Cadiz
Leslie and I arrived back in Madrid early Sunday morning, April 24, and from there we took a train south to Cadiz. Cadiz (which all the locals pronounce Cadith, although I don't) is a small beach town located near the southern tip of Spain on the Strait of Gibraltar. It was absolutely lovely there; there was hardly a cloud in the sky during the entire three days of our stay. Palm trees lined the roads, and all of the buildings were painted in shades of white, yellow, and peach, faded by the intense sunlight.
Our hostel there was like something out of a movie-a really cheesy teen movie in which everything is exaggerated in order to create humor. None of the rooms inside had locks on the doors, and there was only one bathroom with one shower per floor; around 15 people were expected to share it. (Actually, the bathroom situation didn't turn out to be a huge problem, as I think Leslie and I may have been among the only guests who showered on a regular basis.) We walked in to the hostel to find the front desk abandoned. Luckily, we ran into Hannah, a nice guest from Edinburgh, who informed us that the girl on duty was at that moment hanging out on the roof terrace. The girl in question turned out to be Julia, an Australian girl about our age who seemed to be in charge running the entire hostel. Whether she actually owned it or not never became clear, but it did seem that she lived there with her boyfriend, who I think was English, and their dred-ed dog Che. The only other employee of the hostel we ever saw was an Australian guy who was supposedly in charge of watching the reception desk at night. All he actually did was sit up on the roof terrace with several of the guests and get drunk. While we were there, the hostel was undergoing a renovation of all its water pipes, and Pierre, an anarchist French plumber, was also a fixture around the place. He even hung out with the owners and the regular guests at night.
When I say regular guests, I really mean regular. It seems a ton of people backpacking around Europe with no set itinerary showed up at this hostel, decided it was the closest they'd ever come to heaven on earth, and hadn't yet convinced themselves to leave. They mostly spent their days sleeping and laying around and their nights out on the hostel's roof terrace drinking and smoking. Hannah, the Scottish girl, had been there two weeks. There was also a couple from San Diego who'd been there quite a while; they seemed very nice. Matt, a real weirdo, had apparently been invited to a wedding somewhere in Asia. He'd decided it was the perfect opportunity to quite his job in Detroit and backpack around Europe until it was time for the wedding. It seems he'd made it as far as Cadiz and stopped. The funniest guest of all was Juan, a 50-something scientist who had supposedly been living at the hostel for 2 years! The story Leslie and I heard about Juan from the other guests was that he'd invented this amazing windmill, and he'd been trying to sell it to NASA. They said the Chinese government was actually very interested in buying it, but wanted him to change its name. Juan had christened the windmill Abraham Lincoln, because, as he put it, "It's a well-known name." Apparently, Juan had had dealings with many foreign governments who'd refused to look at his windmill until he changed its name. He'd get very upset when talking about one of these countries and he'd repeatedly slap the picture of said country on a world map which hung in the hostel lobby. Leslie and I never personally saw this happen, mind you, I'm just relating the story as it was related to us. The two of us met a couple of other interesting characters who were passing through Cadiz at the same time as us. One was a poser surf guy from Seattle with whom we were forced to have a brief conversation. Luckily we got away before the urge to shoot ourselves in our heads became too strong. There was also a guy named Sean from South Dakota. He seemed nice but was very odd. He reportedly spent a whole day going around Cadiz with Juan, although he spoke no Spanish and Juan spoke no English.
When I first arrived in the hostel, I tohught I was going to hate it, if for no other reason than for the fact that the doors wouldn't lock. As it turned out, though, I really enjoyed it, and I didn't feel at all unsafe. (There was a lock on the door to the outside, so people couldn't just come roaming in off the street.) It was definitely an experience.
After we checked into our hostel late Sunday afternoon, Leslie and I headed to the beach, where I laid out and Leslie went for a jog. By the time we returned to take a shower that evening, we were the ultimate Euro-trash. We hadn't been able to shower in 48 hours, we'd been to the each twice, been soaked in a downpour in Portugal, and slept on a train. We'd also been drinking a ton of coffee, smoking cigarettes, and drinking alcohol every night we weren't on the train. That evening, we had dinner and sangria at a tapas place, where we discovered the amazing Spanish olives mentioned in the "Madrid" entry. We happened to see a group of women order them as an appetizer, and we asked for some. They were enormous and so tasty! They became a staple of our diet for the rest of our stay in Spain. I loved the tapas in Spain too. What could be better than small bites of lots of different delicious dishes, all for very little money? After dinner, we wet up to the roof terrace of our hostel, where the majority of the guests were hanging out. We talked to them some and made fun of them a lot, in normal Leslie-and-me fashion.
