To be honest, just thinking about having to type my last entry about Trier, even though I’m sitting a matter of minutes from a beautiful Spanish beach, made me have to get a beer to simultaneously commemorate the experience and not be sad. That being said, let’s just say the last week was EPIC.
Remember how I said last week that I still had to plan hostels, pack, and party? Well, I’ll give you one guess as to which of those occurred in the most abundance, and it wasn’t the first two choices. Being Erasmus gives us all excuses to act just like the Germans: party all night, every night. Rather than to go into too many details, I’ll just say each night began at either Martinskloster, Cusanashaus, or a campus housing place, then typically moved into the city to carry on well until daybreak if not later. It was epic, truly epic, and I shall miss all of the people I’ve spent the last 4.5 months with immensely.
I did finally get to go up to the statue on the hill I’ve commented on before… the one I can see from my room. It was spectacular! You can see the whole city, and although it was cold, we stayed for well over an hour at 3am or so. Well worth the 40 minute walk straight uphill to get to it!
I took ridiculous amounts of pictures, so if you have me on Facebook feel free to check them out. Let’s just say I’ll miss it, but at least I know I’ll get to see all of these people in the future. It’s going to happen.
But, moving on. I did turn in my scheins for my classes, although AASU still thinks I didn’t actually take any of the classes that they sent me to Trier to take in the first place, so I’m pretty much screwed with my financial aid when I get back until they rectify that situation. That will take at least a month. I happen to know that from previous mess ups that didn’t even entail studying abroad.
Anyway.
I somehow managed to make it to my 6:30am bus to go to Frankfurt Hahn to fly to Rota with my ridiculous suitcase and myself. Let me add that I packed AND cleaned my entire room in a matter of 3 hours total, and fit everything I needed to take with me into my book bag and suitcase! I did give away probably 100 Euros worth of things, but I knew that was going to happen; it would cost more in shipping than the items (blankets, towels, cheap coffee maker, etc.) were worth, so it was Christmas for some of my German dorm mates.
But, to my [not] surprise, RyanAir informed me that, even though I paid an extra 40 Euros for my ticket so that I could check my heavy luggage into the flight, I would have to pay an addition 200 to ship it. They claimed it was 20 kilos overweight (roughly 45 pounds), and they charge 20 Euros per KILO. Yes, that’s right, I have a flight to catch and now have to add the entire price of the rest of my travels’ plane tickets to ship my suit case to Spain with me. You can imagine the choice words I had to say to that particular attendant.
So, I lugged my luggage away, proceeded to put on *literally* a pair of sweat pants and THREE pairs of jeans on OVER my existing shorts, a hoodie and jacket, and like the Michelin Man, headed for a taxi to get to the nearest post office.
Luckily, everyone was nice to me. The cab cost 20 Euros round trip, which sucked, and shipping the luggage all the way from Hahn to Brooklet, GA, cost 85 Euros. Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but still… in twenty minutes I blew over a hundred Euros cash. That especially sucks right now being that I believe I shipped the Sparkasse (German) bank card home in my luggage on accident, which has my only access to more cash.
Anyway. Made it to Rota by just after noon, and lucky for me, there was my cousin ready and waiting! Welcome back to Spain. His apartment/condo is quite nice, having three bedrooms and two baths! The Navy does it right, I must say. Any number of quite nice beaches are less than 15 minutes walking distance, too. Not bad!
Life in Spain is quite odd indeed; it’s seriously like a ghost town in Rota between about 2 and 5pm. The things you may hear about the Spanish having a “siesta” each day in the midafternoon is quite true, especially here in Rota. Barcelona had it too as I recall, but not nearly as much. Then again, Barcelona is much larger.
To be quite honest, after a tour of the city by my cousin the first afternoon and a first beach nap, I was quite lazy and recovering from the past week of not sleeping until after midday Wednesday (I landed in Rota Tuesday afternoon). That’s not like me; typically, I’m the get-out-and-go type. But hey, at least I had a good reason to be lazy.
