LAST WEEK IN CADIZ

Monday/Tuesday/Weds schedule:
9:00 - 2:30 : Class
2:30 - 3:30 : Comida con la familia
3:30 - 8:30 : BEACHHHH
another rough week in Cadiz.

On Monday we went to the Red Cross of Cadiz - it was by far my favorite excursion.  They explained all the programs that they sponsor in the city (including ones for the youth, homeless, immigrants and old people).  It made me realize how little I know about the Red Cross (even in Atlanta).  I think next year they're gonna try to do the presentation at the beginning of the month so that the students can volunteer while they're in Cadiz, which would have been SO cool.  And it would have been a great way to meet other people our age in the city.  Oh well... maybe next year.  One of the girls in our group is coming back to volunteer with them after she finishes the Madrid program, and I think she's living with Pepa and Papi!  Lucky girl.

Weds. was the start of a huge festival in Cadiz (I don't know what it's called.  I think it just celebrated the start of summer) and it was also the day that all the colegios (high schools) finished class.  Shivani and I went to the port that night to see what was going on, and it was just this huge fair.  It reminded me of a small scale state fair - there were moon bounces and replica ships of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.  And there were a bunch of little vendors selling overpriced artsy stuff and CANDY (p.s.  Spanish candy is the best candy in the world).  There was also a concert going on - Merche was singing (I had no idea who it was either).  Her last song she sang before she left was "Comerme el mundo" (Eat the world)... we were new best friends.

We walked back on the beach and listened to the remains of the party and watched the high schoolers celebrating their last day of school.  Here comes the start to an incredible last weekend in Cadiz...

Mudejar... shouldn't that be a verb?

Sunday morning we took the bus to Cordoba and got there with about an hour to roam before we had our visit to the mezquita.  We walked around the streets a little and when the rest of the group sat down in the shade (it was hot, but we had also been sitting on a bus for 4 hours and it was the only time we were gonna be in Cordoba)  me, Daniel, and Shivani went exploring.  We saw a really pretty garden with people walking around it, and there was a little fence that you had to hop to get in.  People gave us some pretty weird looks.  We had no idea where we were (I was afraid we had walked into a wedding or something) but after we had taken a couple pictures and made our way to the front of the garden we saw the 2 euro entry fee... whoops.  I guess that explains the weird looks.  We climbed a tower (I think that's what you were supposed to pay for) and had a BEAUTIFUL view, and then we waved to all our friends that were sitting in the shade of the palace.  Oh haii friends.

We met back up with the group and went to the cathedral – it was built as a cathedral, then destroyed by the Arabes when they took over Spain and turned into a mosque, and then turned back into a cathedral when the Reyes Cristianos took over again.  Aka really cool architecture (and cool new words:  azulejo = tile and mudejar = art that has Arabe influence but was made during the reina Cristiana).  It was pretty much just this HUGE room with red and white brick architecture and lots of arcs.  The azulejo was mostly red, green and blue, which were very common for the musulmanes to use (like the Spanglish?).  Labarca tried to give us a tour, but none of us wanted to hear her ramble so I just went off by myself to look at the cathedral.  There’s an orange garden outside that you’re supposed to be able to pick oranges from, but 1.  It’s not orange season and 2.  I couldn’t find any oranges.

So Cordoba was cool, but it was hot and felt like a ghost town (probably because the natives are smart enough not to go outside) and we were all pretty exhausted.  Funny story of the day: Labarca had a scarf that she threw over her head and she shuffled across the bridge pretending like she was batman and singing the batman song.  She's goofy... I like her.  Emily and I talked to her for almost the entire bus ride to Cordoba, and she’s actually a really interesting woman.  Everyone just gest frustrated because there's no schedule with Labarca and she just does what she wants when she wants to (especially when we come to Spain to learn medical Spanish and instead learn that if we were desperate we could eat our leather shoes).   

