Oh man, I should write about what’s going on… but before I do, everyone please note that when I added my previous entry (the one with all the pictures) the internet I was using to load the pictures was pretty cantankerous and then I didn’t have time to write anything about what the pics actually were. Most of it is pretty self explanatory: the flamenco show, Sevilla's cathedral/streets, and the weird one of the woman statue is actually a part of the mall I went to when I bought my cell phone.
From Sevilla, we (there are 4 others who will be teaching in the same city as me) took a train to Cádiz on Friday morning. We found our temporary lodging, the Hotel Francia y Paris, got settled, and spent the rest of the day orienting ourselves with our surroundings. For me, this included visits to two different apartment sites, neither of which had too many redeeming qualities. However, going to both places were good adventures because it meant that I got to take the bus a couple of times and get a brief just-passing-by taste of various areas in the city.
My initial impression of Cádiz is quite simple: it’s gorgeous and I love it. If you look it from a bird’s eye view, the city looks like a spoon sticking out into the water, with the food-holding part sticking out into the Atlantic Ocean. The old part of town, or the casco historico, is where we are currently staying and hopefully where I will be living as it is quite charming – lots of beach, lots of stores, restaurants, little parques/plazas and most everything is connected by, *surprise*, narrow cobblestone streets. It isn’t a very large area altogether; as you can guess from the spoon analogy, el casco historico is pretty circular and has no more of a diameter than 1 mile (I’m guessing from my Lonely Planet guide’s map…) This neighborhood is also where the Universidad de Cadiz is located, so there is a fair number of college student-type apartments around the area. Where I will actually end up finding a place though is quite up in the air.
Today (Saturday) has been almost entirely dedicated to apartment hunting. After finding that free “borrowed” wi-fi is available in the plaza right next to our hotel, a good amount of time was spent searching websites like loquo.com, Spain’s version of Craigs List. Lots of phone calls were made using my new telefono movil of course! I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and interesting conversations ensued (“Repitelo una vez más, por favor” and “Cómo se escribe el nombre de la calle?” were two commonly repeated phrases). Most of the people I spoke with were quite friendly and patient enough to repeat themselves as many times as this poor silly girl needed. I will be meeting with a few more people to see some pisos compartidos in the next few days, so hopefully I’ll find somewhere that works!
Beyond dealing with housing issues, I have gotten to walk around the city some getting to know some of the different neighborhood areas. Today we explored one of the beaches, walked around some of the old fortress-like buildings, and enjoyed the lovely sun that has been around all day every day besides when I landed in Sevilla. Well, off go eat some tapas!
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