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Hola from the Strait of Gibraltar!

I just got back to the ship from Spain last night, so I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Let me tell you about my travels this week…

Wednesday the ship docked in Cadiz, Spain so Nicole and I decided to walk around the city. Fannie pack and map in hand we ran off the ship to realize that pretty much no one in Cadiz spoke English. My Spanish is pretty rusty [and was never that good anyway…] so I just had to hope my one phrase, "yo no say" helps. We wandered around the shore, which was beautiful and ended up at a local market. We bought a kilo of cherries, which apparently is 2.2 pounds of cherries…damn that metric system. We decided to try to get some coffee at a café next door, and while walking through the market got hit on and heckled in Spanish throughout the meat and fish section. Somehow creepy old man comments are less scary when their in Spanish [and you don't understand most of them]. The coffee was amazing, and we actually met up with Judy, Robie, and Andrew from SAS so we decided to team up and find the cathedral together. The entire city is so beautiful and picturesque; I must have taken 100 pictures in the first 5 hours in Spain.

From there Nicole and I met up with Jess, Dan, Cameron, and Dan to take a train to Seville. It was only a 1:30 minute train ride, so we talked with the other SAS kids about our plans. By the time we got there, we had probably 10 people wandering around the city. However, we realized that the hotel we booked, which was attached to the Olympic Stadium, was all the way across town. We helped the other kids find their hostel and decided we should start our way to the hotel to check in. Nicole, Jess, and Dan found a cab to take to the hotel, while the three of us decided to try to find another cab. Instead we decided to walk around the city so we'd be closer to the hotel and we'd be able to experience the city. Dan then got a brilliant idea to rent bicycles, which I thought would be a fun experience. This was until I realized that I was wearing a dress and flip flops and hadn't ridden a bike since I was probably 8. Some of Dan's athletic shorts fixed one of the problems, and away we went. Apparently, I am no Lance Armstrong. I suck at bike riding [Allison I will never give you s*** again.] I'm pretty sure we got the wrong directions from locals at least twice, and I almost got hit by a bus in a tunnel. The redeeming factor is that Cameron got some amazing pictures because we rode our bikes over a cable bridge at sunset. It was beautiful, but I was trying to concentrate on not falling into traffic. By the time we got to the hotel I realized that we had been gone for 2 hours and Nicole and Jess were freaking out and when they left in the cab, they assumed we were right behind them. We only spent the one night in Seville, so we went out to dinner in the city and found a bar along the water.

The next morning we had to get to the airport for our flight to Barcelona. I got to learn all about the equipment and the planes from Dan because he used to work at an airport. Once we got out of the airport we took a bus to Las Ramblas, which is where the six of us rented an apartment. We went out bar hopping that night and went to the ice bar and a few night clubs. Ice Barcelona was amazing, everything including the bar, chairs, and cups were made of ice. We also went to the beach that night to walk around. The city gets kind of sketchy at night because of all the pick-pocketers, and at some point prostitutes tried to pick up the boys…literally grabbing at them. The funniest part was some of them were transvestites and were all about Dan. While the girls and I went into Burger King to cure a late night craving for fries, the boys were asked to buy drugs and a guy got mugged. As beautiful as the city was, I don't think I would ever want to walk around alone.

Friday we got pastries at market for breakfast and took the metro see the Picasso Museum, Sagrada Familia and Guell Park. We met up with Nicole's two friends who were exchange students in her house last summer, so her and I ended up going back to their house across town to meet their family. It was definitely a good way to experience Spanish living first hand. After that we met up with Colby, Austin, Thomas, Brittney, Jenny, and Sara who were staying in the Gotic quarter. We got ready to go out and went for dinner. Eight of us ended up going to one really great restaurant to celebrate Dan's 21st birthday which was a day we were on the ship. After that we ended up back at the water at Club Opium. The night was crazy and we ended up getting separated a few times, including losing one of the guys in our apartment. Eventually he showed up back at our apartment in 5am. After two hours of sleep, we were up to leave for the airport. After the plane ride we took a train from Jerez back to Cadiz to get back on the ship.

Essentially we took every mode of transportation: ship, train, bus, metro, bike, and airplane. The food was amazing, paella is my new favorite food and I'm addicted to Sangria so I'm going to learn how to make it for when I get back to the States. All the locals were very nice and tried to help even though some of them didn't speak English. The country was beautiful and the lifestyle was definitely something I enjoyed. Typically, people sleep in until 9, take a siesta from 2-4 and eat dinner around 10. The clubs don't open until midnight and they party well into the night…definitely something I could get used to. We also met a ton of nice people traveling including a guy in the Army and a few guys from Ireland that were studying in Spain.

Now I guess I should stop eating Dunkaroos and write my Global Studies mid-term paper. I have a mid-term and my paper due on Tuesday and Wednesday we should be in Italy. We're making two stops, to Civitavecchia and to Naples so I'll be visiting Rome as well. Until then…

Peace & Love

Kati