EEK! Even setting myself the seemingly achievable goal of one blog post a week seems to be too much for me. My apologies.
I'm a little backed up on my recollections, so I'll try to start where I left off. One week ago (goodness, I believe it was one week?) Zoe and I woke up Saturday morning, which was really probably late afternoon, hankering after some adventure, probably due to the damp (dank!) weather we were experiencing. Sooooo, it being a bit late in the day to go anywhere that day, we decided to back our backpacks and more importantly our stylish rainboots on Sunday and head to Baena, which is a little pueblo about an hour from Córdoba by bus. This ended up being a sort of mixed experience: positive because the village was GORGEOUS (I'm going to put a link to my photos at the bottom and I highly recommend looking at the Baena cemetery, as odd as that sounds) and it felt good to get some exercise walking around and interesting (not quite negative!) due to the immense downpour we experienced later in the afternoon while waiting for the only bus of the day to take us home. I think Baena is better described by photos, so take look. Basically it was a typically sleepy pueblo complete with amazing buildings all piled on a hill, old church/ex-mezquita, orange trees (what village in Andalucia would be complete without them? This time I ate one despite countless warnings that they are bitter and ust for decoration) and cute spanish kids playing soccer in the streets.
Ok, now for the more recent stuff. This past weekend may have been the most beautiful I have EVER seen in March. Ever. I would guess the temperature probably peaked around 80, maybe higher on both Saturday and Sunday, which made me really glad I postponed my trip to Granada to enjoy the beautiful sunshine! While I am enjoying the warmth, it's a bit frightening to think what the weather will be like in July. I'm starting to undertsand the commonly used local term "infierno"....Needless to say I spent the weekend sunbathing, whether it was on Zoe's terraza half sweating to death, or in la plaza de la corredera eating salmorejo (super typical Córdobese dish, basically gazpacho, but thicker and delicious!), or walking the city. The sunshine also meant I did my laundry for the first time in quite a while! Interestingly enough, dryers are not really a concept here (maybe the really wealthy have them, I haven't quite figured it out?), so dry weather=all my laundry blowing in the breeze up on the roof! I even learned the correct way to maximize a small number of clothespins (thank you, Zoe!)
My internship as it turns out is off to an amazing start. Yesterday was el Día Internacional contra el Racismo (international day against racism) and we had a big party for staff and immigrants (I suppose you would call them "clients?"). This turned out to be a huge blast, I got a henna tattoo and had my name written for me in both Chinese and Arabic (actually I had it written twice in Arabic by two different immigrants. The two could not look more different, go figure). I also had an older co-worker offer to show me how to make salmorejo in her house because I liked it so much! Something for y'all to look forward to when I get back...The only downside to the day was the constant supply of free desserts which sat out all day tempting me. Not sure if I mentioned it yet, but I decided to give up sugar for lent just for the heck of it (wouldn't hurt if it helped me cut my jar-of-nutella-a-week habit either!)
lastly, I just finished organizing my first ever couchsurfing experience in Lisbon, Portugal!! I'll be there the week after my birthday and could not be more excited about visiting the city and not having to pay for a hostel. HA.
Here are my photo albums. From now on I'm going to try to post the links at the bottom of each entry for anyone interested:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2084173&id=1451700384&l=882483c368
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2084075&id=1451700384&l=d4276228e8
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