The next day we were the first customers at Burger King, but don't think this means we gt up early. Burger King didn't open until 11. After our brunch, we spent the day on the beach. The beach in Cadiz was more like the Gulf Coast beaches than any of the other beaches Leslie and I visited. The sand there was fine, if a bit more yellow than Gulf Coast sand, and the beach stretched out for several kilometers in either direction. That afternoon at the grocery we discovered Don Simone, a wonderful cheap wine that actually comes in a carton. We ate at a different tapas place that night, then went back to the roof terrace and drank some of our Don Simone.
On Tuesday we were the first customers at Burger King for the second day in a row. We went to the beach for a while, but we were both a little burned, so we left and spent the afternoon wandering around the town. That night, on our night train to Barcelona, we shared our couchette with a 50-something Spanish woman. She insisted on trying to carry on a conversation with us in Spanish, despite the fact that Leslie's Spanish skills are minimal and mine are non-existent. After a couple of hours of failed conversation attempts (which did nothing to deter this woman), our train stopped in Seville, and another lady boarded who claimed she was also assigned to our couchette. Technically, the couchette slept four people, but when couchettes are completely full, they're kind of miserable because they're so cramped. There's nowhere to put your stuff. So, our lady argued with the new lady, saying there were only supposed to be three people in our couchette. Sure enough, upon inspection of her ticket, the new lady was assigned to a different car. Unfortunately, a train employee brought her back, saying she was going to stay in our couchette anyway. Once again, our lady made a huge fuss, but eventually the train employee won, and we were stuck with the new lady in our couchette. Before too long, though, the two Spanish ladies were fast friends, and Leslie and I could relax and speak in English to each other.
One other interesting thing to mention is that the mullet seems to be the official haircut of the Iberian Peninsula. It's the most popular haircut for men, woman, and children all over Spain and Portugal. In Cadiz, the mohawk-mullet was especially popular.
Our hostel there was like something out of a movie-a really cheesy teen movie in which everything is exaggerated in order to create humor. None of the rooms inside had locks on the doors, and there was only one bathroom with one shower per floor; around 15 people were expected to share it. (Actually, the bathroom situation didn't turn out to be a huge problem, as I think Leslie and I may have been among the only guests who showered on a regular basis.) We walked in to the hostel to find the front desk abandoned. Luckily, we ran into Hannah, a nice guest from Edinburgh, who informed us that the girl on duty was at that moment hanging out on the roof terrace. The girl in question turned out to be Julia, an Australian girl about our age who seemed to be in charge running the entire hostel. Whether she actually owned it or not never became clear, but it did seem that she lived there with her boyfriend, who I think was English, and their dred-ed dog Che. The only other employee of the hostel we ever saw was an Australian guy who was supposedly in charge of watching the reception desk at night. All he actually did was sit up on the roof terrace with several of the guests and get drunk. While we were there, the hostel was undergoing a renovation of all its water pipes, and Pierre, an anarchist French plumber, was also a fixture around the place. He even hung out with the owners and the regular guests at night.
