Tour of the Old City

This week and next week are finals weeks for students in Spain. Everyone is busy day and night studying away. We didn't have class today (maybe because of their finals schedule? I'm not really sure why...). Instead, we went on a guided tour of el parte antiqua, the old part of the city. Audra had already given us most of the tour on Saturday, but it was still fun to get out and learn more about it all. We went to the museum of Cáceres, to holy week museum (museo de la semana santa), to the old Jewish neighborhood (el barrio júdio) and to a palace, among other places. El museo de la semana santa was particularly interesting. Holy week is such a huge deal in Spain and has so much history behind it. They still celebrate in the ancient ways, including ancient costumes, which are a little bit eerie, as this is where the Ku Klux Klan got their costumes from, cone hats included. During our tour we also saw two aljibes, one underneath el museo de la semana santa, and one underneath el museo de Cáceres. Aljibes (derived from an Arabic word, if any of you are language freaks like me) are massive cisterns where rain water collects. In ancient times they provided water for the entire city, as Extramadura is a dry region and Cáceres itself has no rivers.

After our tour we were all freezing (it's been colder than normal here lately, with lows in the low 30s and highs in the upper 50s), so Angélica, Tiffani, Cassidy and I went to the Chocolate Cafe for coffee and pastries. I had a napolitana de chocolate. I'm not sure how this translates to English, but it's a croissant-type pastry stuff with chocolate, cream, or nutella. I had a lot of these in Valencia, too, and they're definitely a favorite. While we were in the cafe the Offspring came on over the radio. It was one of my favorite songs, too, and I thought it was strange to hear it over here. We had a heck of a time paying our bill before we left-- it took us two attempts. First time we came up short, and the 2nd time the waiter realized that Tiffani had accidentally given him Peruvian money instead of euros. He definitely wasn't impressed with us by the time we left. 

We came home for lunch and siesta time, which is one of my favorite times of the day. A few of us are meeting in an hour to go to the Gran Cafe for coffee, churros, and card playing again. Tonight after supper I think Angélica and I are going to the bar to watch the Barcelona/Valencia soccer game. More updates later :)