I arrived at the bus station yesterday nice and early (8:15). I waited in what was actually a temperature where I wished my cardigan wasn't packed away in a space saving bag in the suitcase next to me. (For those of you who haven't been following Sevilla's weather report-- it has remained in the upper 80's, low 90's since I arrived. Still no rain.) I boarded the bus and left Sevilla around 9:00 a.m. I took in my last moments of the city as it drove throughout. I learned that there is a Cruzcampo factory there too. As soon as we left the Sevilla (the city), I was hit with Sevilla the province--- OLIVE TREES EVERYWHERE! At first it was kind of cool...
But then five minutes went by and the view still hadn't changed...
I swear the Olive Trees had some magical powers because I could not keep my eyes open for the life of me. And since CIEE failed to tell me where Cabra was (the town I had to transfer busses in), I resorted to taking pictures of olive trees to keep myself awake.
Yea. All of those green dots you see are olive trees. They are seriously everywhere.
So back to my bus ride...after being on the bus for three hours, I finally arrived in Cabra. And when I say arrived, I mean the bus driver dropped me and my two suitcases off in the middle of nowhere in Cabra. The only thing CIEE told me was that I was supposed to buy my next bus ticket and take it to Priego. However, there were no ticket booths in sight. Just a little sign that said bus stop. Thankfully two other people got off the bus too and they happened to be Americans. They calmed me down from panic and told me to take the local bus to the other side of town where the bus station actually was. I'm honestly not sure what I would have done if they hadn't been there. After waiting 30 minutes for the local bus, I finally hopped on (and by hopped I really mean I dragged my 50 lb suitcases on) and headed towards the bus station I needed to be dropped off at. Once there, I bought my ticket and discovered that I had to wait an additional 2.5 hours for the next bus. Meh. So I sat on the bench and read my book to pass the time...
After travelling for 7 hours, I finally arrived in Priego where I was greeted with friends who helped lead me to the hostal (my brain was not functioning at this point).
I was pleasantly surprised with Priego. Every Spaniard I had met had warned me how small this town was. I had visions of living in Wantage surrounded by farms all over again. While Priego is considered a town, it is actually just a really tiny city. You won't see any farms until you leave the city itself. There are plenty of restaurants and stores and places to live. It is also very family oriented. The hostal CIEE put us up in is very nice as well. I'm sharing my room with my friend Carolyn from Sparta and another girl named Electra. There is plenty of space for the three of us to sprawl, and it is nicely decorated.
I was in a terrible mood yesterday-- tired and hungry don't mix well-- so I pretty much ate some food and then went to bed to overcome the mood.
As for today, I did A LOT! Electra's bilingual coordinator from her school has been AMAZING. Her name is Ana and she, along with husband (Pepe), have been extremely proactive and helpful with our apartment search. So yesterday while I was busy travelling all over Andalucía, Ana and Pepe were showing Carolyn, Electra, and Vinny (another CIEE person) around the city along with different apartments. Today, they offered to take us to the Cheese Festival in a nearby town. So after enjoying a nice cup of coffee in the downstairs bar, we packed into their car, and they escorted us through the mountains to the festival.
After about 30 minutes of driving we finally arrived at the festival. This place was heaven! It had cheese, bread, and wine!! Ana and Pepe treated us to our first round of tickets where with each ticket you were able to try a big slice of cheese on top of a piece of bread. The tickets allowed you to try any eight cheeses you wanted out of the 100 or so that were there.
So after feasting on cheese, we decided to take a break and take in the views of the city...
Once back in Priego, Ana and Pepe took us to the cliffs that some of the houses actually sit on to see the surrounding views from the city outskirts.
This is what surrounds the mountain that I currently live on. It is really beautiful here. After walking around and then siestaing, Ana and Pepe took us to look at more apartments. The first was a house being rented out for five people. The place was very spacious, but also very old. The unforeseen cost of heating in the winter seemed daunting. The furniture also could have been owned by my Grandmother in the 1970's. After this apartment, we headed to another one that they had looked at yesterday. This apartment was also a house being rented out. It was BEAUTIFUL. Everything was new and spacious. The views were amazing, the location was perfect, the place was just better than what I could have imagined for an apartment in Spain. Plus the rent is only 400 euros a month so with four people living there, I'd be paying 100 a month which is soooo cheap! (Be jealous American friends!) And again, this was an actual house that the landlords had lived in before their kids moved out. So you know the place is good. Just to be safe, we looked at another apartment after this. But at this point my mind had tuned out all of what the Spanish landlord was saying because I was really in love with the last place.
After apartment hunting, Ana and Pepe took us a on a little hike around the cliffs of the city. Along this trail there was so much fruit waiting to be picked! We feasted on fresh figs from the trees, berries, and drooled over pomegranates waiting to ripen...
Fig Tree
Fresh berries
Pomegranate!
The inside of a fig. Looks gross but it so good!
Also, we were lucky enough to meet a young man on this hike who is looking to learn English. First tutoring offer potentially?!
Pepe and Ana were amazing today. I could not have done any of this apartment stuff on my own! They took us to see so many things too! Along with all of that, they know all of the occupants in the city, so today I would say I met about 30% of them just because every time we were out on the streets walking, someone would stop to talk to them, and we would all get introduced. It was great.After our busy day, we relaxed with a delicious pizza and some helado. It was a good day.
Happy Sunday!
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