Just take a cab, its like 5 pesos...

Alright Spain. This is gonna be a long one. Feel free to do it in parts.
Our first day in Espana was glooooorious. Dana and I woke up to a view of the sun rising over the pier in Cadiz, and were immediately energized for the first time in ehhh two weeks? Seriously have not been so happy to be up before noon in I can’t remember how long. I tried jumping on the bed but that resulted in me hitting my head on the abnormally low ceiling so we celebrated with obnoxiously loud music instead- (a little Spanish techno and some MGMT needless to say). To get off the ship in this port we didn’t have to meet with customs officials personally, which in some places they will want to see us with our passports, we just had to wait in line and swipe our cards on the way out. Since everyone was getting off about the same time we still had to wait in like for probably 40 minutes, I’ve also never been so happy to wait in a line before. The port in Cadiz was only a two minute walk from the center of town, and we didn’t have plans the first day so we just walked around with a small group of people. We had breakfast/lunch at a little café and enjoyed a different selection of food finally, paella, chocolate con churros, big glasses of sangria, pizza, and spaghetti. We spent most of the day just walking around and enjoying being outside on solid ground and finally getting into the actual travelling. The weather was gorgeous, probably in the 60s and with the sun shining it was warm and comfortable. Cadiz is a really neat city, its has the feel of small intimate old European towns but has modern areas too, and everyone was so nice. Within the first half hour of being out in the city I was reminded of how fun Spain and just the Spanish in general are, people were just so outgoing and generous it was hard not to be in a great mood the whole time. Dana even commented on my uncharacteristically long lasting good mood on our way back to the ship in the afternoon when I waved and shouted hello to a passing stranger in a semi, but I should really give a tad bit of credit to our mid afternoon cervecas for that one.
That evening we had signed up for Andalucian flamenco night, an SAS trip. It was about a 30 minute bus ride to an old traditional Spanish ranch where we watched a few different flamenco performances in a small bull ring and a demonstration bull fight with a calf. They served tapas and sangria after and had more flamenco dancing, it was pretty neat and I liked the location so it was just so adorably Spanish but the whole event wasn’t that special, can’t say we got that into it. But still a neat experience. We went to meet some friends in the New City to go out and walked along Playa Victoria just looking for anywhere to go, we ended up in a bar that was modeled as an old sunken pirate ship . . . I was just entirely too intrigued by the skeletons in pirate hats outside to not go in. But anyway we went to a club after that then back to the ship to sleep, but only after we made our cab driver take us to every possible pizza place in a 15 mile radius trying to find one open at 2:30. No dice. But we did get a high speed ride through the tiniest allies possible so that was a nice adventure.
It was up bright and early again the next day for our next SAS trip into Ronda and Arcos, two white towns in the mountains about two hours away. Once again despite the early hour and slightly rainy weather I couldn’t help being in a good mood. We went to Arcos first, right up in mountains overlooking the green green green valleys and towns below. It was a bit of a hike up the slippery cobblestone streets, but the resulting view was breathtaking. Really never seen any views like the ones from these two towns, I wish I could upload pictures. Madeline, the view in Arcos reminded me exactly of the beginning of that old Disney tape we had of Jack and the Bean stalk, you know in the opening scene before the magic harp gets stolen? Just like that. Anywayyyyy we did a tour around the town, spent some time in the two local churches St. Peters (which was home to two mummies of random martyrs that were a gift from the Vatican- maybe we could ask for one for home decorating mom? Prop it up in the living room where the Christmas tree was?) and St. Marys, and had a little free time which Dana and I spent sliding back down the cobblestone streets looking for a pastry shop and creepily taking pictures of adorable Spanish children . . . ok that was me but Dana encouraged it. Seriously every single child we saw in spain was abnormally adorable. But anyway success on the pastry search then it was another hour ride to Ronda. Ronda was a favorite of Hemingway, and I know he wrote about it in one of his books but I forget with one- a little help on that one from anyone who has actually read his books?? We switched tour guides there to a local, this adorable man who had a great mix of Spanish and Scottish accent, I think he said he was fluent in 10 languages. But he gave us a really thorough and interesting tour, so much interesting information I don’t think I can even begin to relate it here. Ronda is sooo old and has Moorish, Spanish, and Celtic origins and you can see the different influences all over its really really neat. The old Cathedral we went to was huge and literally half was built by Moorish settlers then half fell down in an earthquake or sumin so they rebuilt in the Renaissance and all the different settlers in different periods rebuilt or added onto it so its just a mixture of different cultures it was cool/creepy. The view in Ronda was even better, its not only built in the mountains but also right into a huge cliff- the bridge we stopped at was a 330 foot drop but on the other side the drop was 660ft. It made my legs shake to even stand near the railing and there was a brief moment where my glasses almost slid off my face into the deep abyss below. The middle of the bridge was used as a prison up until the early 1900s I think he said, only way out is straight down into the gorge below, I’d have to say much harder to escape from than Alcatraz. I asked our tour guide if anyone ever jumped over the bridge and he said there are always a few people during tax season . . . I think he was joking but he did say a every once in while someone does jump. We also toured another bigger bullring and Don Boscos house, whose garden had another insane view of the valleys below. I really felt like I was in Italy the whole time, I don’t know why but even later when we went to Seville it just felt like Italy I had to keep reminding myself we were in Spain. Made me think of grandpa and great grandma Gasbarre.
