Salty Swarthy Sea Port

Cadiz. City of multicoloured buildings crammed together in a clostrophobe's nightmare of alleys, squished onto a rough edged spatula of a penisula. Love it! But I do wish it wouldn't be quite so stormy. It doesn't rain long, but when it does it's rain with the intent to murder. This stuff actually hurts!

Still, my first impressions of Cadiz are good. Today I plan to hoof it around the perimeter seawall of the old city. From what little I've seen it's a goodie. Can't really describe how cool it is to look out on a tumultuous aqua green sea and know that somewhere on the other side of that vast expanse of water is North America. I have to confess, I've been waving at it like an idiot.

Yesterday I did something I've never done before. Something entirely outside my comfort zone. I called a pension from a phone booth, asked questions about the rooms, reserved one, found the pension, and paid for the room... all in Spanish. Yowza! The pension is a local family run job and none of them speak even a lick of English. Now, I don't speak Spanish. I can mumble a few phrases like "Quiero una habitacion para tres noches" (I'd like a room for three nights). But that's about it. Luckily the tourist info office was nearby so I kept running to her going "What the heck is a 'matrimonia'?" (Double bed, for the curious.) I'm paying quite a bit more than I would for a hostel bed. But there's only one hostel in Cadiz and it's full. Sooo... pensions it is. And frankly, it's really really nice to have a room to myself. If I want to have a little sing to myself while washing my undies in the sink, then damnit I can! Ahhh freedom.