Chapparón

Mondays are our (Sarah's and my) free day. The rest of the week is not packed with things to do, but there's enough stuff where we can't just do what we want (you can do whatever you like..) as on Monday. We were excited for two reasons this week. 1) We were no longer sick (well.. that's debatable with me, but I like to play too much) and 2) We have picked one Cordoban monument each month to explore for the rest of Sarah's time here. That is, nine months. This week: Catedral de Cappuccinos. Yes, you read that correctly.

However, when we woke up, we realized that the weather was not going to be on our side:

 

That's not the canal--that's the calle!!

So we tried to wait it out. The old mantra came to mind, "Rain, rain, go away.." But then we rethought that because we'd much rather have an option of going outside in such weather than have to walk to the Institute or to el Refugio with flooded streets. Que lastima!

To pass the time, we prepared for our weekly visits by making versiculos to give to the children and teenagers. After about an hour of that, we got antsy. Yes, we were definitely going to brave the weather. 'Let the adventure begin!' we thought. First stop--la Libreria so we could buy cospeles.

Only, it was closed. Haha. Thankfully, I had enough for us to get to el Nuevo Centro (we opted for a mall instead of the church, because we were thinking about the walk back. Plus, I was looking for a jacket. My bulky sweatshirt wasn't going to cut it for much longer.). The only issue was that we had gotten soaked crossing the street that we wouldn't have crossed in the first place had we just decided to use my cospeles. Silly rabbits..

At the mall, we perused the various shops and also enjoyed a non-meat-filled lunch!!

Mmm.. broccolli quiche, a fruit salad (which normally makes me gag, but fruit here is so much sweeter) and Sprite. All for the low, low price of 16AP, which equals 4 dollars.

I landed on a sweet blue Reebok jacket and enjoyed the payment process because I got to practice more Spanish. I'm thankful that here I don't look too far off from being a native, so most people just speak to me in Spanish. I still struggle though, but the sales rep reassured me that I was doing just fine.

There's a movie theater at this mall, but nothing was playing that we had to see. And it seems that movie prices are pretty universally ridiculous. Though it's interesting to note that I can still go see Avatar in 3D if I really want to, no matter Mark Driscoll's thoughts.. Additionally, we didn't want to stay out too late watching a film we didn't want to see. Two of our teammates have already experienced the not-so-wonderful reality known as mugging, and we'd much rather play it safe.

After grabbing some super rico helado, we noticed it wasn't raining anymore. Yes we shall walk back those 2 short miles! It was only the last quarter of a mile that it started to rain again. Understatement. It started to pour (hence the title). By the time we got back to the casa, we were soaked. As in, we could feel water all the way to our thighs. The natural reaction was to go big or go home: