6 Days in Spain!

Ibiza, Barcelona, Sevilla, Gibraltar, and Cadiz!

Day 1: On the morning we arrived we got to sleep in a little because
we weren't meeting our group until 1030. There was a group of 30 of us
that all signed up for a trip through a company called Global
Citizens. When we were all together on the 5ht floor dining room we
debarked the ship together. Our tour guide Carlos was standing outside
the ship with our bus waiting for us! We all got on the ship and
headed off the airport in Malaga, about three hours away from our ship
in Cadiz. We all got onto our RyanAir flight where there was what
seemed like a million other SAS kids on as well. We all slept through
most of the flight and arrived in Ibiza. When we landed the whole
plane started cheering! We found our next bus with our tour guide and
took the 20min ride to the hotel. We got to the hotel around 5pm and
all got our room keys, of course Dylan and I were roommates. We
dropped off our bags and left to go explore. We wandered around for a
bit then realized we should change into our bathing suits and sit on
the beach for a bit. So we ran back to the hotel, changed, and then
walked down the beach behind our hotel. A couple hotels down there was
a huge party of some kind so we walked in. It was really warm out so
we each got a slushie drink to walk around with. We then carried on
walking down the beach and ran into friends on our trip at a nearby
beach bar. We sat with them and chatted about how excited we were to
finally be in Ibiza! After a while we were getting hungry so we headed
back to the hotel. After having a fiasco with using some of Dylans
hair products gone wrong we finally finished getting ready. We headed
over to our friends hotel room (Ian and Stew) to have a drink before
going out. We bought tickets to go to one of the most famous clubs on
the island, but since Europeans don't go out until much later than the
US we had some time to kill. After hanging out with a group of SAS
friends we left the hotel. We all walked over to the club (called
Space) around 1130pm. When we got inside we all ended up getting split
up so my friend Stew and I just sat at the bar chatting for a while
and danced. The club was really big so it was pretty impossible to
find any of our friends. After a couple hours I was a bit tired of
dancing so I headed over to a bar across the street from our hotel.
After hanging out there for a while my friend and I walked down to the
beach. There were a bunch of paddle boats on the beach that had slides
connected to them so we played on those for a while (re-living our
childhoods). After all that it was very late so I headed back to my
hotel to get some much needed sleep.


Day 2: Since both Dylan and I got home really late (he got back to the
hotel just before I did) We slept in until just after noon. We rolled
ourselves out of bed and grabbed some breakfast across the street. The
beach behind our hotel was really crowded and not very nice, so we
asked the front desk of our hotel of any recommendations of other
beaches in the area. He told us to go to Salinas Beach. So Dylan and I
caught a cab and headed over there. It was about a 15-20minute ride
over to Salinas. We didn't have any towels with us so we decided to
just walk down the beach and see what we find. As we were walking we
started to notice the amount of nudity on the beach. There was a very
big range of people of the beach, some very naked, and some completely
clothed. We walked down the whole beach (only about a quarter of a
mile) and it turned into a rocky coast. We kept walking and somehow
ended up in some sort of forest. The longer we walked into the forest
the more lost we felt but we would randomly see people so we knew we
couldn't be too far off the beaten path. After about an hour or so of
walking through the forest we found our way back to the beach. By that
time we were both starving so we looked for a restaurant in our price
range (cheap). All the restaurants on the beach were really expensive
so we walked down a random path and found a cute little patio
restaurant. I ordered a Spanish omelet…and then found out that Spanish
omelets are different when you are actually in Spain. It was basically
an omlet with a lot of potatoes cooked into it, more potatoes than
eggs actually, but I was really hungry and it was still really
delicious. We were both pretty tired from the sun and our big meals so
we caught a cab back to hotel and napped for a bit. Our hotel had
dinner included with our rooms so after our nap we went downstairs and
ate some dinner at the buffet with a bunch of other SAS kids. We got
ready for the night and went and downstairs because we could hear
really loud music coming from the lobby. Once we got downstairs we
realized the loud music was coming from a Michael Jackson tribute show
so we took a seat in the audience. After about 2 minutes of watching
this show I realized it was the worst seen thing I had ever seen. They
were dancing and lip-syncing and were just completely awful at both. A
few of out friends (Katie and Kyle) came over and joined us to watch
the monstrosity going on on stage. At midnight we met up with the
whole SAS group and headed over to the club Pacha where DJ Tiesto was
playing (the huge incentive for this trip was a ticket into the Tiesto
show!) Once we were all there we caught a bunch of cabs to the club.
Almost right when we walked in we saw some friends who weren't on our
organized trip but made it to Ibiza on their own. A girl we know spent
a lot (a lot a lot a lot ) of money on a VIP table for the show so she
got four of my friends to go sit up at her table. After dancing for a
while on the dance floor we headed up to the VIP section. We hung out
there dancing and taking lots of pictures (of course) until about 4am
when I was getting very tired. (The lack of sleep from the night
before was not doing me well) I headed back to the hotel and happily
went to sleep.

Day 3: I woke up to my alarm go off at 9am and found 2 of my other
friends who slept in our hotel room. I wrestled them awake and sent
them off to their own hotel because Dylan and I had about 15 minutes
to be ready in the lobby to meet with our tour guide and group to
catch our flight to Barcelona. We made it down there, and surprisingly
everyone in the 30 person group was on time, regardless of all of our
very late nights. We hopped on our bus and headed off to the Ibiza
airport. The group was split into 2 different flights about 30minutes
apart so we all split up. My friend Kyle and I saw at the Burger King
in the airport half asleep until our flights gate number came up on
the screen and then walked over and sat half asleep at our gate. Both
flights got delayed 30minutes so after a while the whole group of SAS
kids were sporadically laying throughout the airport. Eventually our
flight arrived and we got on and all fell asleep before we took off.
The flight was just under and hour (so our naps were short) and
luckily our tour guide was on our flight so we all sat in baggage
claim waiting for the other flight of kids to get in. After waiting
for close to an hour we figured out their flight landed at a different
terminal. So my group got on the bus with Carlos the tour guide and
headed over to the other terminal. Carlos eventually found them but
when the other group got on the bus they were a bit (a lot) grouchy
from waiting for so long. Once we were all on the bus we headed off to
our hotel in Barcelona! I slept the whole bus ride so I can't exactly
tell you how long it was…but less then an hour! The hotel was really
nice and was on a long street of long buildings but before you walked
into the lobby of the hotel you would have no idea how big it was
inside. I was amazed at how huge and nice it was. Once we checked in
to our hotel Dylan and I were starving so we wandered down the street
to find some food. A couple blocks down on the corner we found a nice
tapas restaurant and since it was such a sunny day out we decided to
sit outside. We ordered a lot of tapas (croquettes, Greek salad,
meatballs, some sort of delicious ham) and happily ate all of them.
After we were very full we headed back to the hotel. Everyone else was
using this time to nap, so we followed the crowd and decided to take a
short nap. Well that short nap turned into 3 hours because neither of
our alarms went off. We were supposed to meet up with our tour guide
at 730, but when I woke up it was 745. In a frantic state I ran out to
our balcony and luckily our room was right above the entrance and
everyone was just leaving the hotel for a small walking tour. So I
yelled down for them to wait 2minutes and Dylan and I frantically made
ourselves look decent (decent might be a strong word here, I hadn't
showered yet…) and ran downstairs to meet with the group. As a group
we walked over to the subway and bought metro tickets for the night.
We took the metro over to see La Sagrada Familia cathedral. The
architecture of the cathedral was absolutely amazing. The outside of
the cathedral was all lit up and looked very beautiful. Then we walked
over to the other side of the area and saw the old hospital that
resembled a castle almost. It is no longer a functioning hospital but
the building was still really amazing. We all wandered around for a
bit (avoiding a small protest/rally going on) and then headed back to
the metro. We walked back to the hotel but a few of us were pretty
hungry so we left again to find some good food nearby. We found a
restaurant that looked good after walking around for about 15min and
we all ordered different pizza-like things. They were all delicious.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel, used some of the free WiFi
(free WiFi is a hot commodity in our lives now) and then headed off to
sleep (also watched some BBC News because it was the only English
channel and I don't remember the last time I had real tv)

Day 4: The next morning the plan was to meet at 930 in the lobby to
head off to the airport. I guess one girl (we'll call her blondie) in
our group complained that we wouldn't make it to the airport in time
and chewed out our tour guide about it (while 3 other girls left at
830 in a cab to the airport…our flight was at 1040). So our tour guide
called everyone at 845 saying we were now leaving at 9. Well when he
called I was still laying in bed with my belonging strewn across the
room. In a frantic 15 minutes I managed to get all ready and down in
the lobby in time (but unfortunately didn't have time to eat
breakfast, my favorite meal of the day). A couple kids didn't get the
memo for leaving at 9 so we ended up waiting for them for about 15
minutes and then we found out one girl went out to breakfast without
the 9am memo and was expected to be back until 930 when she thought we
were leaving. Bascially the morning turned dramatic really fast. Then
as blondie was throwing a small fit and my tour guide was stuck
between a rock and a hard place he ushered everyone onto the bus and
said he would sit back and wait for the girl out to breakfast and then
cab it to the airport with her. So we get on the bus and blondie is
just going on and on about how we are going to miss our flight and we
start driving about 3minutes when the bus stops and we see our tour
guide and the missing girl come sprinting up to the bus and get on.
