Ramblings of a guiri: Happenings

Hello all!

I have had a wonderful break. It has been so relaxing but also fun.

Yesterday, I went to the third annual Pepper festival in Nájera, a town that is 30 minutes away. This festival is held every year on the last weekend of October and displays the Riojan pepper and various pinchos (or tapas) that can be made using the pepper. Miguel Espinosa the manager of the National Geographic Cafe in Madrid (yes national geographic has a cafe), demonstrated the preparation of two tapas. He put some out for people to try, but I wasn't able to get to it. People swarmed all of them! Oh, well.

I tried the tapa that consisted of strips of pepper and fried eggs. Yum. It ofcourse was a tapa and wine meal deal for 2 euros. Fantastic. After I ate my tapa, I walked around for a bit and waited on my bus.

Last night, I went to my salsa class ofcourse and showed of my excellent following. Woohoo! Men lead. Ladies follow. Well, ladies don't follow in salsa rueda when the man doesn't know how to pass and could possibly interrupt the friggin' circle! In this case, I usually just pull myself around and pass myself to the other lead. Confusing. Mmk.

Today I found a secondhand shop! Yay! Everything was so cheap! They had leather jackets for 10 euros. Pants, shirts, and boots were 1 euro. A lady asked about the price of some boots, and she was surprised when the owner said "1 euro." She was so surprised and so asked again...

I purchased 10 items of clothing, and received a purse as a gift for buying so much stuff. It was only 10 euros. I'm going to go out again and look for other stores with a larger selection. Oh, I need to go out for lunch too. The lady of the house is obviously not going to cook today. I wonder if it's, because this is my last night here. Yes, my last night here. Woohoo! The family is going to pick me up in the car tomorrow. I'm so excited. I can't wait to have a 3 minute walk to the bus station. Let the good times roll!

Chao!