Beach weekend!

With Tara (my roommate)

My first weekend out of Badajoz was great.  We had an extended weekend (Friday off) so we went to Cádiz..a cute beach town in the south of Spain.  It didn't take us very long to get there.  We had to stop in Sevilla to switch buses, which was great because Sevilla is impressive.  We were welcomed with beautiful weather and even better sights.  The town was filled with the usual here in Spain, hidden streets that make you feel as if every one that you end up on should be another great picture to remember.  They are all so clean, breathtaking and each have their own variety of small shops.  I could wander the streets of Spain forever! The shops are endless, the people live out in the streets and everything has so much culture and history. We took advantage of our hostel because it offered a pub crawl that included drinks and stops to several bars.  Our host was Mike, a Cadiz resident but Chicago native.  He told us that we would spend 30 minutes at every bar..which was an understatement.  If you haven't heard by now, the Spaniards party..and they party hard.  Long story short, our pub crawl went until 5:30 in the morning!! Which WE ended before the club even shut down.  The parties go until the sun comes up, I don't know how these people do it. It was a good thing that we had the entire next day free to sleep on the beach :)


Cadiz beach- photos from my roommate Tara

Cadiz by night was also fantastic.  Like I mentioned before, the Spaniards LIVE outside and are always outside socializing, eating, drinking, playing in the streets.  It is such a great atmosphere to be around because generally the people are extremely friendly.  Cadiz was also filled with a lot of tourists, something that we weren't use to seeing in Badajoz.  It was great though, there were moments where I felt that every English speaker was my new best friend just because it is rare to have English speakers in my town.  I met a lot of people from all over the world (which is why hostels are so great).  Polish, Germans, a girl from Argentina, Canadians, etc.  My roommates and I enjoy going out to dinner and trying new foods.  What we usually do is order small dishes called tapas.  They are very cheap and a great way to try a little bit of everything.  They usually range from 1-3 euros a piece...and not to mention cheap wine and beer is also a plus!

Yummy mojitos- our first bar during the pub crawl

How can you not love this!

                                                                       Cadiz by night



I'd say that our trip was relaxing but also a test of how this whole traveling stuff works.  We thought we had everything sorted out and we were surprised to be thrown a curve ball.  We bought round-trip tickets with an open return back to Badajoz. So on the day of our return, we took our time enjoying the city and arrived to the bus station to find out that we were suppoesd to get there early to reserve our ticket times even though they were already purchased.  Turns out that we missed the bus we needed to get to Sevilla.  Since we missed that bus, we weren't going to get into Badajoz that night.  It all worked out to where we stayed in Sevilla in another awesome hostel and enjoyed another night of tapas and meeting other world travelers.  Note to self: Always verify your ticket times! It wasn't that big of a deal because Tara and I have Mondays off, Craig works at night, and Michelle asked for the day off to complete our residency paperwork. 

All photos by Tara! Our professional photographer :)

Stay tuned to future posts about what it takes to do this teaching program (paperwork, bank accounts, finding an apartment, etc.) as well as cultural comparisons between Spain and back home.