Now that we are all accounted for (and now its after 930 because of
all the hysterics, so really this made us later than originally
planned) we head off to the airport. We get to our terminal, get our
boarding passes stamped, and head off to security, with blondie
leading the way, of course. Once we get through security we all go to
look at the tv monitor to see which gate we should be running to…when
we realize the gate number isn't even up yet because we are still so
early…at this point I was very unhappy with little blondie…and I think
everyone else was too. We did have time to grab some breakfast though
(which might I add was delicious) and then we all boarded our flight.
I slept through the flight again; sleeping on planes has become a
specialty of mine. Then we got to Sevilla and hopped on the bus
waiting for us. The bus dropped us off near the city center of
Sevilla. Our tour guide was born and raised and still livs in Sevilla
so he was very excited to show us around his hometown. He walked us
over to the Plaza de España which consists of really gorgeous
government buildings. Then we walked through the city and ended at a
tapas restaurant. The restaurant was not expecting 18 (loud, annoying,
non-spanish speaking) kids so needless to say they were not excited
about us. We all ordered and ate (praying they hadn't spit in our food…
slight exaggeration, but they were really not happy with us) and the
food was delicious (the ones I ordered were delicious at least, a few
others were slightly more questionable). After the food (and splitting
the check 18 ways…) we all had about 3 hours to wander by ourselves
before we had to meet back up with the bus. My friends and I had seen
a awesome little gelato place on the walk over to the restaurant so we
retraced our steps and found it again. We all enjoyed our gelato the
steps of the cathedral. The cathedral had already closed for the day
so we moved on. We saw a line of people outside another building (a
line obviously means something inside has got to be interesting) so we
walked up to see what it was. The building was the Reales Alcázares
de Sevilla, a royal palace that was originally a Moorish fort and is
now the oldest royal palace still in use. It was only 2euro with our
student cards so we paid and walked inside. This palace was HUGE and
beautiful. There was a million different rooms and gardens all with
amazing architecture. We stayed in there for almost 2 hours (got lost
inside for while as well). Then once we found the exit we realized we
needed to hurry over to the bus so we wouldn't be left behind. After
looking at a couple maps we found the bus and hopped on. Once everyone
was accounted for we started our 3 ½ hour bus ride back to the ship in
Cadiz. I attempted to sleep for most of the ride but the seats were
super uncomfortable so I ended up just staring out the window for a
couple hours. Once we got back to the ship I was exhausted so I
decided to make some chicken noodle soup (luckily I brought some
little 3minute soups on board with me in Halifax!) and went to bed.

Day 5: Gibraltar!! I woke up at 8 and ate breakfast with a group of
friends, all of which had plans for the day and all of them had been
to Gibraltar earlier in the week raving about how cool it was. So
Dylan and I decided we should go to Gibraltar for the day since we had
zero plans and Cadiz doesn't have a whole lot to do in it. The bus
station was about an 8min walk from the ship and there was one bus to
and from Gibraltar each day, so if you didn't get on this bus, you
were suck. We heard people were already buying up the bus tickets in
advance so we decided we should probably go buy ours before they sell
out. So we quickly left the ship and headed to the bus station…in the
pouring rain. And when I say pouring rain, I mean poouurrriinnggggg
rain. We finally made it through Niagara Falls to the bus stations,
got our tickets and headed back out into the Falls back to the ship.
