Feb 8th – Day of Resting

Today I slept most of the day except for waking at noon to make something to eat while Ana was still at classes. My allergies were knocking me out. At about 6pm, I finally got up, dressed and later had dinner. Victoria and I were meeting up at 11pm to go check out the local cafés and just relax. We met up with Teresa and we all walked down to check out a hookah bar that is supposed to have great teas. The café was called Café Continental and to get to where you could have hookah our directions sounded like something out of a mafia movie for where you can meet the Don. We had to walk through the restaurant to the back enclosed patio area to a tent. We all looked at each other with the same thought running through…is this for real?! The tent was pretty big with pretty designs on the tents outer side. Walking in, it was like we walked into a different world outside of Spain. There were huge Persian rugs on the floor, and deep red fabric on the walls of the tent’s inside. The table tops were engraved with patterns in the metal and we sat on tiny wicker stools. Along the longest side of the tent they had a long bench that they added soft pillows and fabrics to make it more aesthetic and welcoming. Each table had a single tea candle in the middle and in the middle of the two small wooden bars (one for setting up the hookah and the other for tea) there was a small chimenea-like fireplace…it looks like one of those stoves used back in the old cabin days before ovens and stoves were invented. Two daschunds (one very long haired pregnant mommy and the short-haired dad) were curled up close to their master, who was a wiz at making tea by the way, near the fire. We each ordered a cup of tea and the tea maker wanted us to try a new tea he just found. It was a sweet, black tea with mint and he said it was called Pashmin I think. Once we got settled we had the hookah set up for us with strawberry tobacco and a little rum in the water. With the ambiance of the tent, smells of incense and the pleasant taste of the hookah, we decided we wanted to become regulars here. It was really relaxing and nice because it took you out of all the busy chaos in Spain. And with my allergies I realized that my allergy isn’t to the tobacco in cigarettes but the chemicals in them. Because in the hookah bar I had no problems and didn’t feel bad until someone in the tent struck up a cigarette. I never knew that. Finally at about 3:30am we left then bar (which was still bustling with people in the tent and in the restaurant) and decided to check out Can-Can before we went home. Since there weren’t that many people there yet, we decided to leave. I realized I needed to run if I was going to make the bus since after midnight it only comes every hour. And it was 5 ‘til 4am. As I got in eyeshot of the bus stop, I saw it pulling away. No! Unfortunately, I was too far away to even flag him down. I would have to wait another hour by myself if I wanted to catch the next one at 5am. Not a good idea, so I just took the taxi home.