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Yesterday was what would be our last touristy day in Spain. We started off with a decent hotel breakfast, and then headed to the Cadiz Cathedral. The lady at the "front desk" was super sweet, accepting a 50 euro bill and even giving us the student discount. We wondered through for a while, and made a special visit to the Crypt. Sam was a little hesitant about entering, but it was actually quite neat. There were mausoleums from the early 1800's to about a month ago. Due to the chill (it was in a very old basement) and Samantha's weariness about being in the crypt, we were soon onto the rest of our day.
We decided to take a walk along the peninsula by the water. The map showed many gardens, 2 old "castles" and a variety of historical buildings. It didn't disappoint! One thing nice about Cadiz is that there are signs that explain the history of the fountains, historical buildings, gardens, etc. As opposed to the majority of our trip where we saw something cool, took and picture and moved on wondering what in the world we were looking at, here we actually gained some knowledge! Our walk lasted about 2 hours, and ended with a smoothie for me.
After a quick change we were headed back to the beach. Sam had gotten badly burnt the day before, so we didn't stay very long. Also, it was a Saturday and therefore extremely busy. I played in the waves for a while, and Sam relaxed on the sand. Two hours after we had left our hotel room we were walking back through the door. We had already picked out a restaurant for dinner, but since it didn't open until 8pm, we just kinda chilled in the room for a couple of hours. Needless to say, we've seriously pooped ourselves out over the past 10 days.
The restaurant we chose was an "American" restaurant. Basically, hamburgers, French fries and chicken tenders, woot woot! We both had a hamburger, and I got a huge chocolate cookie with ice cream for dessert. Last night, Spain played France in the EuroCup. While we were eating dinner, the tables and chairs surrounding us were packed with fans watching the game on a couple of big screen tvs. Every time something good or bad happened, the crowd would roar or moan in unison. When Spain got a goal, oh my goodness, the noise echoed throughout the city! Almost all of the shops were closed, the streets were empty, and it was a Saturday night! This morning as we were leaving we noticed the Spanish flags people had hung from their balconies to portray pride for their country. It was even more evident once we returned to Madrid. All in all, it made for a quiet night for us as there wasn't much to do, but it was definitely something worth experiencing.
This morning we woke up early once again and were on the train back to Madrid. The 4 ½ hour train ride actually flew by for me. Once back at Atocha station, we were on a mission to find our big yellow bus to take us to the airport. We opted to take the bus over the subway as we were pretty tired of hauling our suitcases up and down the stairs in the subway and because of how complicated it would have been due to the multiple train changes we were going to have to make. Once on the bus, we just sat and waited. At the airport the plan was to use a payphone to call our hotel for the free shuttle service. However, we had absolutely no idea how to use the payphones here, so we asked for help. But the workers didn't know how to use the payphone either. It took us three tries before we successfully made the call, and it was all thanks to these two amazing women who led us through the airport from payphone to payphone. It was then another task to find where the hotel shuttles pick up passengers, but as we're in the hotel right now, just know that it all worked out in the end!
After getting settled, we found a nice tapas bar for lunch (yes, we had a real Spanish meal!) with another very nice waiter. Although the area we're in is much nicer than anything you'd find at home near the airport, there isn't very much to do. So for our last day, once again, we're kinda just chilling out. We took a little walk, and I already have my eye on the Burger King down the street for dinner, but otherwise you can probably find us right where we currently are: snoozing in front of the tv and typing on the computer. Our flight tomorrow is at 11am, and the plan is to jump on our shuttle to the airport at 8:30 after our hotel breakfast. See you all soon!
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