By the time I made it back to my cabin it looked like I had gone
swimming fully clothed. I hung up my sopping wet clothes, changed into
dry ones and then headed back to the gangway. The ship crew was in the
middle of a practice emergency plan so no one was allowed to exit or
enter the ship so we all just sat in the hallway waiting for them to
finish. Finally they finished their drill and we headed over to the
bus station, luckily the monsoon had lightened up a bit so the walk
was much easier this time around. I slept on and off (of course) on
the two hour bus ride to the border of Spain and Gibraltar. (if you
don't know, because I didn't know a week ago, Gibraltar is a British
territory at the end of the Iberian Peninsula) We walked across the
border but to get to the city you have to literally cross a live
airport runway. It is a small airport that doesn't get too much
business, but it was still very weird to just casually walk across a
huge runway. We decided to walk around Gibraltar with a few people we
sat near on the bus who had the same sort of plans as us…as in no
plans at all. So the group was Dylan, Isiaah, Jaques, Brett and this
other girl that I don't know the name of, and I. Isiaah, Jaques, and
Brett are all RD's (kind of like RA's where they are the students go-
to person depending on where your cabin is located on the ship if we
were to have any questions, but all of the RD's on the ship are
extremely over-qualified and are really fun) As we got into town we
decided it would be a good idea to grab some food now because who
knows where we are going to end up. So we wandered down a side street
and found this tiny door where a man and his wife were cooking food.
It was Moroccan food and none of us knew what to order so the man
cooking basically just made us some food and none of us knew what we
ordered, this may have been the best meal decision I have made on this
trip. We all ended up with (amazingly seasoned and marinated) Moroccan
steak (or 2 people got chicken) and cheese in a baguette. After the
first two bites all of us couldn't stop raving about how delicious our
sandwiches were, all talking with our mouths full of course because we
couldn't get enough of these delectable baguettes. We walked and ate
our sandwiches until we came up with a plan to ride the cable car
(tiny gondola) up to near to the top of the Gibraltar rock. On the
walk to the cable car we got approached by what felt like a million
taxi drivers selling us their 'amazing' tours around the rock, but
since we had about 7 hours until our bus left back to the boat, we
decided we could do it all on our own for wayyyy cheaper. We rode the
tiny cable car up the mountain and got an amazing view of the water
and the whole rock and we could even see Africa in the distance,
though it was pretty foggy out so we could barely make it out. Now I
knew Gibraltar was known for the monkeys on the rock but I didn't
really know what to expect with these monkeys, and I don't think
anyone did because right as we left the cable car station there was a
monkey sitting on the wall with its baby, just hanging out. So of
course all of us are like OMGZZ TAKE A PICTURE WITH ME AND THE MONKEY
but all of us are too afraid to get too close to it. Little did we
know there were a hundred other monkeys about 20steps from us. So we
all stared at this one monkey for a solid amount of time until we
decided to move on, and then felt ridiculous because it was wild
monkeys galore! They were everywhere just hanging out, doing monkey
things. There was a little old abandoned house looking thing that all
the monkeys were on so we walked to the top of it a took probably
close to a gazillion pictures of the monkeys. They were so cool and
just kind of ignored us for the most part. After the monkey photo
shoot we carried on along a road to see where it took us, stopping
every couple minutes to stare at some more monkeys. Then at one point
I guess most of us were staring too long because Brett and Jaques
carried on walking and we couldn't see them anymore. So we came to the
fork in the road and had to blindly guess which path they took, and
for some reason the winning path was a straight uphill climb to the
top of the rock. (this extreme uphill was obviously not my choice, I
chose the road that was flat/downhill) so we started hiking…and hiking…
and hiking. Until we get to a gate (all of us panting at this point)
and behind the gate is the 100ft canon and the actual top of the rock
where (on non-foggy days, unlike today) you can see a view of the
whole area. So we turned around and walked back down this 90degree
hike back to the fork in the road, and this time we took by original
guess of the flat/downhill road. At the end of this road there was a
cave and a little bar/restaurant/souvenir shop. Our cable car tickets
got us into the cave for free so we headed inside. The cave was huge
and amazing. There were little pathways all over it, and one side of
it has been turned into a concert hall! As I was standing on the stage
imagining me performing on this concert hall (oh wait…I don't have any
sort of talent) we found Brett and Jaques in the cave! So we all
banned together again and after exploring the whole cave, we carried
on down the rock. Our next stop was the WWII tunnels. We walked into
one and it had signs explaining what every part of the tunnel was and
fake canons where real ones used to be. The canons were set up in the
tunnel with just a hole on the wall of the tunnel that would have shot
out into the ocean. The tunnels were really cool! After that we
decided we should figure out how to get down the rock back to the city
so we had plenty of time to catch our bus. The walk down was very
steep, I don't know how people driver down these steep windy roads,
definitely some of the craziest roads I have ever seen. The entire
walk down I was afraid my ankles were going to give out on my at any
second. (if you are unaware, I have ankle issues) and I was not
wearing my ankles braces, living life on the edge! Haha. But we
eventually made it back to the city center, both ankles still intact,
and bought some postcards and magnets and did the touristy thing. It
was dinner time now and since all of us were still talking about our
delicious Moroccan sandwiches we walked back to the Moroccan place to
get another. As we walked up the cook was outside smoking and his
whole door was all closed up. He saw our disappointed faces and then
told us he ran out of food! He only makes a certain amount everyday so
he never has left-overs and he just works until he runs out of food.
