25 Things...

Hey all, Colleen wanted to publish another blog entry, but apparently she’s just too busy what with hanging out on the beach and enjoying this weekend’s sunny blue skies. Instead, she put me, Cádiz, in charge of this post. Since the “list 25 things about yourself” is all the rage on Facebook, I think I’ll join the crowd and share some random facts about myself with you blog readers…

1. The beaches here yield some pretty gorgeous shells, but no sand crabs
2. It doesn’t get light until 8:00am.
3. My first name was Gadir, which changed into Gadis, which turned into Cádiz, which stuck.
4. People from Cádiz are still called Gaditanos.
5. The grass to dog ratio isn’t too favorable around these parts, so it’s important to have nimble feet/be careful walking on the sidewalks unless you enjoy the scent of dog doo on your shoes.
6. Chirigotas are currently rocking the city’s music scene.
7. Chirigotas are mini-choirs that perform during Carnival season. The songs performed tend to be cleverly worded and humorous in a social commentary/criticism sort of way.
8. Which brings me to Carnival, aka party of the year, where everyone dresses up in costumes, hangs out in the streets at all hours of the day/night, and has a good ol’ time.
9. Official business hours are from 9 to 2 and 5 or 6ish – 8 or 9ish… Monday through Friday.
10. La Caleta, the beach near old town, was a filming site for one of the James Bond movies. Apparently it looks like Cuba?
11. Gaditano food staples include: fried fish, fried potatoes, egg and potato omlettes (why would anyone cook vegetables?). Don’t worry, despite this we’ll do our best to convince you that we have the best cuisine around.
12. If you wait for your turn to speak in a conversation, you’ll never get a word in. Just start talking if you have something to say, and if someone else is talking while you are, just talk louder.
13. Sunsets are consistently amazing.
14. Matching your outfit before you leave the house is serious business. Earring, belt, shoes, headband, scarf, bag all the same color? Does that color happen to be purple or red? Okay, great, then you’re good to go.
15. Job security here is great. Once the government appoints you a position, you’ve got it for life. Great for keeping individual stress levels to a minimum, but not a great technique for ensuring productivity around the workplace.
16. All schools are surrounded by walls and/or gates. It’s necessary to push a button so you can get buzzed in. Every. Time.
17. XOXO doesn’t mean hugs and kisses. It actually denotes a slang term for female genitalia, … and in Cádiz specifically, it’s used as a nickname (for girls). Example: Oye, xoxo, qué pasa?
18. Other Gaditano language quirks: letters and sometimes whole syllables just aren’t pronounced. The “-ado” part of “escuchado” is “escuchao”, just like “esto” is “eto” and “es que” is compacted into “eque”.
19. The “ch” sound isn’t that popular around these parts either. The words coche, leche, and ocho all sound more like “co-shay, ley-shay, and oh-show.
20. The local government provides free wifi in a good number of the plazas… provided you happen to have a laptop that is.
21. A jar of peanut butter costs 4.40. A similarly sized jar of nutella costs 1.49. Huh?
22. Bus fare in 2009 is 0.98. In 2008 it was 0.93.
23. Foreigners are called giris, not gringos.
24. The American accent is much more difficult to understand than the British accent.
25. There is one McDonalds and one Burger King, both located within two blocks of one the most prominent high rise hotels… someone’s gotta feed the tourists…

Visiting Vejer

Which of the following statements is true of my life during the past week:

a) The person in front of me at the grocery store bought 2 pineapples and 21 bags of mixed leaf salad.

b) I went to a little pueblo located on top of a cliff/hill called Vejer de la Frontera where all of the buildings are blindingly white and oh so cute.

c) Yesterday was the warmest, most Spring-like day of the year, which was promptly followed up by the storm of the century last night including rain and wind so intense it made its way through the window cracks and pooled up/flowed over the sills and onto the ground.

d) All of the above.


For those who are curious, the correct answer to the multiple choice question is indeed the option d). However, since the most interesting subject from the list above is b), that's what I'll talk about. On Saturday afternoon (the beautiful, warm, sunny day) my friends Cat, Lauren and I hopped on a bus to Vejer de la Frontera, a tiny little town about an hour and half away from Cádiz. It is one of the typical "Pueblos Blancos" ("White Villages") in the area, and while there's not actually a lot happening in the pueblo, it's still quite a cool visit. Vejer has everything you might expect of a Spanish pueblo: narrow winding cobblestone streets that are begging to be wandered on, a couple plazas with fountains and benches for the locals to while away the afternoon hours and of course some beautiful views of the surrounding landscape that demand to be taken in. Pretty much all we did was walk around and take pictures of Vejer's old church, castle, the aforementioned beautiful view and all of the other odd but charming features of the pueblo, architecture-wise and just otherwise. After being oh-so-Spanish by taking a late afternoon break for a leisurely cafe manchada, we still had a couple hours before the next (and last) bus to Cádiz to come by, so we bummed around the various Chinese bazaars (i.e. the only open stores) and looked at oh so many inexpensive things we didn't know were missing from our lives including a soccer ball sized tennis ball (I could scarcely resist this treasured item), a mask of a bare butt (to be worn on your hind-side), and pool noodles (those long tubular foam flotation devices) that emanate a pre-recorded laugh every time they are touched. I never realized so much crap existed in my life!
Anyway, the anticlimactic ending to this story is that we got on the bus when the time came and made it back to Cádiz without any incident. All in all a good Saturday afternoon adventure!