All in all, we had an INCREDIBLE weekend.  It was great getting to see another different part of Spain and experience a couple different cultures.  It was weird, because by the end of the weekend I was ready to go home - but not to Atlanta, to Cadiz.  And then we got back and Pepa tried to talk to us in her 100 mph Spanish and I remembered how much I liked English.

Let's make the best of tonight, here comes the rest of our lives

SATURDAY

Breakfast was DELICIOUS... again (sorry, I have to mention every time we have a good meal.  It's part of my personality)

We went to the Sevillian cathedral/mosque – it was HUGE and labarc barc got really excited about being a tour guide but she didn’t actually tell us anything important.  There was a ton of Muslim influence in the architecture because there's so much history with Arabic/Christian rule, but it makes the buildings beautiful.  We were scheduled to go to a palace after the cathedral, but it was the one day where I had forgotten to bring my student card, and I didn't feel like paying 8 euros to get in so I left.  I had planned on walking back to the hotel to take a nap, but then I got really excited because I was by myself and I felt independent and there were lots of stores on sale... whoops.  I got a dress for 8 euros and I’m wearing it right now.  Legit.

I ended up just walking around and looking at the city and it was a lot of fun.  I wound up at the Plaza de Espana - its a relatively new plaza with a huge government building surrounding a lake and right next to a huge park.  It's beautiful, but it was weird because for some reason it was the day of weddings in Sevilla.  I passed 8 brides taking their wedding pictures in the same location - I'm pretty sure they were having a competition to see who could take the prettiest pictures. And then they all were carried away in horse and buggies... how cute.

I decided it was time to head back and I thought I knew where I was going but I realized I actually had no idea.  I stopped at a hostel and got a map... we were staying at the Hotel Americana, so when I saw the Plaza Americana on the map I assumed that's where our Hotel was as well (even though the area didn't look very familiar, I just figured I didn't have a good memory).  I walked about 30 minutes to get to the plaza - turns out it's a round-about with a little statue in the middle.  No hotel in sight.

I went to a kiosk to figure out where I was, and the guy showed me that I had walked off my map and I was about an hour and a half walking distance from our hotel.  So much for my new and improved sense of direction.  Normally I would have just walked back, but I had spent the past 3 hours wandering the city and I didn't want to get lost again and it was SUPER hot.  So I took a taxi and I had exactly the right amount of cash to get back.  Can you say convenient? 

I had a dream that night that I caught a bunch of taxi's in different locations.  Probably because I felt legit when I walked into the street stuck out my arm and just snapped, and the taxi stopped next to me. Things you can't do in Roswell.

I got back to the hotel and I was super exhausted so I took a nap and then Shivani and I went to Corte Ingles and bought sandwiches.  As we were walking out there was some kind of comedian street show going on - we couldn't understand what they were saying but most of it was mimed and they were just juggling and moving in crazy positions with their bodies.  I heard someone calling my name and I looked up and Emily was sticking her head out of the window of our hotel room watching the show.  I don't know why I thought it was so cool, but it didn't feel like real life. 

Emily, Shivani and I got ready and walked back to the park outside of Plaza de Espana for dinner.  We brought our sandwiches and sat next to a pond underneath a kiosk thing and listened to "Best Days" by Graham Colton (listen to it - it sums up our trip).  It was GREAT. 

It started getting late so we left to go back to the hotel, and for some reason we decided to follow my directions?  We walked for about 20 minutes, and I was excited because I knew we were going the right way because we kept passing things that I recognized from my walk earlier (while I was completely lost in the city).  Emily finally made us stop to get a map and once again, we had walked the completely wrong direction.  Sorry guys :]

We got back and got dressed and went out along the river in Sevilla again.  

Summary of our night (from Shivani's perspective) - "Everyone wants to be us".

WT Tip #17:  Always have some spare money for a taxi.  And don't assume that just because your hotel shares the name of a Plaza means that it is in the plaza.

