Last Week

Monday and Tuesday were spent doing laundry and studying for our midterm which we found out was moved up a day. All of us were pretty nervous about the exams.

Wednesday: Wednesday was the big day. We had a study session in the morning after breakfast, then we all returned to our rooms to study more. At 5PM, the moment of truth had arrived, and I am proud to say I can successfully tell the Flamenco Palos apart. :D After the exam, my roommate Charlene and I decided to go next door for some celebratory gelato. I got a combination of dark chocolate and turron (it basically tastes like sugar cookies) and it was amazing together. After gelato, we decided to take a siesta before meeting up with the professor for our private flamenco party. The party was a lot of fun. The musicians were very talented and by the end everyone was laughing and dancing.

Thursday: After a late night watching the flamenco artists we all got up an hour earlier than usual to head to the train station with our professor to meet up with Luis and Mario for our day excursion to Jerez. It was a pretty short train ride, and most of us slept during it. When we got to Jerez, the weather was wonderful, which was bad seeing as it was only 9AM... we all knew it was going to be MUCH hotter as the day progressed. The first thing we did when we arrived was find a cafe to get coffee at. Then we went to the Flamenco Research Center and watched some old Flamenco films before heading off to the winery. We were given a tour of the place and watched a creepy video about the "magic spirits" of Cadiz" before heading off to get lunch. Or shall I say marathon of feasting. We ended up spending 4 hours at lunch. They served drinks, tapas, and 2 main courses! It was sooo much food. We left just in time to catch the train back to Cadiz to get ready for Jueves Flamencos, a flamenco festival in Cadiz. It goes from 10:30PM-1:30AM and by the end of it, all of us wanted nothing more to go back to our rock hard mattresses and sleep.

Friday: Friday morning, Laura, Charlene, Marie and Sebastian left for Portugal. Michelle, Alice, Denny, and I decided to take a trip to Corte Ingles, a GINORMOUS department store. It seriously was the biggest department store I've ever seen. Friday night, Keiri, Joel, Denny, Alice, Michelle, Eduardo and I went out to the Mexican Restaurant to celebrate Michelle's birthday at midnight.

Saturday: Saturday Michelle, Alice and Joel left for Morocco and Eduardo, Denny, Matt, Keiri and I decided to go for a walk around Cadiz. We ended up going to the gardens where we saw a really neat waterfall thing with a bridge and a cave-like area below the bridge. It was gorgeous. The trees there looked straight out Super Mario Bros. Then we decided to stop for some sodas because it was SOOO hot outside. While walking around, we found some boaters and we saw a few kayaks but we weren't sure where we could rent them. After talking to Eduardo about it, he said we could go to Sancti Petri and rent them there. After our walk we all rested for a few hours and watched the Office with Eduardo, who'd never seen it. He says that he understood a little bit of it, which is good, otherwise it probably would have been torture for him.

Sunday: On Sunday Matt, Keiri, Denny, and I began our adventure to Sancti Petri. We decided to bring some stuff to make sandwiches, and it was a good thing we did, because they were gone before we even left the bus station. There were a few moments of confusion as to whether getting on a bus to Chiclana would eventually take us to a bus to Sancti Petri, but we lucked out and managed to make it to Sancti Petri! When we got there we saw a lot of kayakers, boaters, and jet skiers. We were intrigued by the idea of going jet skiing, but apparently they only sell them, not rent them, so we opted to stick to our original plan and went kayaking.The kayak teams started off as Keiri and I and Matt with Denny. But Keiri and Denny are both afraid of the ocean, so Matt decided to switch with Keiri. So the teams were Matt and me and Denny with Keiri. Matt decided to challenge Denny to a race back to the house thing, which was a bad idea, seeing as Denny was on the rowing team in high school and Matt doesn't do much rowing at all. :P It was a lot of though. After we finished, we took pictures with the kayaks and with Javi (a really awesome guy who works there) and made our way to the bus stop. The bus for Chiclana was supposed to be there at 5:40PM, but buses here run on Spanish time, and it made it there about 5:58PM. Once in Chiclana, we had some time to kill before catching the bus to Cadiz, so we stopped at a place for some tapas and watched a bullfight on TV before catching the bus at 7. We decided to go out for Mexican once we'd all showered. After dinner we met up in Keiri's room and managed to fit four people in one of those tiny beds to watch The Office. A while later Eduardo decided to join us. He decided after a while that we needed to suffer as bad as he was so he brought down his computer and we all watched "Muchachada Nui", which is basically a Spanish version of MADtv. It was pretty hilarious. After that we went out with a few guys in our residencia who were from Barcelona to do research for our group project before calling it a night and going to sleep.