Cádizfornia!!!!!!

On Saturday, I went to Cádiz with my school for the day.  It took about an hour and a half bus ride to get there. Once we arrived, we went to the CLIC campus there to have some breakfast.  I guess since this trip was sponsored by my school (CLIC), they wanted to show off the new campus in Cádiz.  The breakfast was all pastries, and I thought I was getting something that was just a croissant with maybe some sugar on top, but it actually had about a cup of cream/butter on the inside... I couldn't eat it. Anyway, after being at CLIC for a little bit, we went to the center of town for our tour.  The tour was only in Spanish, but they spoke a little slower than they would if we were native speakers and since we were all students of Spanish.  Much to my surprise, I understood most of what the guide was saying mas o menos, which made me very happy! (However, whenever I got back to Sevilla, I can't understand for the life of me what my familia is saying... arrrrrgggg!!!) Anyway, to summarize the tour, Cádiz is one of the oldest cities in Europe and has a lot of old buildings and such.  We saw a big pretty church, some pretty plazas (and one that had a ton of flower stands in it... Mom you would have LOVED it!), and then we ended up at the Torre de Oro (The Gold Tower) where we saw a camara ocsura.  A camara oscura (which translates to dark camera) is something that I had never seen before, but there are many around the world (even one in the U.S. in San Francisco).  Essentially, it is a big white ceramic inverted dome that is maybe a little more than an arm spans length circumference that is on the ground at the top of the tower in a dark room.  There is some sort of telescope like structure on the very top of the building that projects the images from around the city in to the dome.  You can lift and drop the dome to put it in to focus.  It was really cool! We could see all around the city and zoom in and out at all of the main landmarks and areas of the city! I really enjoyed this.  After the tower tour, we went to the BEACH!  The beach was so wonderful! It was great weather and the water felt amazing! It was so fun to go swimming, although I must admit, I couldn't stop thinking about Shark Week that I had watched just before leaving America... I was doing everything the show told me not to do! I was swimming in murky water alone which was what they told you NOT to do, but needless to say, I did not get eaten by a shark.  Chances were in my favor though because I hear that you are more likely to have a vending machine fall on you then to have a shark attack you... Anyway, we hung out on the beach, ate some ice cream, chatted it up with some other people that attend CLIC that were from various places like Switzerland, Holland, and Sweden.  It was so fun!  And, as in the title of this entry, the Spaniards call  Cádiz Cádizfornia because it is the Spanish equivalent of California.  My friend Alex that was with me is from California and said being on this beach made him homesick.  It was pretty much the same weather.  Warm, but with the wind, and the free spirit of the city.  After a few hours on the beach, we had to head back to Sevilla.  After returning and showering and eating with our respective familias, I went out with Laura, Alex, Matt, & Wade to meet up with this girl that Laura had met on the bus on the way back from El Centro to her piso after Cádiz.  We went to the neighborhood Los Remerious, which I had not been to before, and ended up at this restaurant called Tijuana! Laura thought that it was going to be a salsa bar, but it was actually a Tex-Mex restaurant, which I found amusing to find in Spain.  It was really awkward at first with the girls large group of friends (that I think were Mexican, and not Spanish) especially because it was one of their's birthday! I felt like I was intruding, but we decided to stay for maybe just one beer.  After one beer, and some attempted conversation in Spanish, things were not going too smoothly.  But, then all of the sudden, the shot glasses came out and tequila was splashing everywhere.  Seriously, within 10 minutes, it seemed that the group had transformed in to a drunk mess! The Mexicans/Spaniards were finally socializing with us, and smiling, and dancing, and yelling for more tequila! Thankfully, I have had my fair share of peer pressure in college, so I was not tempted to have as many shots as they did, but to my surprise, the whole group (of maybe 9 or 10) took down 5 BOTTLES OF TEQUILA!!! These people were muy loco! It was such a crazy mess to watch, but very entertaining! After I left to go home, Wade had stayed and called me later to say that 4 of the group had been carted off in ambulances due to alcohol poisoning... Geez! What a crazy night!  I am so glad I know how to say no! Anway, Sunday I wandered around town with Alex and Alex and went to La Plaza de España which is really cool because it is a giant semicircle and has little booths for each major city in Spain.  We also passed by this Fiesta de los Naciones which I am going to go back to soon, but it is a festival that has representation from a lot of countries with little booths of things to buy from that country and then food and drink from that country.  I found the US food booth funny because I wasn't sure what exactly American food was.  Well, it is chicken nuggets, BBQ, corndogs, and Budweiser.  HAHAHAHA! Anyway, good weekend all together. I need to go to school in a bit.  This is my last week in Sevilla so I am gonna try and make the most of it!