La Alhambra

FRIDAY

We met at 10:00 to go to La Alhambra - highlight of the morning was breakfast.  It was absolutely delicious and I'm pretty sure I ate two meals.  And then we all stocked up on fruit to go.

The Alhambra was WAY cooler than I expected.  It was this intricate palace with crazy cool architecture and decorations and beautiful gardens and INCREDIBLE views.  Labarca taught us more about the plant life and agriculture than I've ever wanted to know about an area, but maybe one day it will come into good use.

View from La Alhambra (that's an Arabic word... in case you were interested)

Marnie trying to be artsy

Artsy attempt #2

SHIVANI!!

Granadian sunset

BEAUTIFUL stained glass - you can't really capture it in a picture but I tried

Christopher Columbus's grave... cool.

The Spanish version of MasterCard ads

After La Alhambra we took the bus for Sevilla.  I slept for most of the bus ride, but I figured I had already seen the outskirts of Sevilla several times as a result of all the trips we had already taken there.  We stayed in a Hotel called the Hotel Americana (racists) which was right next to Corte Ingles (it's this giant supermarket that I'm pretty sure every city in Spain has.  They have everything you need, as long as you can figure out how to navigate it).  I took advantage of the Corte and went to buy toothpaste and peanut butter (when I opened the first jar I bought I discovered that it had already been opened and an entire scoop had been taken out.  So I had to bring it back and get a new one) - and ate about a quarter of the jar.  Who knew something could taste SO GOOD.  I brought the jar to Cordoba and offered it to the group, and by the time we were done there were about 2 scoops left.  It was a well spent 4 euros. We walked around the city for about 2 hours (it was amazing, there were actually parts that we hadn't seen yet) and somehow randomly made it back to our Hotel without even trying.  It turns out we were staying about a 5 minute walk from our hostel that we'd stayed in when we were stuck in Sevilla for the night.

We went to some big cathedral that afternoon - it was just this HUGE room with a bunch of pretty art.  It kind of all starts to blend together after a while though.

Emily and shivani got sick that night :[  But Anna, Ariana, Courtney, Rachelle and I still went out and had a great night.  We walked along the river until we found a place that looked fun and we ended up staying there for 2 hours and told embarrassing stories (Kadie Haase if you ever read this... I shared our story :] ).  It was really fun and there were a lot of locals and these random people dancing (one of them was a cross dresser... good times).  We left around 2 because we figured that was enough time to let the night life start (again, Spaniards are crazy) and we walked walked across the river to look for a discoteca.  There were a ton of people our age hanging out along the river, but it was really awkward because I felt like we were a zoo walking down the street.  We finally found a club called Boss, and we walked in and there were a bunch of old people dancing and a huge group from UF that had taken over the DJ stand (until they got kicked out).  We asked some natives who looked bored in a corner for advice on where we could go to have more fun, and they obviously had no idea because they lead us to like 3 different places where nothing was going on.  Random story -  we walked into one bar and this guy came up to me and was like NOOO.  And I didn’t recognize him at first but then three other guys came up behind him and it was the Galician boys that Emily and I had met on the beach!! And it was sooo random and funny and I told them they were following me and they told me that my Spanish was better the other night (dang it) so I said bye and we left.

But anyways …the natives we were following brought us to this Sevillian dance bar and we got to show off our Sevillian dancing skills that we had learned the other day (I didn't think people ACTUALLY danced like that, but they all were)  Right as we were about to leave we started dancing with this group of ladies who were dressed up in Flamenco clothes and wearing crowns (I think it was someone’s birthday?).  We were imitating one of the lady's dance moves and I’m pretty sure we made her night because she thought it was the funniest thing ever.  And then these guys from Finland came over and started break dancing, and they tried to teach us how to dance... but then I tried and they just laughed and told me to keep doing what I was doing.  Whoops.  

It ended up being a really fun night and I got to know a whole different group of people on our trip.  Good timez in Sevilla.