After that tour of those towns I have to say, mom and dad, couldn’t you have picked somewhere a little more exciting than St. Louis to raise me??? Seriously even the plants in Arcos were cooler. I picked out some summer homes though, don’t worry. Pretty much every neat house, building, church, or palace we went to in spain Dana and I tried to buy, but considering we only had about 70 Euros between us we didn’t get very far.
Right, so then it was back to the ship that evening and right to bed because for some reason, Dana and I booked a 6:45 train ticket to Seville the next day? Totally over ambitious. But we miraculously got up before the sun and made it through the extreme morning fog to the train station, about 8 minutes before the train took off. That thing was right on time. We slept the whole two hour ride, and when we woke up we weren’t really sure where we were or where we were even going to get off, so we just picked a popular looking station and got off there. We were planning on meeting Mallory later that evening, so we just thought we’d do sightseeing all day, but we didn’t make any plans at all. This is the first time I’ve ever traveled with no predetermined anything, we had no idea where we were, where we wanted to go, how to get there, or where we were staying. There was a moment or two of panic and a little confusion on why we thought it would be a good idea to get to Seville at 845 considering most Spanish don’t even wake up til 10, but we sat down in a café and got out the blackberry, did a little wikitravelling, hopped in a cab towards some more touristy areas and started walking. We wandered through the Jewish quarter Santa Cruz and made it to …. Ok we are experiencing a mini earthquake of some kind on the ship brb. Right we must be sitting right on top of the engines or something. Uh anyway so we walked to the Cathedral and decided the best way to knock out the major sites would be a horse drawn carriage ride. So we did that and he took us to the Plaza De Espana, where Star Wars II Attack of the Clones was filled, along the river, through Maria Luisa Park, and some other cool buildings and monuments that we aren’t really sure what they are cus our tour was in Spanish and like I said, we did minimal research for this. But it was pretty cool anway, I would love to go back in the spring and summer when the park is in bloom and all that. It was pretty cloudy and chilly when we were there. We had lunch in an amazing bakery café thing that served food and had cheese and wine and meat and crackers and delicious pastries and candy and anything you could ever desire and proceeded to haunt my dreams for the next three hours during our siesta. I was really starting to feel those early morning by the afternoon in Seville, we were exhausted but pretty happy we had survived and found our way around and gotten a decent hotel. So we slept, and got back up and went out in search of champagne, cheese and bread, which we celebrated with in our room while getting ready for dinner with Ali and Mallory!! They are studying with CIE in Seville, and came down to meet us and we had familiar food: nachos, chicken fingers, and French fries, and drinks. We met another new friend, our hobbit-like bartender who called himself little john and played Britney spears when we asked for spice girls, but we forgave him that one. We went to a few more bars with some of Mallory and Alis friends and people in their program, it was WONDERFUL to see them, I was sad we only had one night, and Dana and I were really really exhausted so we didn’t last too long. We had to head back to Cadiz the next day in the morning- we were due back on the ship at 6 and had to allow a few hours to possibly wait in line. We were exhausted, I was sick, and just ready to crash. So we managed to get a quick small lunch back in Cadiz and made a valiant effort at uploading photos/blogging with the free internet by the ship we found, but no such luck, it did not work. So I went back to the ship at about 3 and managed to avoid any lines, but Dana said she was in line for about 45 minutes, and that was still way early. Slept all afternoon well into the evening until our friends came banging on the door- they did a SAS Seville, Cordoba, Grenada, trip- got some great pictures.
I think the hardest thing in Spain was actually just the language difference, of all the times I’ve traveled I don’t know if I wasn’t aware of it or was just always with people who did the brunt of the work or knew the local languages, but I felt as though people in Spain this time spoke much less English than I had encountered on past trips. Dana studied Spanish in highschool and even a little in college and some of the people we were with spoke well enough to get around, but when we were out with just us two we spent a lot of time staring blankly at people and did most of our communication through sign language. Made us a little nervous for the rest of the countries, because the language barrier is only going to be worse for the most part here on out.
So now it is Sunday afternoon and we are back on the ship, which is sad but its only for one day, we get to Morocco tomorrow. We don’t have any classes today, well we had global studies this morning to learn about some of the history of morocco and we have a few more meetings to prepare us. I have lots of homework and journaling to do for classes, its going to be a busy next couple of weeks. We are anchored outside of Gibraltar right now, waiting to bunker (fuel up). It is great to finally be traveling, can’t believe we are out of Spain already and will be in and out of Morocco before we know it. Can’t say how happy I am to have an experience like this, the reality of it finally started to hit a little when we were in spain. Dana and I kept saying in Seville we couldn’t believe anyone would ever just turn us loose in these countries, but thanks for doing that! ☺ I will try to break up the blogging more in and between countries so there are no more of these multiple page posts. Thanks to everyone who made it through the whole thing!!!
I could write a novel with the things I learned and am grateful for I’ll try to include a few later. I should probably move on to real homework now, something I have not done once yet on this trip. Hopefully somewhere in Morocco we will get better free internet and can find out some sort of system for photos. Stay tuned friends and family. Miss everyone 150%