Last Weeks in Spain

Wednesday: Wednesday we went over to our professor's apartment for a Mexican diner. We had steak fajitas on corn tortillas, homemade guacamole and salsa, beans, and pretty much the most amazing cake I've ever had. Luis, Carmen, and Juan joined us, for their fist ever taste of guacamole and REAL Mexican food. Everything was soooo good. Luis also brought me a few books to read on bullfighting. One was about Juan Belmonte and the other was about the first female matador.

Thursday: Thursday API set up a futbol game UCSD vs. the other API students (mostly from Texas). The UCSD team consisted of Denny (Goalie extraordinaire), Charlene, Marie, Sebastian, and Juan from API. After about an hour of playing, the UCSD team was victorious 8-5! :) After the game we all headed back to the residencia to shower and get ready for the Flamenco festival in Cadiz. The festival went from 10:30PM - 2:00AM! To say the least, we were all exhausted by the time it ended.

Friday: Friday we decided to go buy snacks for the long bus ride to Morón de la Frontera. We met up with our professor at 6PM and took a city bus to our own charter bus which we took up to the festival. On the way we stopped at a truck stop and Luis showed me the owner's large collection of bullfighting pictures and posters (including my favorite, Manolete!). Outside Denny and I made a friend with a very dirty stray dog. The poor thing looked like it had fleas and was probably pretty hungry as well.

After our stop we were back on the road for the festival. Once we'd arrived in Morón we stopped to get Tapas and some of the group got Kebabs. After our tapas, we headed to the bullring for the festival. It was so weird to be actually inside of the ring. Luis explained to me that the sand they use (which we were standing in) is very special and they make it near Morón and ship it to all of the other bullrings in the world. He put a little bit in a water bottle and gave it to me to take home.

This festival was my personal favorite. It was in honor of the 100 year anniversary of Diego del Gastor's birth. A lot of his family members performed and it was amazing to see so much talent in one family. The festival ALSO happened to be a gazpacho festival, so half way through we all got free Gazpacho! :) It was much stronger than the other gazpacho I'd had, but it was good. After the festival ended (around 3am) we all climbed back on our bus for the trip home which mostly consisted of much needed sleep. We arrived back in Cadiz around 5am, and walked back to our residencia, I'm pretty sure we all passed out pretty quickly.

Saturday/Sunday: On saturday some of our group went to Gibraltar. While there one of them had crackers stolen right out of her purse by a monkey. I decided to stay back at the residencia on Saturday and Sunday to work on my paper.

Monday: On Monday I did some last minute souvenir shopping in Cadiz. I had plans to hang out with a friend who lives in Jerez that I hadn't gotten to see, but our plans fell through as he was stuck in Madrid for the weekend.

Tuesday:On Tuesday after class we wrote our group paper and got ready for our last dinner as a group in Cadiz with the professor and Juan, Carmen and Luis from API. We went to a tapa restaurant "La Gorda de Comer" and then went out for Helado after at Juan's favorite place. It was really sad to say goodbye to Carmen, Luis, and Juan.

Wednesday: Wednesday was our last day of class. After class we all decided to pack as half the group was leaving wednesday night, and the others were leaving early Thursday morning. We also did a bit more last last minute shopping before saying goodbye to our group members.

Thursday:It is now Thursday, July 31, and I slept in a little. I regret that decision now,I missed breakfast, the only free meal I could have had today. Around 11:30AM I finished packing my things and went downstairs to say goodbye to Eduardo, one of our close Spanish friends. We traded email addresses and hugged before he had to leave with his class and I had to call a taxi to start on my next adventure. I decided to take a taxi to Jerez, because the bus left at 11:30 and I'd already missed it and another wasn't going to come until at least 3PM. So, I headed off for my hotel in Jerez by Taxi, and because I allowed the driver to stop and photocopy something on the way (which only took about 5 minutes) he gave me 12 Euro discount on the 50 Euro set rate to Jerez! I am currently sitting in my hotel room, which I am happy to say has air conditioning and outside there is a pool! I'm still a little nervous about my 17 hours of flying tomorrow. Mostly about getting up and getting a cab to the airport by 6AM.

Overall, this has been a very fun experience. I do however, wish I'd had the chance to practice my Spanish a little more. I feel that I didn't really improve much over the course of the past 5 weeks, and I intend to brush up a bit when I get home. Even if it's just reading my old high school Spanish text books.

I would also like to apologize for how few and far between these posts have been. Our internet in the residencia was not very reliable and it was difficult to say when I'd actually be able to post something.

With that said, it's been fun. Thanks to those of you who read this, as I had a lot of fun writing it. (and trying to remember just what we'd done the entire week, since there was so much always going on)

If you are interested in seeing pictures from the trip, they are posted at
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobbitishJandra/Espana

I leave you all with a quote off of one of the shirts I got:

"Lo Siento Picha, To er mundo no puede ser de Cai"


...and how sadly true that is. :P