On mercadillo Sunday (the blessed day of the giant small market) we went a-photographing at the Mercadillo del Arenal de Córdoba — which, if I’m not mistaking, means the outdoor market of the sandbank, but ought to be the outdoor market of the arena, because it’s literally across the freaking street from the city sports arena. To be sure, the market was sort of disappointing. It was a great many stalls of inexpensive things, knock-offs from China mostly, and only a handful of sellers daring to be different and selling used stuff.

Today we bring you photos from the market, AND a video, AND, if you make it to the end of this post, a photo gallery of some of the good Sunday people of Córdoba.

Let’s begin.

This Sunday mercadillo is Córdaba’s largest. We didn’t know what to expect, but had hoped to find a kitschy collection of things to marvel at and even some used goods we could acquire to put in our eventual apartment. But the large majority of stalls sold new goods. Cheap things. Low quality impersonations of well-known brands. We have no problem with people buying cheap faux Nike gear. More power to them. It’s just not why we would come to a market.

But it was genuinely fun to just rub elbows with our fellow Spaniards. Yes, we’re Americans by nationality, but we live in Spain now. By choice. And while we can’t yet speak the language all that well, there’s no question our neighbors are well-meaning, kind and considerate. Even while shuffling elbow-to-elbow through the Sunday market.

Here’s a video from the market, toward the end of the long long line of stalls. About a minute and a half long. I strongly suspect it’s much like what we see in the U.S. at a Sunday outdoor market.

For the record our purchases at the market were: the aforesaid bag of olives and a pair of slippers for numero dos for 8 €. (Still dunno about those slippers which have insoles like cement and a slab of dense hard rubber for soles. I guess I should have offered 4 €. Meh.)

We zigzagged our way back through the maze of stalls and found a cafe on Avenida Compositor Rafael Castro. Yeah, that’s the street name, all 13 syllables. Seems a lot of streets here are named after people, but the street names include the profession of the person so honored, plus the full name. E.g., Rafael Castro, composer. Avenue. Here there are streets named after escritores (writers), poetas (poets), scultures (sculputors), etc etc. We’ve heard our GPS mangle the words Calle Poeta Juan Ramón Jiménez more times than we can count since it leads to our AirBnb.

The cafe was called Los Tamicos, at the corner of Avenida Compositor Rafael Castro and Calle Periodista Antonio Rodriguez Mesa. One need not wonder why they speak so quickly here.

While sitting there, los dos, having a café con leche and cortádo, it occurred to me that maybe I could catch up on the photos with people in them. The ones some of you have noted we haven’t managed to take. So I slyly perched my phone camera as if I were doing some important surfing and proceeded to get some cameos.

And here is Sunday morning at the Cafe Los Tamicos and 37 shots to sate everyone’s hunger to have a look at the people of Spain.

¡Saludos y adiós por ahora!