Goat town, One week mark & La rutina diaria española.

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I’ve been in Estepa for 1 week now. I can’t make up my mind whether it feels like it has been that long or not. In some ways it feels like time has flown, others; it feels like I’ve been in Estepa all my life (probably because it’s so small).

We spent yesterday hung-over from the previous nights adventure to Cabra (literally translated as ‘Goat’) in Cordoba.

We set off to Cabra on Saturday at 5pm by bus for 5 Euro. It took 1hr and 15minutes, driving through Herrera, Puente Genil and Lucena to get there. Then we were met by Alex (birthday girl) and her boyfriend at the (wrong) bus stop.

Cabra is a really nice place; you instantly get the feeling it is a good place to be. It is small but busy, lots of outdoor café, bars, restaurants and a main plaza. Another good thing, Cabra is flat! This is a nice change from the huge hills in Estepa. Also we walked through one of the oldest parks in Andalucía to get to Alex’s flat, which was beautiful.

We headed out to watch a Barcelona game at 10pm. The streets were crowded and all the bars & restaurants were busy with a real mix of people; from old, young, families to small babies (a weird thing to see, to me).

I’m still finding adjusting to Spanish time quite difficult, as I haven’t grasped the concept of siestas and always feel like I’ll never sleep at night. But based on the night in Cabra, I can definitely see why they have them.

After the game at 12am we headed back to their apartment, played drinking games until 2.30am, after which we went to a busy little corner bar, followed by another smaller indoor bar that played really loud music but no one was dancing (again, pretty weird)!

At about 3.30-4am (which was considered EARLY) we headed to the main ‘Discoteca’ of Cabra; which was actually more impressive than I thought! You definitely didn’t feel like you were in such a small town when you were there. It was 5 Euro in, which included a drink. We stayed until around 6am and then walked back home. There were still people going to club at 6am, which seemed again pretty strange as it was just the weekly event, not a monthly night like you would expect people to stay up for. But, it was a really good night. Although I did bare in mind I had an hour and half bus journey back the following day so not to drink as much as usual haha.

One thing I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get used to is that they still smoke indoors here. And its not just a few people, the majority of Spaniards smoke. So, I woke up that morning after the discoteca feeling like I had been smoking all my life. Everything I was wearing stank, my throat was croaky, and it was just not great in general. But the night itself made up for that I suppose.

We got back to Estepa around 3pm, had a siesta (for the first time! .. mainly because of how bad I felt) then went for tapas at restaurante Cal’Odor around 10pm; gambas al ajillo, tortilla, ensalada mixta y my first mussels, which were actually pretty nice. In total only costing us around 10 euro each, so nothing really!
This week I’m hoping for a day trip to Sevilla, mainly to buy some winter clothes as you can start to feel a difference in the temperature at night (and I didn’t bring any jumpers, or ‘sweaters,’ as my American housemates like to say!) so its getting pretty cold.

Also, I start school on Friday, which is a scary thought, but I’m looking forward to start what essentially is one of the main reasons why I’m here!

Entonces, hasta viernes.

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Comments

[Diane Reuben]

life at last!
Well Sammi, it may have taken you 1.5 hours but you found life in Spain! And what a great night you had by the sounds of it... will be thinking about you Friday...dont forget your packed luncheon...ha ha.. love mum.x