SPANISH ADVENTURES

We are currently refueling in the harbor next to the Strait of Gibraltar in between Spain and Morocco, very cool! I was just told by my friend Tim with dreadlocks that has become a constant fixture in Carol and my room, and who writes on our white board outside our room, 3 times a day, that the Strait of Gibraltar is really United Kingdom territory, so technically we are in the UK right now! We left Spain last night at 11 pm from the port of Cadiz. SPAIN WAS AMAZING!

We docked at 8 am on Wednesday, June 24 and spent the day exploring Cádiz. We meandered around the edge of the town along the waterfront for a while before we headed into town. We went to get a café con leche, and a bocadillo (sandwich) in a little plaza right next to the marina and then wandered the narrow streets of Cádiz for a while until we reached the Cathedral de Cádiz. It was very pretty and across the street from the ocean. Cádiz is actually on a peninsula so the town is surrounded on 3 sides by water. We went into the Cathedral and looked around and then went down under the alter to see the tombs of some notable and influential people of Cádiz, we didn’t really know who they were but it was cool nonetheless. We heard that you could climb the bell tower of the church and it had the BEST views of the city so we climbed to the top, it was a steep climb and used ramps instead of stairs, but when we finally made it the views were AWESOME! I took a ton of pictures; we had a 360° view of the whole town and could see how it was indeed surrounded by water on most sides. There was a panoramic view of the city that was numbered and played what the sights were on a recorded loop so it was cool to listen to that and identify the parts of the town.

After that we went to this museum called the Yacimiento Arqueologico, Casa del Obispo that preserved an old bishops house that was inhabited by the Romans, Muslims, and Spanish throughout history. The whole house was preserved and as we walked through the rooms the floors were glass bottomed and we could see the aqueducts and old parts of the house through the floor, it was very neat! According to the brochure “the visitor will have a direct experience of the evolution of the city from the 8th century BC to the 19th century.” The house was a place of worship for many civilizations, a Phoenician funeral complex and in Roman times it was dedicated to the worships of the gods Apollo, Aesculapius, and Hgyia. When the Muslims arrived in Spain, it was used to summon the citizens to prayer. In the 16th century, Bishop Garcia de Haro converted it to an Episcopal residence.

After that we walked around some more and kind of stumbled upon the Cádiz fish and produce market, it was tented and had rows of stalls of people selling their fresh produce, we walked through all the rows and looked at all the goods, then we walked through the Plaza de las Flores, basically a ton of flower stalls with lots of fresh flowers for sale, it smelled GREAT!! After that we walked along the waterfront to the beach and had lunch at this little beach bar, I had a tortilla Espanola bocadillo, which is eggs+potatos on a French baguette, it was pretty good! We drank some sangria and met up with some of our new friends, 3 guys from California that are Fijis from SMU, and a bunch of kids from Colorado that go to CU Boulder. We camped out on the beach with all the locals for the afternoon and laid out and swam, the water was gorgeous and not very cold! It was a fun afternoon, then we walked back to the ship and Camille got us a little lost. We ended up circumnavigating the whole town of Cadiz and 45 min later the MV Explorer and the marina was in sight! I think we ended up walking around the entire perimeter of the town before the day was through hahah oh well.