One highly amusing thing to note here: I had Thai with my cousin for lunch, and for dinner found a flyer for ANOTHER Thai place that I just couldn’t pass up. So I had Thai for dinner, too. The restaurant experience was quite amusing; I didn’t get there until pushing 10:30pm (the Spanish are night people, much like black cats… except lively), and when I did there were two older ladies (50s) from Amsterdam having a jolly good time with some Chinese Sake (or something). They bade I join them and talk to them for quite some time and take shots out of the glasses the Thai restaurant had given them that… well, let’s just say you’re likely to find them at a novelty shop. The conversation was quite interesting, too; when they found out I was going to Amsterdam in a few weeks, they proceeded to tell me how and where and what kind of “herb” to buy. Don’t buy from those on the streets, they said. It could literally be cow dung. Go to the coffee shops, then you’re golden.
I’m going to miss Europe something fierce.
Wednesday afternoon, I got out of the cool house finally into the Spanish midday heat. Let me tell you, I’m used to Savannah heat… but this must at least rival it. Keep in mind it’s been jeans and long shirt weather in Germany the past two weeks, but still I was not expecting to melt like the wicked witch! I did tour the city more extensively with my camera, though, and have some good pictures to show. I also researched how to get to Cadiz the next day and Seville the following, so after getting followed by a persistent homeless man for twenty minutes or so I headed back inside.
Rota is a cute little town (and I do mean little, even by Trier standards), but I admit it’s a bit dirty, and once you get out of the concentration of little shops and restaurants, it gets a bit sketchy. Keep in mind that it’s a well-established US Navy and Spanish Navy base (they US rents from the Spanish apparently), so the vast majority of people in the town are some kind of Navy. That creates a big American presence too, although I admit I have yet to see but two of them.
Something else one may want to keep in mind about Spain and Europe in general is the attire at beaches. Nude beaches are always talked about in the US as being big in Europe. Although I have yet to find any truly nude beach, just be prepared that topless beaches are… well, any beach. I’ve been to maybe a dozen beaches in several countries thus far, and it’s the same: tops are optional. So don’t be surprised.
Enough commentary for now. My productivity astonished me Wednesday night; I booked all the trains I need while traveling in England, checked myself into all of my remaining 4 RyanAir flights (thank God), and researched all the trains I’ll need in Italy. I couldn’t buy those because the Italian rail website is absolutely terrible, at least in the English version. Had I not taken Spanish, I wouldn’t know what it was talking about sometimes (the languages are somewhat similar). That, and trying to actually buy the tickets, not just find the timetables, is… well, impossible. I asked my Italian friend if it would be much more expensive to just buy them as I went, and she said it should be the same price, much unlike in England.
I also found out in my research (which took hours and hours… travel planning takes forever if you’re on a budget) that you can buy a Rail Card in England when you travel for 28 Pounds ($35-ish) that saves you a third on all tickets you buy in the country for a year. I wish I had this last time I was in England because I realized I’d save at least 50 Pounds (even counting the price of the card itself) in my travels with one. Oh well.
One other interesting thing I found: a website called eDreams.com. Check it out if you want to fly, especially in Europe; it’s somewhat like Bing Travel or Expedia, but I literally found flights that were cheaper from Venice to Rome than the rail was. I decided against it just because I’m sick of flying and it wouldn’t save me THAT much, but considering the flight is an hour and the train is 4, it is certainly a service to check! It also works for US flights, but… well, they’re always expensive.
So, my travel plans, in a nut shell (in order): Madrid, Rome (for a minute), Gaeta, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Verona, Rome (to fly out), London (for a minute), Turville (Vicar of Dibley village!), Reading (friend there), London, Amsterdam, Dublin, Chicago, Atlanta, Piedmont SC (to get my car), Savannah!
Phew! Hey, you only live once, right? And, minus the cost of my flight from Dublin to Chicago/Atlanta (same flight technically), the whole trip only cost roughly 499 Euros including trains! Not bad considering I’ll see the better part of Europe in the process… well, not, but better for me anyway!
After that epic planning, I got up this (Thursday) morning and caught the ferry to Cadiz, one of Spain’s primary ports and supposedly the oldest city in Western Europe! I’m not positive about that, but they claim it anyway. I was early (or late) to the ferry, so I chilled at the beach in Rota for an hour and caught a good burn (surprise), then boarded the 30 minute ferry to the city.
