Mis Experiencias en el Extranjero: Estepa y Osuna

Hey, I'm catching up! I'm only 3 weeks behind now :]

At the end of October, I went to the small towns of Estepa and Osuna, about an hour from Sevilla. I mainly went on this excursion because it was provided for free by the CUI (University International Center) and was the ONLY free trip included in my tuition! I might be SLIGHTLY bitter about that because half the trips I took in Germany were paid for in my tuition and all the students here that came in big study abroad programs have program-sponsored trips to Paris and Lisbon and all sorts of cool places! This trip was...interesting.

In Estepa we visited La Aurora, a family-owned factory and store specializing in mantecados (traditional Spanish Christmas cookies that are VERY thick and heavy since lard is the main ingredient...). Estepa is actually famous throughout all of Spain for making these seasonal desserts. There are 27 factories in the town that make them and ship them all around the country. The professor who went with us got us a tour of the factory because his family just so happens to own it! So, we got all suited up in our robes and hairnets and toured the factory. It was interesting, I suppose. We saw where they keep stock piles of ingredients and it smelled good to walk past roasted almonds and raw dough! The factory was by no means HUGE, so the tour was done in like a half hour. Then they allowed us to help ourselves to two baskets filled with various mantecados (chocolate, almond, coconut, coffee, pumpkin?). They were just ok. I was initially super excited to go to a Christmas cookie factory, but the Spanish do have different tastes and their version of dessert just does not compare to what I enjoy! I was eating the cookies mostly because I felt obligated to try the different flavors and to take advantage of free snacks, and less because they were delicious. After the factory tour, we went out and explored the town on our own...which was basically nothing. For lunch, the whole group went up to the top of the hill in town which had the ruins of some fortress and great views over the Spanish countryside! So that was cool! We walked around to the church and then we were given an hour and a half of free time. What? There was really nothing to do. We had seen the whole town. So a group of us just stayed by the church and talked/napped.

La Aurora Mantecado Factory

Store above the factory

D, Emily, me, Megan & Natalie suited up inside the factory!

The professor was TOO excited to show us the lard!

Stock pile of lard...

I don't know what these were. The wrapper said pine so they're probably pine nuts.
They didn't really taste like anything...except maybe a little bit like lard...

Mantecados on the assembly line

Final product!

View of the countryside in Estepa!

The ruins of the fortress on the hill

View of the town of Estepa

Afterwards, we took the bus to Osuna. There is really nothing in Osuna either except the professor's cousins and grandparents. I kind of felt like this trip was mostly about this professor visiting his family for free and less about taking the students somewhere interesting. We looked at the university there for like 2 minutes, which is SUPER small and has like 500 students. Then we went to the outside of the church where the professor's parents were married to look out over the city. The guide in the church offered to give us a tour, but the professor said we had no time. Why? Because we had to go to this one bar in the town square so he could hang out with his cousins. So, we had another hour of free time there and it was during siesta so everything was closed and once again we just sat around and talked! It was a rather unproductive and uninformative trip. I'm glad it was free because otherwise I would have been even more annoyed. I don't mean to sound ungrateful...it just wasn't the most fun day trip.