WT Tip #16:  Peanut butter is a staple in any diet, American or Mediterranean.  It's well worth the 4 Euro investment.

Granadaaaaaa

THURSDAY

I had to skip a couple of days because they all blended together - in summary we took our tests, ate Spanish food, and laid on the beach.  I'm sure I explored some of the city too.  Rough life.

We left at 10:00 this morning to go to Granada.  The bus ride was pretty long – we didn’t end up getting there until 4:00 because for some reason buses in Spain feel like it’s necessary to stop for 30 minutes every other hour.  I think they just need smoking breaks since 90% of Espanoles are chain smokers (for the record, that's an exaggeration and a stereotype.  But I'm saying it anyways).  Our hotel was REALLY nice, and rumor was it that there was a delicious breakfast too.  One point for Labarca.  We had a couple hours to walk around the city once we got there, so I went with a bigger group and we walked to the top of the city and got lost in the side streets – again, it’s my favorite way to explore a city.  Granada was really cute and I feel like there was a ton of personality in the town.  The city itself is busy, but not too busy to the point where I felt like I was in the middle of New York.  There's a lot of Arab influence towards the top of the city, and it's really easy to feel like you're on the outskirts even if you're only 5 minutes away from the center.  Most of the houses have some type of roof garden or decoration on the porches that add personality and make the city a really nice place to be.  Plus, there's an INCREDIBLE view from the top. 

We met for another Flamenco show at 8 – it ended up being in the same area we'd spent the afternoon exploring.  The show was a lot more intimate – it was a much smaller room and the dancers performed in the middle of our circle of chairs instead of on a stage in front of us.  Shivani had to move after she got sprayed with sweat from one of the dancers, but other than that it was a good experience.  This time felt a lot less like a performance and more like friends getting together to dance.  There were two parts of the show – the first part had younger dancers and the second group of dancers were older women.  An old woman came out and we were all SO EXCITED to see her dance because we figured since she was old and had a lot of experience she was going to blow all the other girls out of the water.  But I forgot that her joints were probably too fragile to do that, so she just danced with the hand clapper things and it was very anti climactic.  Another part of this show that was different was that there were male dancers.  They were really good and moved their feet super fast, but I was distracted the whole time by their 2 inch long pinky fingernails that grossed me out a ton.  

After Flamenco we took a walking tour with the male version of Labarca.  Seriously, this guy was a combination of Angela and Miller Templeton.  He was across the street with another tour group when we saw him, and when he called across the street we thought it was just another random guy that Angela knew and who we happened to run into.   Turns out we had actually scheduled a tour with him, and he walked us around the old city at night and told us stories of the history.  We ended on top of the city in front of an INCREDIBLE view of Granada. He kept trying to tell jokes, but he was speaking in Spanish so not many people understood them, or no one was listening.  It was funny/slightly awkward because I think he thought we didn’t have much personality.   He an Labarca kept each other entertained though.

We got back to our hotel around 11:30 - I was STARVING (go figure) and wanted to go get some of the free tapas (appetizers) that Granada is famous for.  By the time we had all gotten ready and left, it was already 1 and when we asked people on the streets where we could find free tapas they just looked at us like we were crazy and were like... it's 1 a.m.  Tapas are closed.  Just when I thought we had finally adapted to the Spanish schedule...

We eventually found the only restaurant that was open at 1, ate and went out for the night.  Nightlife in Granada was a lot of fun because there were a ton of students our age studying in the University or in the surrounding area.  We finally got to go to our first Discoteca - turns out the other half of the group had wound up in the same place we were, so we all got to dance together and it was a TON of fun.  

WT Tip #15: Make sure you know what time free tapas ends.

"Dance The Night Away" - Sevillian style

MONDAY... who knows what the date was.  Long time no blog.