Let me just frame this conception of the city first: I wasn’t expecting much. I’ve never heard of Cadiz, and really only went as something to do for the day considering the ferry only cost 4 Euros each way.
Having said that, WOW. I was honestly blown away; the city, although small, not much different in size than Rhodes Town (not the island itself), is absolutely beautiful, complete with among the most well landscaped, most monuments, and cleanest overall feel of almost any city I’ve seen! I still would say Barcelona is my favorite city I’ve visited, but I’ll have to see at the end of my trip how I think Cadiz rates overall. It’s a bit difficult to rank cities when you’ve seen so many so quickly, but I did get a good feel for Cadiz.
I’d say Cadiz has everything short of a Starbucks; beautiful beaches, cool old castles, a well restored Medieval Town, beautiful churches and a cathedral, and relatively (for Europe) cheap shops and restaurants. I literally walked around the entire island that is the city (technically… it’s barely an island), then walked some more. My feet are actually pounding as we speak, but I stayed put-putting about viewing the beaches and having a nice lunch and later a beer to take in the scenery as a reason to rest. Everything was green, vibrant, well-kept… yet not to the point that it felt like a total tourist trap. Sure, there were tourists there, but this city somehow managed to maintain a “legit” feeling to me. It felt a bit like a mix between Miami, Paris (the architecture, for some reason), and Barcelona. I liked all three cities, so naturally… I’m going to praise Cadiz.
As in every European city, scooters rule the roads in Cadiz due to the maze of random alleyways between 5 story-ish buildings, primarily. I did notice, though, that there is a full-fledged university overlooking the Atlantic Ocean (Cadiz and Rota are both barely on the Atlantic)! This may be something to consider…
The restaurant I found, by the way, had some of the best food I’ve had in a while. At first, I was kicking myself for not stopping at the fast food joint I saw just after I got off the ferry; I hadn’t eaten all day or the night before (I forgot… go figure), and had walked around 2 hours to that point in absolutely ruthless heat. This time of day, by the way, was the 2-5pm window I mentioned from Rota. More was open here, though.
Anyway, I ordered a Tapas item (as are THE RAGE in Spain—most restaurants offer Tapas, if not exclusively so) called “Chilled Tomato Soup,” which makes my mouth water to think about even now. It was a bit like a slightly sweetened Bloody Mary without the Vodka, and it was served with a dish with freshly cut bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, and croutons. OH it was good, and it was served in what you would typically get a Bloody Mary in.
Then came the main meal: pan seared Tuna with a small side salad and “chips” (fries). Delicious! It was especially good when dipped in the soup. Along with these, I got a large beer (jar of cerveza, as it’s called) and a Coke with ice (there’s a surprise—hard to find ice!). I typically don’t get Coke, but I kept seeing people order them from the glass bottles and had to have one.
So, it sounds like I just spent a small fortune, right? Wrong: the whole delectable meal that made me barely able to walk from being absolutely famished cost a whopping 12 Euros! Win! It’d truly be hard to beat at a 5 star restaurant in my opinion even totally ignoring the price.
Anyway, enough of my mouth watering. I did finally make it back to the ferry after beautiful Cadiz, its beautiful people, and its beautiful scenery. So, now I’m back in Rota, and after talking with my cousin for quite some time and eating an entire frozen pizza without bothering cutting it, here I am.
Speaking of beautiful people: I mentioned when I got back from Nice how beautiful the people there are. Well, I still think they’re probably the most gorgeous, but… Spain is quickly approaching them. The Spanish certainly smell good, too; perfume and cologne seem to be staples of EVERYONE. We’ll see how Seville and Madrid fare and I’ll pass my official judgment.
So there you have it. Left Trier, seen two more cities, and am off to Seville in the morning! I didn’t realize how close it was to Rota, but apparently I just have to catch an 8 Euro bus there in the morning, and within 2 hours I’ll be there! I always hear about its beauty and many study abroad programs, so it’ll be interesting to see how the hype compares to the city. I’m trying to keep it in perspective; everything here is so beautiful!
Until next time…
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