Sorry that I’ve been writing so seldom and far between! The internet on the boat is pretty expensive, and there hasn’t been much time to sit around and write this all down. Technically, I should be studying for our midterm tomorrow, but as usual I work better under pressure so at the moment I’m keeping myself busy with procrastination. But I figure, it’s better late then never to fill you in on our epic adventures in Spain!

We’ve been back on the boat since Sunday and are currently on our way to Italy. If Italy is half as amazing as Spain was, I don’t doubt we’ll have lots of stories and hundreds of pictures to share when we’re back from there!

While we were in Spain we went to Cadiz, Seville, Cordoba, and Granada. We spent the entire first day in Cadiz, exploring around the small beach city, visiting the Cathedral, and laying out in the sun drinking Sangria. I’m not a big fan of wine, but Sangria is fruity enough for my taste, and it was the perfect thing to do while laying out under the beach umbrellas watching the locals play soccer along the waterfront. When Lainey and I separated from the group on the beach to explore more of the city, we found lots of cool little areas we hadn’t seen earlier in the day.

Before the trip even started, I decided I want to collect a cross from every country that we visit this summer, so Lainey and I went to several different shops to look for them. I eventually found the perfect one, and it turned out the lady from the shop has family friends who live in Puyallup! We didn’t even bring up Puyallup either, we just said we lived near Seattle and she brought it up. It’s such a small world!

After going back to the ship and getting ready, we headed out to enjoy the Spanish nightlife. The Spaniards’ schedules are drastically different then ours so it took some getting used to! They have lunch from 2-4 (not sometime between them, but the whole two hours!), then siesta (an afternoon nap), have dinner around 9pm, go to the bars around 12am, then the clubs start getting popular around 3am and don’t close until around 6!

We first went to a small local bar to watch the Spain vs. America soccer match. We were pleasantly surprised that America won! Once we became restless in that bar we met up with about 20 other people from Semester at Sea and went bar hopping for the rest of the night. It was a circus! The people from our ship were so excited to be able to go out to bars, you would have thought they’d never had alcohol before! I guess after a week at sea, tolerances were low and energy/excitement was high. Everyone was in a great mood and it made for some hilarious pictures! Haha

Lainey and I headed home earlier then everyone else (around 3 am) because we had to leave the next morning for our trip to Seville, Cordoba, and Granada. These three cities were a lot of fun but Granada was my favorite by far! I wish we had been able to spend the night in Seville b/c I heard it has great nightlife, but we stayed in Cordoba instead.

I turned 20 on Friday, and getting to spend it in Spain was the most exciting birthday ever! (not that the gymnastics or Oregon birthday parties weren’t amazing Mom and Dad! Haha) I wish I’d been able to spend it with my friends, family, and Michael, but the people I was with were a lot of fun too! We all went down to one of the plazas to have Sangria and tapas (appetizers) then wandered our way through the local shopping areas, street markets, and gelato parlors. Once the festivities of the night kicked in we had an even crazier time!

As 15 of us were walking around trying to find a good bar to go to, we ended up meeting two American guys who were studying abroad in Granada and they showed us around. They took us to a bar called Peo and another one called Chapatura. Since it was my birthday the bar tender in the first bar bought me a bottle of wine and had everyone sing Happy Birthday/Feliz Cumpleanos to me☺

Michael had previously told me about a club built into the hills of Granada, and I had our new Spanish/American friends show us how to get there. It was fun club on the side of the hill, part of it was like a cave, and the other was a big dance floor that looked over the entire city. It was beautiful! We danced the night/morning away until 5:30 when we finally called it a success and headed back to the hotel.

Of course in the three days we toured the cities we did our fair share of sightseeing, but I can’t even begin to describe it all! I will have to download pictures of them when I get a chance, but even the pictures can’t do justice to the beautiful Cathedrals, 22000 sq ft. Mosque, side markets, intricate gardens, and palaces.

All in all, Spain was more then I could have expected, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of this trip has in store for us!

Miss you all!
☺ Caitlin

P.S. Whenever I can find some time and get to an internet café, I’ll make sure download some pics of the trip so far!