When we finally got back to our piso after class on Monday, we were EXHAUSTED.  It was good to see Papi and Pepa though!  We walked in and Pepa was like “I thought you guys had decided to stay in Barcelona forever!”  (in Spanish).  So Emily and I passed out for a little and then the group had a Sevillian dancing class.  Sevillian dancing is SO different.  It’s a whole lot of moving your arms and your wrists and then just stepping back and forth and turning (yeah… that sounds like most dancing.  But it’s different I promise).  The beat is weird, and even though I have no rhythm I still couldn't figure out how to move to this one.   Little did I know I would actually end up using what I learned later that weekend....

The class lasted about 2 hours, and then the rest of the night was dedicated to preparing for the test (a.k.a. memorizing as many random words as you can).  Our teacher said we were going to have to know all 17 of the comunidades autonomas (Spain is split into 17 different “autonomous communities”, each with their own capitals and health care policies, but it’s all underneath the universal one).  So I made note cards brought them on running on the beach (I had to motivate myself somehow... I didn't want to run OR study.  But combining them actually made them both more interesting).  I made rhymes and acronyms and talked to myself for 45 minutes – I’m sure people thought "Stupid American" when I passed them.  BUT it worked and I memorized everything I needed to.

Example:  Never Run After Comiendo Vaca

Navarra – Pamplona (bulls)

La Rioja – Logroño (it just rolls of the tounge – you have to say them together)

Aragón (like Eragon the dragon book) – Zaragoza

Cataluña – Barcelona (duh)

La comunidad valenciana – Valencia (another duh)

Now you know the northeast autonomous communities in Spain.  Salud.

WT Tip #14:  Exercise + studying = good life.

The Palacio Real... in Barcelona?

Another day of walking for the Honey Badgers (sorry that sounds really dumb.  It’s the easiest way to refer to the group without saying the group.  Because that sounds cliquey).  We checked out of our hostel at 10:00 and went to print our boarding passes.  Everyone printed theirs, but when I went to check in, the agency we used to book flights hadn’t reserved my flight “home”.  I called the airline and asked for someone who spoke English, and the guys told me that the English specialist wouldn’t be there for another hour.  I hung up, but then I realized that I hadn’t solved the problem of getting home.  I called back and decided I would figure it out in Spanish.  It didn’t end up being too bad and somehow we managed to get a correct flight home.  We took our bags looked at the map we had of Barcelona to try to figure out what we could do.  The map had highlighted some of the important places in the city, and we decided that “Estacio Sants” looked cool, and it was in a part of the city we hadn’t been to yet.  I thought it was the soccer stadium or something.   When we got off, we realized that we had taken the Metro to the biggest bus station in Barcelona.  It was funny but it had also been kind of a long trip (the train randomly switched directions and it took us two stops to realize we were back where we started) and we were tired, so we stopped at a sub place and got sandwiches (Pans – it was expensive but absolutely delicious).  We ended up walking around for the rest of the day – we found a cartel? (we don’t really know.  It was a pretty building with a fence) and a country club and a university.  We thought we were headed towards a castle until we asked the lady at the country club where the Palacio Real was, and she just looked at us like we were idiots (the Palacio Real is in Madrid).  We showed her the map where we had seen some kind of indication of a palace, but she had no idea what we were talking about.  We decided that the lady who lived 15 minutes away from the location was just ignorant and didn’t know she lived next to a castle and proceeded to go find it.  Instead we came across the soccer stadium, which was actually really cool.  It’s crazy that their soccer stadiums are as big as our college football stadiums.  One day I’m coming to a game…

We finally gave up on the search for the non-existent palace (guess we should listen to the natives when it comes to important monuments) and we stopped at a coffee shop at the university to rest and get some water.  It made me want to be a student in Spain SO badly.  It was just like a caribou coffee and they were studying and talking and hanging out and I sooooo wanted to be a part of it.   I figured out that I hate sticking out, and one of the reasons it bothers me so much that people automatically speak English to me is that it blatantly tells me that I don’t belong.  So I want to be able to surprise people with my fluency and be like “Boo you.  I’m blonde and American and I can understand you AND respond in your language”.  In summary  - I absolutely loved the feeling of pretending like I was a student at the university and I’d really like to look into doing a solo study abroad. 

