Arrival

This is an old post I wrote shortly after arriving in Cádiz. I don't know why it didn't get uploaded earlier:

The closest airport to Chiclana is Jerez, so after some last minute scrambling using the only really weak wifi signal I could find from our hotel room in Barcelona, I set myself up with not only a flight to Jerez, but a tentative bus schedule to get me from Jerez to Chiclana. I also scouted out how to get to the barcelona airport form my hostel. It was a little stressful, because the train I was planning on taking was sold out and the internet kept blinking in and out. Whatever. I booked my flight and went to bed at about one in the morning so I could get plenty of sleep before I caught my 7:30 bus. It was all rather uneventful; I paid my extra €30 for my overweight luggage and I was on my way to Jerez!

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Sweet, there would be no problems getting to my prebooked hostel and preparing myself for a simple apartment hunt before I had to report to my school in 3 days.

First off, I overestimated how ready I'd be for Spanish. Studying a language for a few years in high school and two semesters in college is not good enough for sudden complete immersion after 3 years of atrophy. Everything went rather smoothly, even when I got to Chiclana. I had assumed that it was a very small town, which turned out to not be true. But I tagged along with a German family who was also going down to the beach (La Barrosa) of Chiclana. Among the 4 of us adults, we combined our skills to match those of at least one passable Spanish-speaker, and we made it on the right local bus.

I made it down to the beach area, asking the bus driver where my street was, as it didnt seem to exist on any maps I saw. The bus driver couldn't tell me anything, but a couple just happened to overhear my floundering Spanish and recognized the name of my hostel. They came up to me as the bus was beginning to close its doors and told me I needed to get off with them at this stop. I gathered up all of my bags and scrambled off the 

bus as quickly as I could. They were very patient, given that my brain was so fried at this point that Spanish was to me more like that mumbling language Furbys speak. But they pointed in

 the direction of my hotel, saying "El Campanario" a few times, I understood that.

The weather.

That made things a little more complicated, but I stayed in good sprits.

The beach was completely abandoned, which makes sense, I guess. Why would anyone go outside when its raining? Also it is now the off season for tourism in a city that sees its population triple when the beach bunnies come south from Germany and the rest of northern Europe. I took shelter under the awnings of shut-up beachside restaurants and made dashes during breaks in the storm. It was only about 2/3 of a mile from the bus stop I got off at, which was a much shorter walk than Dan and I had either in Munich or Barcelona. However, it felt like quite the trek, as frazzled as I was and with the weather.

I finally arrived at the hostel, bought a sandwich at the attached bar, and went into my room. I didn't emerge until sunset the next day.