When I say regular guests, I really mean regular. It seems a ton of people backpacking around Europe with no set itinerary showed up at this hostel, decided it was the closest they'd ever come to heaven on earth, and hadn't yet convinced themselves to leave. They mostly spent their days sleeping and laying around and their nights out on the hostel's roof terrace drinking and smoking. Hannah, the Scottish girl, had been there two weeks. There was also a couple from San Diego who'd been there quite a while; they seemed very nice. Matt, a real weirdo, had apparently been invited to a wedding somewhere in Asia. He'd decided it was the perfect opportunity to quite his job in Detroit and backpack around Europe until it was time for the wedding. It seems he'd made it as far as Cadiz and stopped. The funniest guest of all was Juan, a 50-something scientist who had supposedly been living at the hostel for 2 years! The story Leslie and I heard about Juan from the other guests was that he'd invented this amazing windmill, and he'd been trying to sell it to NASA. They said the Chinese government was actually very interested in buying it, but wanted him to change its name. Juan had christened the windmill Abraham Lincoln, because, as he put it, "It's a well-known name." Apparently, Juan had had dealings with many foreign governments who'd refused to look at his windmill until he changed its name. He'd get very upset when talking about one of these countries and he'd repeatedly slap the picture of said country on a world map which hung in the hostel lobby. Leslie and I never personally saw this happen, mind you, I'm just relating the story as it was related to us. The two of us met a couple of other interesting characters who were passing through Cadiz at the same time as us. One was a poser surf guy from Seattle with whom we were forced to have a brief conversation. Luckily we got away before the urge to shoot ourselves in our heads became too strong. There was also a guy named Sean from South Dakota. He seemed nice but was very odd. He reportedly spent a whole day going around Cadiz with Juan, although he spoke no Spanish and Juan spoke no English.
When I first arrived in the hostel, I tohught I was going to hate it, if for no other reason than for the fact that the doors wouldn't lock. As it turned out, though, I really enjoyed it, and I didn't feel at all unsafe. (There was a lock on the door to the outside, so people couldn't just come roaming in off the street.) It was definitely an experience.
After we checked into our hostel late Sunday afternoon, Leslie and I headed to the beach, where I laid out and Leslie went for a jog. By the time we returned to take a shower that evening, we were the ultimate Euro-trash. We hadn't been able to shower in 48 hours, we'd been to the each twice, been soaked in a downpour in Portugal, and slept on a train. We'd also been drinking a ton of coffee, smoking cigarettes, and drinking alcohol every night we weren't on the train. That evening, we had dinner and sangria at a tapas place, where we discovered the amazing Spanish olives mentioned in the "Madrid" entry. We happened to see a group of women order them as an appetizer, and we asked for some. They were enormous and so tasty! They became a staple of our diet for the rest of our stay in Spain. I loved the tapas in Spain too. What could be better than small bites of lots of different delicious dishes, all for very little money? After dinner, we wet up to the roof terrace of our hostel, where the majority of the guests were hanging out. We talked to them some and made fun of them a lot, in normal Leslie-and-me fashion.
The next day we were the first customers at Burger King, but don't think this means we gt up early. Burger King didn't open until 11. After our brunch, we spent the day on the beach. The beach in Cadiz was more like the Gulf Coast beaches than any of the other beaches Leslie and I visited. The sand there was fine, if a bit more yellow than Gulf Coast sand, and the beach stretched out for several kilometers in either direction. That afternoon at the grocery we discovered Don Simone, a wonderful cheap wine that actually comes in a carton. We ate at a different tapas place that night, then went back to the roof terrace and drank some of our Don Simone.
On Tuesday we were the first customers at Burger King for the second day in a row. We went to the beach for a while, but we were both a little burned, so we left and spent the afternoon wandering around the town. That night, on our night train to Barcelona, we shared our couchette with a 50-something Spanish woman. She insisted on trying to carry on a conversation with us in Spanish, despite the fact that Leslie's Spanish skills are minimal and mine are non-existent. After a couple of hours of failed conversation attempts (which did nothing to deter this woman), our train stopped in Seville, and another lady boarded who claimed she was also assigned to our couchette. Technically, the couchette slept four people, but when couchettes are completely full, they're kind of miserable because they're so cramped. There's nowhere to put your stuff. So, our lady argued with the new lady, saying there were only supposed to be three people in our couchette. Sure enough, upon inspection of her ticket, the new lady was assigned to a different car. Unfortunately, a train employee brought her back, saying she was going to stay in our couchette anyway. Once again, our lady made a huge fuss, but eventually the train employee won, and we were stuck with the new lady in our couchette. Before too long, though, the two Spanish ladies were fast friends, and Leslie and I could relax and speak in English to each other.
One other interesting thing to mention is that the mullet seems to be the official haircut of the Iberian Peninsula. It's the most popular haircut for men, woman, and children all over Spain and Portugal. In Cadiz, the mohawk-mullet was especially popular.