We got back to the ship at like 8, showered and got ready for dinner. Clark made us reservations at this little restaurant in the historic district, and I ate a GREATTTT steak, with potatoes, and tomatoes and drank some good white wine. We watched the US/Spain soccer game and were happy when the US won!!! After dinner our group of like 15 wandered the streets trying to find a bar to settle at, because in Spain the clubs don’t get going until like 3 AM or so. We went to a little local bar and had some drinks and sat down and talked to some locals for a while, then more Semester at Sea kids started showing up and it got REALLY crowded so after we said hi to everyone we decided to move on. Fernanda, our friend from Spain, met up with her friend Pablo who lives in Sevilla and they were at a club called Barabbas in New Cadiz which is the more residential/modern part of town, also where the beaches were, so we were trying to met up with them. We were trying to get a cab and directions to meet her, and in the process of flagging down a cab we came across a different club that looked really fun so we decided to stop in there for a little bit. Carol and I met these older Spanish men and ended up dancing with them for a while, and Hannah befriended some older Spanish ladies, that had this crazy gray hair and looked like witches, but they had a fun time dancing together. After a while we remembered that we were trying to meet up with Fernanda, so we gathered our group (Caroline, Hannah, me, Clark, Camille, +3 new Spanish friends) and got a cab to the Barabbas. It was SUCH a cool discoteca! We danced ALL night, and Pablo turned out to be pretty CUTE! I hung out with him for most of the night, next thing I know, I have literally stayed out ALL night, lost complete track of time and its 7:15 in the morning. Fernanda, Pablo and I are walk to his car, and they take me back to the ship. The port was open for the morning so Pablo could drive right up to the gangway of our ship and I said goodbye to them, ran and got my bag (which thankfully I had packed the night before) for my trip to Sevilla and headed to the Union to meet for our trip, never mind the fact I hadn’t gone to sleep yet! However, I have NO REGRETS, it was one of the craziest, most fun nights of my life!!!!!!

Now its Thursday, June 25 and we are on the bus headed to Sevilla, we get there at 9:30ish and walk around a plaza for a while to stretch our legs, I napped the whole way there so I am feeling a little better but still EXHAUSTED! We head to the Alcázar and walk around for a while, it had a very strong Muslim influence, and all of the walls are covered in very elaborate calligraphy that is made out of plaster /alabaster/marble, it was gorgeous. The ceilings were so intricate and the walls were also tiled in bright bright colors and complex patterns, it was SO PRETTY! It has been enlarged by its inhabitants every century so it was neat to see what rooms and such got added on and who built them. The Muslims also have inside gardens in their homes that have pools in the middle so that was picturesque and pretty as well! After the palace we headed to the Cathedral of Christendom, were Christopher Columbus is buried in a raised tomb supported by 4 statues of Spanish soldiers in full uniform. The Cathedral I believe is the 3rd largest in the world and the largest cathedral in the Gothic style in the world! After that we walked around the Jewish Quarter of Sevilla, and shopped around. The Jewish Quarter was made up of mostly tiny narrow streets. We had lunch at a Spanish restaurant and they served us family style, typical Spanish food. After that we went to site of the Universal Exhibition Sevilla 1992, we took a lot of pictures. On the outside of the building, there are tile mosaics for every province in Spain that depict its history, and then also a tile map of the region with the cities/towns. We walked around the Parque de Maria Luisa for a little bit then got on the bus to head to Córdoba.

It took 2 hours to get to Córdoba, and I slept the whole way there. We arrived at abt 6:30 PM at our hotel and got our roommates, they were assigned alphabetically. My roommate was Claudia, from Mexico City, who goes to school in San Diego. I met up with some new friends, Ashlea Feezel was on my trip, and her roommate Rachel Holt from TCU, and some girls from CSU (Colorado State University), and one from Pittsburgh, and one from USC, and a boy from New York. We had 2 hrs of free time before dinner so we walked around and explored the area around our hotel. We went into the Cortes de Ingles department store some other local stores. After dinner a group of people wanted to go out but I was so tired from not sleeping the night before that I decided to get some sleep because we had to be down in the lobby at 8:30 AM the next morning.

