Thursday, April 09, 2009

The calm before the storm

I decided to make full use of having a room to myself and sleep in as late as possible. The rooster in the yard across the alley from my room, unfortunately, decided that the dawn needed to be greeted very enthusiastically, and then embarked on an "anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-
better" crowing contest with a competitor a few houses over that continued, on and off, for the rest of the morning. So I got plenty of time in bed, but rather less sleep than I'd hoped, and the waking hours were spent working out various different recipes for chicken to which I'd like to subject the pesky beast.

Once I emerged from my cocoon, I decided to aid my economy drive by having the set almuerzo at the little local joint down the alley behind the hotel, which resulted in massive bowl of soup plus chicken and rice for about a quid. Result. Although I was subjected to the telenovelas (melodramatic Spanish-language soaps) that the family was watching. Feeling suitably stuffed, I caught up on the internet for a bit, read for a bit, and then decided to make some use of the pool while I had access. Though as it was late afternoon, the weather was cooling and the pool was unheated, I didn't stay in that long. Back in a normally-clothed state and heading out for dinner, I got chatting with a Dutch girl staying at the hotel called Kerrin, and we ended up deciding that if the service was as slow as usual, it'd be better to have someone to talk to whilst waiting, so we might as well go for food together.

After looking around a couple of places, we ended up back at my dinner spot of the night before, where the service was, if anything, even slower, and my food was decidedly uninspiring. Not somewhere I'd recommend. Still, having refuelled, we popped into one of the little corner stores so I could get some supplies for the dreaded bus ride the next day, and some wine for the evening - thus fortified we headed back to the hotel and stayed out chatting on the terrace until the weather closed in and we retired to a little table under cover. Once I'd exhausted the wine, though, and the weather just seemed determined to get worse, we headed back to our rooms and crashed out.