España! Day 1 - 9/04/10

I woke up so early with everyone to see the ship pull into Spain. It was around 630 AM (and I couldn’t sleep the night before!) So everyone was dragging themselves up the stairs. But when we got outside all you could see was smiles! .. LANDDD  :-) The sun hadn’t risen yet so all you could see was boats to the sides of us and the lights of Cádiz in the distance. The tug boats pulled up next to us around 7 – 730 to guide us into port. When we were close to the pier we had to turn the ship around (the tug boats did all the work) and parallel park – which was pretty cool for a 590 foot ship!

Everyone got off the ship around 9 after we were cleared and we were on our way. There was a decent sized group of us and we headed out to explore the city with no real destination. We ran into some cute little garden areas with fountains and flowers everywhere and had a few photo-ops which came out really nice! Our first stop was to see the Cathedral although we didn’t go inside the outside was gorgeous and the steps were filled with people hanging out and taking advantage of the free wifi in the city. After seeing the Cathedral & the Yellow Dome (a big building right behind the Cathedral with an amazing gold colored dome) we went to a nice little café for some coffee. Which I ordered all on my own in Spanish! Yay!

After some shopping & wondering the group of us ran into some other SASers who were having some sangria (YUMMM) & paella at a restaurant called Cafetería Andalucía. The food was amazing and we all had a great time chatting and sharing our plans for the next few days we had in Spain. Later on we ended up running into the same group of people and I tagged along with them and headed to the beach. The beach had a beautiful view with a lot of little boats but there were a lot of rocks in the water so it was interesting with the random drop offs! We all relaxed for a while and had some wine (very warm wine – ickk) and enjoyed each others company.

Later on a few of us went searching for some food while others stayed back at the beach. We went to a little restaurant that was across the street but for some odd reason they stopped serving food so the 4 of us grabbed a beer instead.  At the next table of was a group of hilarious Spanish guys. They would break out into clapping & song randomly after a few songs and seeing us laughing we all got to talking. They were so funny and friendly they even bought us a round of beer. Score!

After hanging out there for an hour or 2 we headed back to the ship to get ready to head out. That night a group of us went out to a restaurant called Restaurante San Francisco Uno for some sangria and tapas. Tapas are small dishes of food that are served at most Spanish restaurants. They are really cheap (about 2 – 4 euros a dish) and some places with even bring you free tapas if you order a drink. It’s really cool and a great way to try new things (I EVEN TRIED SQUID!!! Yep. I did!) Well anyways we each ordered a ton of tapas and shared with the group and after about 20 plus sangrias throughout the group and joking with the waitress (my friend Shelley was our translator for the night) we ended up getting free shots on the house! Woo!  Our waitresses name was Ines and she was so sweet to us and I don’t know how she did it with 10 non-spanish speaking people at the table!! She ever gave us vouchers for a free drink at a bar around the corner.  – which is where we headed next! :P

It was about 11 - 12ish when we headed to the bar and the place was dead. People don’t start going out until around 1 – 2 for the night. (Oh! But listen to this children LITTLE KIDS – even babies will be out playing in the squares or out eating with their families until 12 or even later!) But anyways so we used out vouchers then decided to just hang out there and dance and have some drinks. After a while the club started filling up and  we were the only Americans (which was pretty cool) and the youngest people there! Which was pretty funny!! Regardless we all had an amazing time on our first night and even though I lost my ID and had to pay 25 bucks for the new one & how rough the next morning was - it was all worth it! The group of us got back to the ship around 530 .. I really don’t think clubs close .. the night life is great. Adios!