September 6 2010 / Cadiz, Spain

I woke up laaaaate today.  I don’t even think I heard Ellie get up, though I can vaguely remember slapping around on my bedside table when her alarm was going off (she did the Grazalema hike today.  I helpfully told her to not wear flipflops).  Because I had nothing planned, today I decided to walk over to the Catedral, where there is free wifi, to check my other emails.  So I wandered off to go and do just that.  Within minutes I was sweating intensely, of course.  I fried the back of my neck yesterday, so it was definitely hard to be sporting a backpack today—I can only imagine what it’s going to be like tomorrow when we travel to Seville.  Walking by a café, I heard all of these people singing, so I stopped to watch what was going on.  It looked like this huge crowd was singing to a small table of people, though they didn’t look particularly embarrassed or anything.  I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but it was really cool seeing everyone sing in this very sharp way.  I wish I had gotten some of it on film. 

I went into a tobacco shop and bought two 5 euro phone cards, which only equates to something like 6 international minutes or something, it was ridiculous.  Anyway, I went to the Catedral and sat down on the stone steps and fiddled around with the internet, but no matter what I did I couldn’t figure out how to get it to work, as the only thing on there that said CATEDRAL had a password, which didn’t make sense.  I looked around and saw a woman with a laptop, who was student-aged and white, so it seemed like a pretty good chance that she was from SAS, so I wandered over and said “Hablas anglais?” which I’m not even sure is correct.  But she did hablas anglais, and though she wasn’t a SAS student, she was a german exchange student who was having equal difficulty. 

After a while I just gave up and decided to wander around for a while, waiting for it to get late enough in the day so I could call my parents.  Even the tourist help desk I went to had no idea what the card I had was for, so I felt kind of out of luck until I ran into Caroline, who was also wandering around looking for wifi (the Catedral area apparently ).  Because I was feeling pretty frustrated and a little lonely at this point, I went with her until we found the square where there was supposed to be working internet.  It didn’t work, but I ninjaed someone else’s insecure wifi (thanks Thompson, whoever you are).  It was a lot more of a hassle than it was worth, and eventually I gave up and called mom and dad (apparently you have to dial 00 first to get it to be international!), expecting it to be 8an there—it was six!  I felt really bad, but I was so excited to  be talking to them again. I really miss them.  :(  I told them all about my hike (sans appropriate footwear) and they told me about how home life was going.  I forgot to ask about the pups!  But I told them about how awesome Spain is so far and how the food is lovely and how I’m being quite adventurous.

After that I headed back to the ship for dinner.  I started writing some of my postcards, and then when Ellie came back from her hike she told me that she and some other people were going to go out and get dinner and go shopping, with sounded lovely.  It was Ellie, me, Martha, Tate, Twin, and two other girls whose names I am blanking on right now.  We walked out to the cathedral and spending waaaay too much time in the little tourist trap shops, haha.  Martha and I walked into a shop for only about a minute and came out again to find everyone GONE—we looked everywhere but couldn’t find them!  Finally we just decided that we would blaze our own trail, and wandered around until we found a little tapas bar near the port where we got sangria.  I ordered some a meatball tapa and an open sandwich that had goat cheese, caramelized onions, and this very thick, almost spicy balsamic sauce.  It was incredible.  If you know anything about me, you know that I love bread, cheese, and onions IMMENSELY.  I was as happy as I could be (especially after the zesty sangria).  Martha and I talked about boyfriends and high school experiences for a while before heading back to the ship.  I stopped off late when I saw a Telefonica and decided to call up James with my other phone card.  It was nice hearing his voice again—I’ve really missed him.  The apartment sounds like it’s running smoothly.  This day basically made up for its lonely parts just by talking to my parents and to James for just a little bit. 

Then I got on the ship and have been just catching up, and am about to pack for Seville.  I won’t be blogging until Wednesday, because I won’t have my computer with me, but I’m very excited to go—I hear it’s very artistic, which I’m hoping for because Cadiz had NO art galleries!  I’ve also heard good things about their nightlife, so that’ll be fun as well.  :)

In less fun news, I think I left my malaria pills at home.  I’m really freaked out and don’t know what to do except go into the health clinic tomorrow morning and explain my predicament.  Ellie says that she’s pretty sure they give out pills there, they’re just really expensive, which is really nerve-wracking.  =/  I guess I’ll have to wait until mom gets back to me on whether or not they’re still in my bathroom cabinet…  Mostly I just feel like a moron, because that was something I was constantly thinking about, and I should have double checked that they were in the bag…