherent by actually GOING to my classes and pretty much using the allotted time to take advantage of the decent biblioteca (library) they have here at the school and working through the grammar, conjugations, language and discovery on my own.

I made my mind up about this on Monday evening, after reflecting that I really couldn´t see myself going through another week of stumbling through what is essentially a relatively approachable language. I´ve enjoyed learning Japanese and was reasonable at getting by in Mandarin, I can at least read Spanish from the get go!

As always, the flamenco classes are the highlight to this educational section of my holiday, despite the lack of a fan in the studio. A couple of girls have decided that the bring-you-own version will have to do, and regularly flutter their simple Spanish fans in the breaks between choreography - I´m totally jealous and have vowed to buy my own tourist sweat saver at my earliest convenience.

The people here seem fairly robust and healthy, the Spanish diet of seafood, fresh fruit and vegetables, with copious amounts of olive oil throughout probably gives them a boost towards overall longevity, however there is one very big vice that squares them back to the average life expectancy (or lower).
Smoking.

Seriously, it´s everywhere. Smoking was pretty noticeable in Japan and China too, but I did observe that overall, it seemed to be the older male population that regularly lit up. I very rarely saw women smoke over there and if they did, they were wizened and sun baked, maybe on the poorer end of the demographic.

But here...! Everytime I see a pretty girl light up a cancer stick I flash to that ad which depicted a fresh faced brunette smoking serenely to Vivaldi´s Four Seasons...by her final exhale she resembles a hag out of Tales from the Crypt!
I can´t remember whether it´s from Australia´s Quit campaign, but I think I saw it on one of those commercial compilation shows (maybe even The Gruen!), probably in the same shocking medical section as cutting out brain aneurysms and confronting car accidents.

I suspect even the Senora I am living with smokes; I bet the tax is minuscule for cigarettes over here and Europe has long had a culture of thinking the act of smoking is sexy, or even grown up - people, nicotine is probably one of the most insidiously destructive and addictive drugs in the world!
Oh well, ultimately they´re all adults, and so there´s a choice there. I wonder if they started publishing the graphic pictures of mouth cancer on the packets over here it might make a few people pause and reconsider.

On another note, I found a flamenco outfit! Actually, it´s not too crazy, I could probably wear it to an appropriate theatre event back in Perth (maybe a production of The Barber of Seville? :)
It´s not the traditionally large polka dot number and it isn´t even red! The skirt has the ruffles, but the top is something totally wearable in summer and it´s my own little souvenir from the city. It´s not even excessively heavy (I think I can sneak it through Jaymez!)
Considering I bought an uchikake (a long formal kimono) when I was in Japan this is far less ostentatious (and as mentioned above, possibly wearable!)