The next day we toured around Córdoba, we first went to another Alcázar that had really pretty gardens, I took some pictures but the people working there wouldn’t give us all brochures because they thought that there were too many people in our group, it was so annoying! After that we went to the Mezquita, which was originally a mosque and then converted to a Church when King Ferdinand III reconquered Córdoba in 1236, there was so much history and so many different elements of architecture that were from every period of history! The whole thing was MASSIVE, hearing all abt the city of the mosque/church we had lunch at our hotel in Córdoba and then got on the bus for another 2 hour long bus ride to Granada. We got to there at like 6:30. Granada was probably my favorite city of the trip (not counting Cadiz—I LOVEEEDD Cadiz). We stayed at a hotel that was on a hill and overlooked the city, it was on the same hill as the Alhambra. After we settled into our rooms we explored the hotel, it had a nice pool on the 3rd floor and this awesome patio dining area that had a spectacular view of the city. We decided to go into town and explore before dinner, so we walked down the hill, through this beautiful park with tall cypress trees lining the road, we were shaded from the sun and it was very cool, not hot. When we got into the city we walked around a little bit and then had tapas and drinks at a little café. There were some WEIRD gypsies that were walking around the plaza that we were in tormenting people, they were dressed in strange outfits and had painted faces. They would shoot off a cap gun and one of them would pretend to fall dead in the middle of the road and the others would come up crying and yelling and freaking out that their friend was “dead.” A woman in a pinstriped suit and a white painted face chased a poor Asian tourist around and was drooling at the mouth, and after she chased the girl away turned her attention to a little boy and made him cry too. It was so weird, and no one was doing anything about it, you would think someone would have called the police for disturbing the peace or something; I guess they don’t have those kinds of laws in Spain. When trekked back up the hill for dinner and got ready to go out. It was this girl on the trip, Caitlin’s birthday so we all wanted to check out the Granada nightlife scene to celebrate with her. We walked back down the hill and didn’t really know where we were headed and kind of just strolled around, I LOVED Granada. Everyone was out for their nightly stroll eating ice cream and just enjoying the city and weather. The city seemed more refined, sophisticated and cosmopolitan than Cordoba or Sevilla. After 30 min of wandering and not finding a bar to go to we randomly ran into these 2 American looking boys in jeans and polo’s came up to us and asked if we were lost. It turned out they were studying for the summer in the Granada and one went to Arkansas (Ryan) and the other was born in Singapore, but his parents were British, yet he went to an American school so he didn’t have an accent, and now his family lives in Trinidad & Tobago, his name was Ryan. They were very friendly and told us they wanted to show us the Cathedral, so we took a little detour and got to see the cathedral, it was lit up and really beautiful. They took us to this local bar Peo, where I drank tinto vernao (red wine + lemonade…it was SOOOOOO good) and they gave you free tapas with your drink. We met some locals and Ryan and Dan’s other friends that were studying with them came and met us. Then we headed to a chupiteria (shot bar) and this club Camboria. It was a fun night!

The next morning at 10 AM we headed out on foot for the Alhambra. My roommate Claudia ended up staying out until 5:30 AM and didn’t wake up, although I tried to wake her up 3 times before 10. She was 30 min late and since our trip was pushed forward an hour (scheduling screw up, we had to cut our last day 1 hr short to make it back to the ship on time), our tour leaders were already FAHREAKING OUT. I had to run up and wake up Claudia again, and told her everyone was waiting and really mad, and she was very unfazed by the whole situation, it was annoying and uncomfortable. Anyways, we started our tour of the Alhambra, which I found out wasn’t just a Moorish palace but actually an entire city that held 3,000 citizens and was begun in the 1240s by the first king of the Nasrids, this great citadel once comprised an entire complex of houses, schools, baths, barracks and gardens surrounded by defense towers and thick walls. We started out tour at the gardens then proceeded to the summer house for the king and his family, then we walked around the city part, saw the baths, a castle that King Ferdinand built for his wife Isabel but never finished, and finally went into the Alhambra itself at 12:30, it was very cool with all the mosaics and calligraphy. We also saw very cool views of the entire city of Granada, I took a bunch of pictures! After the tour we walked back to the hotel, ate a quick lunch, then got back the bus and headed back to Cadiz.

We got back on the ship and found out that the kids SAS trip to Barcelona had their flight delayed until 9:30, so we were supposed to leave at 8 and instead left at 11. It was ok, we just sat up on the top deck taking in the last views of Cadiz and hanging out with our friends and hearing about all their trips and stories in Spain. Clark and I played some marathon ping-pong too!

We have a test coming up on Tuesday in Global Studies and also a paper for that class due on that day too. I also have journal entries for advertising too, everyone on the boat has a ton of school work so we are probably going to be on school lock-down until we get to Italy in 3 days!

I MISS EVERYONE DEARLY AT HOME, HOPE ALL OF YOUR SUMMERS ARE GOING GREAT!!!