My Achy Breaky Heart

 Fun Fact of the day:

Spain, or at least Priego, loves the song "Achy Breaky Heart"

Yea, I bet you forgot about that oldie.  I get the pleasure of listening to this song play every. single. night.  -_-  I don't know if I've ever mentioned this in my blog before, but I live next door to an old people home.  Being a huge fan of the elderly (some of you may or may not recall my three year stint working in an old person home in the states), I take pleasure in sitting on my patio and watching the residents go through their daily routines.  I guess that sounds kind of creepy now that I'm seeing it written down... oh well...Anyway back to my achy breaky heart...

Now that the weather has been consistently sunny and in the 70's, the old people hold a "dance party" every night.  This includes blasting Spanish music and the old people ballroom dancing for 2-3 hours.  And there all time favorite song that they play at the end of their dance party is always this old 90's hit.  Who would have thought.
      

Now that I've successfully gotten that song stuck in your head... I don't think Spaniards are used to seeing sun burn.  Yesterday, I spent the majority of my day outside hiking.  And I got a eensy, teensy,  tiny bit of sun burn on my nose and forehead.  We're talking like a slight pink.  And every Spanish person I ran into was super concerned.  They made it sound like my face looked like a lobster!  I nervously kept checking myself in the mirror because they had me believing I was so sun burnt!  If only they could see me after a day spent at the Jersey Shore...

With the beautiful weather (it's finally spring woooo), Sara, myself, and her mother drove to a town near Priego alled Zuheros.  We embarked on a two and a half hour hike.  Hence the minor sun burn.  On our hike, we ran into a museum in the middle of no where, some sheep, and some horses. 

 The museum in the middle of nowhere

 

After our hike, we were famished and headed towards the town itself.  The town is soooo beautiful.  It is one of those picture perfect, completely white Spanish towns.  After trekking through the village, we made it to the very top where we had beautiful views of the surrounding areas.  This is the type of place people go to to rest and relax and escape real life.  Did I mention it was beautiful?  We eventually headed for lunch inside a nearby hotel/restaurant.  This town is famous for their cheese, so we started off sampling a plate of delicious cheese.  I was in heaven!  We also shared the typical Spanish dish of fried eggplant drizzled with honey (one of my favorites).  Then for our main meal, I ordered calamari stuffed with seafood.  The calamari I've found in Andalusia is not the one Americans are used to seeing in the U.S.  To start, it isn't fried.  And it is really big.  It almost looks like one of those pasta shells that people stuff with ricotta and tomato sauce.  I enjoy this type of calamari and this particular version was delicious!  There was a minor situation with my food however....  my calamari was covered in a sauce... And in this sauce, there were tiny pine cones.   And apparently this is a normal thing to eat here so I begrudgingly tried my first baby pine cone.  Very strange.  It wasn't bad tasting, but I couldn't get past the fact that I was eating pine cones.  So I left most of them behind on my plate.  After lunch, we were exhausted from our filling meal and from our long hike.  But we continued our trek to the bottom of the village where there was a waterfall and beautiful cliffs.

After taking some pictures, we headed back to Priego.  Sara and I were completely exhausted and relaxed for the rest of our night.

As for today, her mother invited me to their country house for lunch.  So around 1:00, Sara and I headed off to their other house.  I've written about my visits to this particular house before.  But to refresh your memory, the house is HUGE and beautiful.  We sat out in the sun snacking on the famous Priego potato chips-- San Nicasio. Yep, Priego is famous for these chips.  Depending on where you are, a bag could cost anywhere from 5-10 dollars.  That's how good they are!  (You can ask my parents all about this.  I accidentally started their addiction.  Now every package I send home has to contain at least one bag of these chips.)  If you ever have the chance to try them, your life will be forever changed when it comes to potato chips.  As always, all Spanish lunches are filled with food.  So we started off with these appetizers:
Prunes (yes mom, they have prunes in Spain!), almonds, olives, some AMAZING cheese, bread, crackers, and jamon.  Next, we ate the Spanish version of potato salad.  And after that everyone ate the Spanish version of chicken wings while I ate some mussels.  For dessert, we ate watermelon and little cakes.  After lunch, we digested our food while sitting in the sun.  And finally we found some motivation to get up and play tennis on their tennis court.  Being my first time playing tennis, I was a little bit of a disaster.  But it was still a lot of fun. 

Now, I am back in my piso, completely exhausted from this weekend.  I am so, SO happy that spring is finally here and the awful Spanish winter is gone!