The last "Working Weekend" Part 1

Plans for the Weekend

As the following week would be my last week of the internship this weekend was the last weekend I would pass normally. The following weekend I would have to pack and move to the hotel my Mum had booked me for my last 10 days at the island, and I was sure that it would be a lot to do, as I still had a lot of things and I had to decide what to leave and what to take. I just hoped that it would not be too much - I didn't want to throw away everything. Some things, like plastic lunch boxes or mugs or towels that I had only bought for the appartment I would of course leave there, I had a lot of these things at home in Germany and I didn't need them. Furthermore, I had already bought them with the purpose to let them there afterwards, most of the things were the least expensive I had been able to find. So as it was my last weekend that would be normal we had planned several things: after our wonderful evening in La Laguna with our colleague, we wanted to go to Santa Cruz the next day in order to try a Cuban restaurant he had recommended us some time before. And when we would already be there we could also do some last shopping as there were still Sales and a lot of less expensive winter clothes - they didn't need them there, it was still warm enough to walk around with a t-shirt and sometimes even with short trousers. On Sunday one of the other girls had invited us to come with them on their small hiking tour, they wanted to go to an old ruin not too far from Puerto de la Cruz and as we both had never went hiking during our time at the island we agreed to come with them. 

Cuban Culinary Experience

So as all the plans were set, after our experience in La Laguna we met at the bus station the following day in order to go to Santa Cruz and have lunch there. It was extremely hot weather and I already regretted that I had chosen long trousers when I walked up the stairs to the bus stop. I just hoped that it would be a bit cooler in the capital, as it was more in the West and usually a little bit colder. In the bus it was incredibly cold, as they were always exaggerating a lot with the air conditioner - when it was 25 degrees outside, the temperature was cooled down to almost 15 degrees inside; much too cold! When we arrived we asked Google Maps for the way to the restaurant and were quite excited because we were hungry and our colleague had described the place as incredibly special and had told us about the delicious food. As my Vietnamese friend was trying to start a Food Blog with her best friend, and she was always quite excited about food, we had decided that it was necessary to test the restaurant by ourselves, and so we were here now.

We arrived after 15 minutes of walking (in those temperatures already too much) and were happy to see that the restaurant was really opened. We entered in the small place and sat down at one of the few tables. It was incredibly small, there wasn't space for more than 20 or 25 people maybe. But our colleague was right - the atmosphere there was amazing! Even if the furniture was nothing special, the decoration was incredible: every single piece of the walls was covered by old photos, pictures, journals and newspaper articles. There were also objects fixed at the wall and pieces of paper where former customers had written down when and why they had come to Casa Nelson and that they had liked it. There was also one big painting showing a weird person, and a lot of other interesting things - one could not stop looking at the walls and everytime I saw another new thing I had not recognized before. The ordering process was also different to regular restaurants. The owner of the restaurant came over to our table, welcomed us and asked us what to drink. When we asked him for the menu he showed us that the whole menu was written down at the table! What an amazing idea. So we ordered our drinks, and for ordering the food he gave us a piece of paper with our table number and told us just to write down the dishes we wanted to have. 

We looked at the menu that was quite small but contained every kind of food: there were some first dishes, some delicious meat main dishes and some sea food and fish dishes. For dessert one did also have some choices that sounded incredibly good, so it was very hard for us to decide. After a while we had chosen grilled Shrimps and Tacos as main dishes and wrote it down on our paper. He came back to our table and when he saw that we had only chosen two dishes he recommended us the avocado entry - we agreed and he walked away to start the preparation of our food. As there was only one other couple in the restaurant and we couldn't really see what they were eating, we didn't have an idea about how the food would look like or taste. But as our colleague had recommended that restaurant we were optimistic and excited about it and couldn't wait until it was ready. Fortunately, he already brought the plate with the avocado and we could start to eat. Even if it was just avocado with some balsamico and oil it was amazing. Maybe it was a special kind of avocado, or he had grown it in his own garden, but I had never found one like that before, and since I had arrived at Tenerife I had eaten a lot of them. We were already quite full after that entry, but still excited about the main dishes. 

While we were waiting we had a lot of time to continue analyzing the wall decoration and take some pictures of that special restaurant - one was really feeling like in another world there. But fortunately, after a while finally the first main dish arrived and we had some delicious shrimps. They were nothing special, but they were really good and it had been a longer time ago since I had eaten them. When we had finished the seafood he already brought the second main dish - meat with vegetables and some potatoe chips. Not really what I would have expected when I ordered Tacos, but it looked amazing an we started to eat. It didn't just look amazing, it also tasted incredibly good, but after a while we had finished everything and were still feeling a little bit hungry. The food was delicious, but it wasn't a lot. The portions were more like tapas, but as it was expensive as a main dish we had expected a bit more. So we ordered a Barraquito as dessert (it's espresso, condensed milk, cream, licor 43 and cinnamon) and finished our Cuban culinary experience. We stayed a bit longer in the restaurant, because it was still early and we had a lot of time left to go shopping. Furthermore, we really liked the atmosphere and the owner who was incredibly nice to us - I was sure he could see that we weren't native Spanish, so he had explained everything to us and recommended a lot. When we paid he gave us a poster with some advertisement of Carnival in Santa Cruz and wished us a nice day. 

Shopping Marathon during Sales

We left the restaurant and walked to the city centre that was only five minutes away. We had eaten something, but not too much, so it was the first time we left a restaurant and could move without starting to breath heavily or something like that. We walked up the shopping street (fortunately there was only one street with all the important stores) and entered into some clothing stores like Mango or H&M - this time I was a bit more motivated about buying something because it was my last chance to do some less expensive shopping. Because of the low taxes on everything it was about 10% cheaper in Tenerife than in Germany, and you really saw that during Sales especially. So we already spent a lot of time in the city centre, before we walked the 20 minutes to the large shopping centre. There, we spent some hours trying clothes, testing perfumes, looking at shoes and other accesoires. After a while we had a short break and bought a frozen yoghurt (we were already hungry again because the Cuban food had been very light) as dessert. I would really miss the shopping weekends with my Vietnamese colleague, we were quite distint shopping types, but it always worked out great and we had a lot of fun together. After a while we looked at the watch and saw that we had just missed the bus to Puerto de la Cruz, so we decided to go to Corte Inglès, as it was on the way to the bus station and I was still looking for a new Planner for 2016. 

We passed some more time over there, walking through the 9 floors and trying to keep the time in mind. My friend was looking for things she should buy for a friend of her - some Chanel lipsticks and other beauty things, and I looked for a Planner. After a while we met each other again and saw that it was already time to get to the bus station, so we left the large shopping centre and walked the 5 minutes to our bus stop. We came just in time and the bus had just arrived, so everything worked out great and we returned home with all our shopping bags. It was a bit embarrassing that we really needed two seats each because we just had too many plastic bags - fortunately, the bus wasn't full and everything found a seat. We talked a bit about the next day and what we would bring etc because we were both not quite experienced in hiking. But we were looking forward to that experience and agreed on meeting at my place at 9 am the next day before we said goodbye.  

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