Today was also the day that the metro stations within a mile radius of the university were all conveniently closed for construction, so we had walk the 45 minutes back to the Estacio Sants bus station to get to the airport.

Our flight back home was delayed by about 45 minutes, but we were still scheduled to land at 9:30, which gave us plenty of time to get to the bus station before our 10:45 bus from Sevilla back to Cadiz (Drew had looked up the times online the night before).  We landed and had to wait in line for about 10 minutes for a bus to the bus station.  When we got to the bus station, we walked in and everything looked pretty abandoned.  We walked up to the window to buy our ticket, only to find that it was closed and that the last train for Cadiz had left at 10:00.  It was 10:04.  We laughed a little, Blake took a picture (typical) and we headed towards the train station to see if we could get a ticket home through that.  It was about a 20 minute walk, and when we got to the station I went to the window and asked the lady if there were any trains going back to Cadiz.  She just looked up and slowly shook her head and said that the last bus had left at 9:45.  Ohhh Spain.

 SO we ended up stuck in Sevilla for the night.  It was SO FUNNY and I was so excited because I’ve always wanted to have a legit story like that.  We went to the closest hotel to try to find a room, but it was too nice and was too expensive for our world traveling college student selves.  So we asked if she knew of any cheaper places (again, classy American college student question).  She actually was really nice and directed us to the city center and said that we’d be able to find somewhere to stay there.  We trekked our way (it was about an hour walk), and at this point we weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere.  Thankfully, the excitement of the situation distracted me from the weight of my backpack and the developing blisters on my feet.  Everything in the city was lit up and the church in the center looked beautiful, and there were also a ton of people walking around (and lots of tourists from all over the place so it made us feel even more legit that we had our backpacks as we were pasando through the city). 

After stopping at 3 different hostels that were booked, we decided we would take the next thing we saw.  Turns out it’s a 4 star hotel called Hotel Ingleterra, but at this point we were desperate.  I guess the guy at the front desk saw the look on Drew and I’s face when he told us it was gonna be 200 euros for a 2 person bedroom, because when we asked him if he knew of anything cheaper and told him our story he was SUPER helpful.   He looked up several different hostels and ended up finding us a deal for 20 euros/person.  Turns out his best friend’s name was Marny and she was from South Carolina (we found that out afterward… thank you).  And even though we didn’t tip him we thanked him profusely –it was a HUGE blessing that we found him.  The hostel we went to was great and it was 4 people to a room which was exactly what we needed.  And we got a welcome drink.  When we walked into our room, we were all so relieved and exhausted and collapsed on the bed, and we were all ranting about how nice the guy at the hotel had been and how nice the hostel was.  Blake sits up and goes “I hate to be negative Nancy, but does this place have air conditioning?”  (turns out it did, we just didn’t see it until the next morning).  We also didn’t have sheets on our beds, but I didn’t care at all. 

 We were starving, but the only place open at 1 in the morning and serving food was a kebob place.  We brought our food (and HUMMUS!) and sat in the plaza next to the beautiful church and enjoyed being in Sevilla…  another perfect ending to an awesome, adventurous weekend.

We woke up the next morning at 6, caught the 7:00 bus, got back to Cadiz at 7:30, picked up breakfast and went to class.  Mission accomplished.

Highlight: Getting stuck.  And getting to write two WT tips because I feel like it was a worthy day of it.

WT Tip #12:  When you go to big cities, try to have at least a plan of what you want to see.  It’s nice to see a city in the non touristy way, but in order to avoid walking around aimlessly for 3 days sometimes you have to have a plan.

WT Tip #13:  Complaining doesn’t solve anything.  Laughing, on the other hand, can turn an inconvenient situation into an incredible memory.