Easter Week in Cordoba

Happy Easter to all and Congratulations to Liz and Sarah on the shower. I hope everyone has recovered from the weeks events. My Spring Break was relaxing but fun too. As you know I went to Cordoba to visit a former exchange student, Santi and his family. It was wonderful to see them again. They are a great, welcoming family and I even got to spend time with the grandmother, who was staying at the house for the week. As usual they treated me like family, and were very hospitable. I arrived in Cabra Tuesday night to see Santi, who is now an adult, and his father, Francisco. They all look the same, just a few years older. Santi can drive now, which makes me feel really old, but it's only been four years. Macarena, the sister, who lives in Madrid at a dormitory for post grad studies, was there too. She made a tasty Tortilla Espanola (which in Andalucia they call a tortilla de patata). I learned a new way to prepare one too. Rather than frying the potatoes in a ton of oil, you can stick them in the microwave and save some calories! You can't taste the difference either. It was yummy.
After dinner we headed out for the first procession, or parade for Holy Week. Within the town families can join a Cofradia or Community which then prepares the Floats each year. The floats are adorned with candles, fancy cloths, and made from solid wood. The floats however are carried by Costaleros, who carry the float on their backs from underneath the float. All of the floats are carried by men because they women are not permited to carry them, except for one float that is the patron of the city. I met Mamen, who I think I met the last time I was in Cabra and immediately when she began to speak, I recognised her as the girl that speaks wicked fast, and unless you are looking directly at her face, you can't understand a word. The greatest part of the week was the sense of family and community I could feel within the town. Everyone knows everyone and evey step you take you find yourself amongst friends. It was really nice and homely, quite a difference from the busy streets of Madrid. We were out way way past my bedtime, in fact I felt like an old lady hanging out with people under 23 years old, but it was rejuvenating too. Wednesday was a lazy day even though I woke up before anyone else in the house! I got to chat with Raffi, their house lady who was plesant as always. Then I had a reading session on the patio while the rest of the family got up and started the day. It was finally great weather and I enjoyed a quite moment on the patio. Once the kdis were ready Santi and I took a walk around the town. I immediately felt old when we stopped at a bar to have a drink at 1:30 in the afternoon and was surrounded by "youts". But I let age fly with the wind and had a great time chatting with Santi and his friends. We then planned to meet later in the afternoon for more processions, but unfortuately it started to rain shortly after lunch. So we had a night of "botellon" at his friends house with Shwarma, my favorite pita snadwhich from Granada. The shwarma was basically turkish fajitas, but tasty just the same. I had homemade sangria and we passed the night away talking. Of course everyone was pendiente de mi asking me if I understood what was being said and stuff because there were quite a lot of people in the house. I could understand most of it, but it was hard to jump into a conversation.
Shortly after we headed out on the town to a dance club where we used our wiles to get cheap cubalibres. In fact thats what botellon is, when you cheat the clubs and BYOB! I did feel ashamed but I let it flow with the music and that was that. I had a fabulous time in Cabra and am ashamed that I didn't get any pics of the family or me, for that matter, but I am waiting to see if Mamen can send me some photos that she took.