Long Overdue

Hi Everyone, I have had more adventures since Easter, but I´ve been really uninspired in my blog writing so I kept puting it off. Now, I better just get writing or once experience just roles over into another, and I´ll end up forgetting everything.

At the beginning of May, I went with my friends, Tiffany and Emily, to the south of Spain for a long weekend. We rented a car and took off towards Cádiz, but, being a zillion hour drive, we needed a break so we spent the afternoon in Sevilla, and they just happened to be having their Flamenco Fairs that weekend. When we arrived, we walked around the old town and saw the cathedral (of course we did because this is Spain and city is not a city worth seeing if there isn´t an old cathedral :). As we walked around, there were tons of girls in flamenco dresses and we were just not getting it. We couldn´t understand how someone could look at themselves in those costumes and this they were the best option of things to wear. Well, that was until we actually went and observed the culture at the fair. It was incredible! We met up with one of Emily´s friends, an American who loves flamenco, and we watched the people clap and dance for hours and hours. I could have stayed all night. I just felt like I understood so much about people and cultures in general after watching something as simple as a bunch of Sevillana´s getting together to clap and dance. I worked on my clapping skills, and lets just say, it´ll take me years to perfect. Before going, I never liked to hear Sevillana music, but now I look forward to hearing a song here and there.
We drove off to Cádiz, and arrived at our hostal late that night. On Sunday, we rented bikes from the hostal and spent the day cruising the port city and just relaxing and eating some good food. One of the dishes we had was deep-fried little squids. It was not what we were expecting to get at all, but it turned out to be a good experience and pretty tasting. It was a little creepy though if you looked into their eyes too long before you ate it.  As we spent more time at the hostal, we got to know the characters around the joint.  They were some of the most weird, fun, hospitable and just outside-the-norm people I´ve ever met all smashed into one place. My favorite was Nacho. He was very stereotypically from Andalusia, and he just never stopped cracking jokes. We didn´t quite know what to think at first, but by the end of the trip we were won over by this craziness.

On Monday, we drove to the most southern point in Spain, Tarifa, and hopped on a ferry to AFRICA! We went to the Moroccan city of Tangier just for the day. After fighting through the sea-sickness for an hour or so we landed and started to explore the city. Let´s just say, I have never been more culture shocked in my life. I felt incredibly uncomfortable with the looks we were given by about every single person we passed. Emily, Tiffany, and I kept a very open conversation about our feelings, but it was not making me feel any better. I just had a steady, nervous sweat going for the first three hours or so. We found a little cafe with Moroccan tea overlooking the ocean, and it was the most incredible tea ever and super sugary.  It cost about 50 cents and we quickly learned how rich we were in that country. I asked for the bathroom after we finished out tea and just started laughing when I walked in. I guess I should have seen it coming, but I didn´t. It was a hole in the ground, literally. But, if any of you know how often I have to use the bathroom, I just sucked it up and made due. We went exploring the old city and testing out different baked goods and breads which were all incredible.  When we stopped for lunch, the people were so excited to have us they literally gave us enough food for about 6 people and we were only 3. I couldn´t walk at a normal pace for awhile after that. We explored all the markets and things around town. I loved seeing the huge piles of spices, but what I didn´t love so much was the meat and fish market. It was the most disgusting things ever.  There were just heads and random body parts hanging everywhere and smelling awful. But, again, it was a good experience. By the end of the day, we were ready to be back on Spanish soil, but I think everyone was happy to have been there and explored.
The last two days we spent on the beach which was not as awesome as we could have hoped for, but we made the most of it. We ended up eating dinner at the hostel one night, and we couldn´t have ended up with more funny stories after sharing the meal with two German guys, a British girl, and an Australian guy. I´m not sure if I´ve ever laughed more in my entire life. One of the German guys told us it would be his birthday at midnight so we all asked how to say Happy Birthday in German. Well after saying it all night and singing in an awful German-English version of the Happy Birthday song, we found out that what we´d been saying was actually, ¨We are truffels.¨ Feeling really dumb, but taking the joke well, we all asked each other why the Germans would tell us to say something so meaningless if you could have a bunch of dopey English speakers saying anything in your language. We never got the chance to ask because they´d already left the hostal by the time we figured it out.



It was great to get out for a weekend and enjoy another part of Spain. My weeks have been winding down here which is bitter sweet because I know I have a lot of Spanish left to learn, but I miss my States and niece so much that I need to get back. I can understand Spanish fluently, but I don´t have the opportunity to speak enough to consider myself fluent. I have the vocab; I just lack the necessity to speak it because everyone speaks English in my job situations.  Within a few days, I will post another blog to tell about this past weekend in Asturias, a province in Northern Spain. Until then... :)