June 26, 2009
The smell of coffee and something baking woke me up the next morning, and just like the night before, as soon as I got up and started moving so did everyone else. After a few seconds we were all like, “Where’s Evan?!” So we jumped up and went straight to the lobby. We clearly didn’t think this through because we were all still in our pajamas, and pretty much everyone who was staying in the hostel was gathered there for breakfast. We were like, “Oh perfect.” I didn’t even have my contacts on so I wasn’t much help in locating him, but right when one girl from SAS saw us she just pointed towards the phone and said, “There he is.” I guess they could read our faces that we were looking for somebody. Haha. Later, he told us that he had gotten back to the hostel like two hours after we did, and he had just as hard of time finding the place.
We all just wanted to get back to Cádiz and the boat at that point so we packed up all of our stuff into our backpacks and stopped at the nearest café for breakfast since we had missed the complimentary meal at the hostel. It was kind of cool because you just picked things out of the bakery and ate it standing up at the bar. I was in desperate need of some Euros so I attempted to find an ATM, but the two I tried were really confusing. They asked for my phone number so I figured that wasn’t a good sign. I’d have to wait until Cádiz. Then, we took about 15 minutes to hail down a cab to take us to the train station. We hopped on a train that left pretty much right away, but this time it was a little more crowded. After about two stops we had people complaining about us being in their seats so we had to split up and ride in separate cars in our assigned seats. I utilized the time for postcard writing again.
By the time we reached Cádiz we were starving and not about to settle for ship food when paella and tapas were an option. On the route back to the ship we found a little tapas place, and luckily the waiter spoke English so he could explain what some of the foods were. There was a deal where you got a choice of small portions of like four different things, a soft drink, and a coffee for eight Euros. I got some type of eggplant pasta thing (which was really good), sausage, french fries, and chicken on a stick. Very random, but good. Oh and I had melon juice to drink which was like a combination of cantaloupe and honeydew. It was actually very tasty. After a very satisfying lunch, we managed to finally make it back to the ship. I went around and took a few pictures of the ship while there weren’t many people around, and then I took a pretty long nap and uploaded pictures to my computer. I wanted to get them all ready for uploading to Facebook because we had planned on all walking to the cathedral for free internet later that night.
While we were walking towards the cathedral we did a little more shopping, getting postcards and magnets from Cádiz. Oh and I’ve decided to collect a magnet from everywhere I go this summer. One: because they are cheap. Two: because they look cool. And three: because I can stick them on my wall on the ship because all of the walls are magnetic. They don’t let you use tape.
We hadn’t eaten dinner or tried churros in
After our nice little snack we planted ourselves on the steps of the cathedral with our laptops for some much needed internet time. The plaza had definitely come alive by this time. It was like 9:00 pm and people were everywhere. All of the sidewalk cafés were open and super busy, people were just walking around and talking in large groups, and kids were running in every direction playing soccer and jump rope. I typed with one eye on guard in case a soccer ball was going to come rushing at my head, or computer screen. I attempted to Skype with my parents again, which proved unsuccessful again…my computer must have like ultra sonic microphone devices in it because they could hear every background noise except my voice. They were hearing the wind and sirens, and I couldn’t even really hear those things and I was actually THERE.
Jessica and Amira who had come with me decided to head back to the ship because their batteries were dying so I decided to stay another half hour until mine went dead too. The walk back to the ship was a little sketchier than I thought it would be. I kinda felt like a moving target walking by myself with a backpack on. I took the long way to the boat through the busy shopping streets though so it wasn’t too bad. I thought I was golden when I reached the boat at ten till 11:00. You see in Cádiz the main gate to the port closes at 11:00pm, and if you get there any later than that you half to walk almost as far as the train station to the other gate to get in. I wasn’t about to do that by myself, but with my luck they had decided to close the gates early. I asked the guard if he would just let me in because the boat was literally right in front of me, but he said I had to go the long way like everyone else.
Luckily, three other SAS-ers were making their way to the gate too so I took the long stroll around the pier with them. On the walk we were scanning for any break in the barrier, a hole we could crawl through or a fence low enough to climb over, but that was unsuccessful. Some guys managed to climb over though; I was just too short. When we finally reached the other gate we basically had to backtrack the way we came, just on the right side of the fence this time.
When I finally reached my room Jess was just leaving to go back out to the town for coffee with Amira. So I switched out of my flip flops, rocking some tennis shoes that labeled me even further as a tourist, and headed back out with them even though I was exhausted and my feet were throbbing from walking all day. You have to take advantage of the time you have in port while you can.
Awe! I loved this one. In my Spanish class, we totally watched this video that talked about churros dipped in a chocolate sauce in those cafes. we need to make them or go to a Spanish restaurant and eat them one night!
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