We were all very sad but told him how delicious his food was and then
carried on to find something sub-par to our lunch. Isiaah, Dylan and I
were very hungry while everyone else wasn't too bad so they carried
on while the 3 of us stopped at a place to get some pizza. We all had
huge meals (Dylan finishing his with a gigantic piece of apple pie…)
and this realized we were cutting a little close on time and had to
get back to the bus station. For some reason we all thought the bus
station about 2minutes away…until we realized we were lost. So we
started running…in the wrong direction. We eventually asked a local
and he explained how far we were, but ironically we were standing
right outside a taxi station so we ran up the steps and got a taxi.
The taxi can only take us to the border, but that was still far enough
because we could sprint the rest. We ran through the border (literally
sprinted past the border agents…I'm sure that didn't look suspicious)
and made it to the bus station…and the bus hadn't even shown up yet…
great. So we had about 10minutes to kill and then the bus finally
showed up and we all boarded and slept the whole way back to the Cadiz
bus station. We walked back to the ship from the bus station and I was
exhausted from all of our hiking/walking/monkey staring so I went
straight to bed!

Day 6: On the last day in Spain I had a field lab scheduled for my
anthropology class 'Reading Images Culturally'. Our field lab was
supposed to be in Morocco, but since that port was cancelled, they
quickly put together this field lab in Cadiz. The lab was a walking
tour through the whole city of Cadiz, with our tour guide, a lady
named MaryAnn. MaryAnn knew everything you possibly could about Cadiz.
We saw most of the cathedrals of the city, some of the archeological
sites, and learned about the history of Cadiz. We also got to go into
the fish market, which was really crazy but really cool at the same
time! Then we headed off to the tallest tower in Cadiz and climbed to
the top. (my legs were so sore from Gibraltar the day before, so these
200 stairs up the tower were not my favorite). At the top of the tower
we could see all of Cadiz, it was a stunning view, especially because
it was a beautiful sunny day. We could even see our ship! Then one of
the women who works in the tower showed us the 'camera obscura'. This
thing was so incredibly cool. The camera obscura is a giant reflection
on this big round white canvas where we can literally see the entire
city of Cadiz. We can see people walking along the street miles away
from us, birds flying, people sitting on their balconies (kinda
creepy, but really cool). We could see everything happening in the
whole city. So she showed us around the city for a while and then it
was time to head out and get back to our tour. By this time my whole
class was starving so our excitement for everything had exponentially
decreased. After about another 45min of walking we finally made it to
the last part of our field lab, a fancy tapas restaurant! We all sat
down and the tour guide had a pre-set meal plan for us so the waitors
just started bringing out mass amount of tapas to the table. There was
salad, and pork, and fried fish (legitimate entire fish, faces and
all) and a million others. I loved the salad, liked the pork, tried
the fried shark, and was scared of the fishes with faces on them.
After a long enjoyable meal our lab was over anf we were free to leave
and spend the last couple hours before we left Cadiz on our own. So I
went back to the ship to drop off my bag, called Dylans room (of
course) and he was in there napping, so I woke him up and made him
come buy souvenirs with me. We each bought our usual postcard an
magnet and then went real shopping in the clothes stores…I bought a
few pieces of clothing that were obviously necessities…Then we decided
to wander back in the direction of the ship, not before stopping to
get some decilous gelato though. Once we got back to the ship I had
planned on napped until we were going to leave the port, but then they
announced everyone to go to the back decks to take a group picture! So
I got up, and put on my bright coloured hat (so I would be able to
point myself out in the picture) and headed to the back. After being
out there for a while smiling and waving for a hundred pictures we all
headed back inside and then I took a nap. Later that night we hung
out on Deck 7 at the back all catching up on eachothers trips and
things, but we all went to bed pretty early, 6 days in Spain really
wore us all out!!



After I post this blog I am going to post just some pictures from
Spain because I email these posts in (because I ran out of internet on
the ship) but my emails are only allowed to be so big. So I am just
going to do separate posts with pictures in them!