¡Viva España!

On Saturday night we asked Pepe where the local church is and what times that its Sunday masses take place.  He told us 8:30.  

Minn and I decided to set our alarms for 6:30 so we could shower and leave the house at 8 to ensure that we found the church.  Unfortunately, we ran into some issues, shall we say.

First things first: the shower.  You know, the one that only runs cold water unless you turn on the hot water heater.  Despite the fact that Charo had showed us how to turn on the hot water heater the night before, we just could not replicate her actions yesterday morning.  Since the last thing we wanted to do was wake Pepe and Charo to ask them how to turn on the hot water, we settled for cold water.  Needless to say that my shower probably lasted all of two minutes.

The time to leave the house came soon after.  Our building has a gate that is locked overnight and therefore must be opened in order to exit the building.  We had assumed that it would be fairly easy to unlock the gate using the keys that we had been given the night before, but it didn't work out that way.  It took us 15 minutes to figure out how to open the door.  We felt like we were trapped in a jail cell with no way out.  I wish someone had been watching and/or taping us because I know that it was quite a comical sight. 

Once we escaped the building, we headed for the church.  We found it only after asking one person for directions.  However, as we approached the church, we noticed that it looked pretty deserted- the total opposite of how it should look right before the start of Sunday morning mass.  A glance at the mass times posted on the building revealed that the Sunday “morning” service began at 12 noon and the evening service was at 8:30.  P.M., that is.  Guess that’s what Pepe had meant.

It was around this time when we noticed how empty the streets were.  In fact, the cleaning crews were washing the sidewalks and streets.  We were confused when we considered how city workers in the United States do this in the middle of the night, when everyone is still asleep.  Well, 8:30 A.M. on a Sunday morning in Spain is basically the middle of the night.  They stay out so late that we came to realize that they sleep in equally as late.  (Side note: Since dinner is usually around 9 or 10, Spaniards don’t go out until around 1 in the morning.  They return anywhere from 3 to 4 A.M.).  That explained why there was no mass until noon.

So what does one do at a time when no one is awake, no stores are open, and there are no church services?  Explore the place, of course!  That’s what we did.  We walked all around our part of the peninsula and saw a lot of beautiful things.  We found the University where we would be taking classes and then, by some miracle, found another church: one that happened to have a service at 10 A.M.!  Since we still had some time to kill, we walked around a little more and then returned in time for the mass.  There were all of about 10 people present (is anyone surprised?), and all of them were probably over the age of 65.  Minn and I had a difficult time understanding the Mass, but we both got the gist of the gospel, which we found to be an accomplishment.  We were also always about to tell what part of the mass was taking place and could have responded in English because we were so familiar with the order.  It was neat to hear everything in Spanish, though.  The main differences were the lack of music and the duration.  No music was played at any point throughout the mass.  It must have been for that reason, then, that the mass only lasted 30 minutes.  Yes, I know that many of you are jealous.

After mass, we explored a little more.  During our journey, I realized that our classes were set to begin the next day but I did not have a notebook.  We stopped by a dollar store on the way home to pick one up.  It turns out that the only type of notebook that we could find was one with Minnie Mouse on the cover.  Naturally, I bought it.  Remember, this was a matter of convenience.  And I can tell you that the notebook was a big hit.  Disney has a way of keeping us young, doesn’t it?

As we explored the shops surrounding our house, we discovered how perfect our location is.  We are basically living on the Madison Avenue of Cádiz: there are so many stores everywhere around us!  To make it even better (or worse, considering that my suitcase was 49 pounds when I arrived here), this is the "rebaja" (deal) season!  Every store is currently having huge sales with merchandise between 50 and 75% off.  This is on top of the already cheap prices.  Unbelievable.  Another observation: Many stores/restaurants found in America are also located here.  GameStop, Claire's, Burger King, Ben & Jerry's, Zara, you name it.  

We returned to the house where we found Pepe watching TV.  Charo had left our lunch (tortillas española!) in platters on the table.  We ate and chatted with Pepe and then took some time to blog (that’s when I wrote all those entries yesterday).  Then we decided to go to the beach, which proved to be a ten-minute walk away, just as Pepe had told us.  It was absolutely beautiful and was very crowded.  Strange to think that this is the same ocean that borders the Jersey shore and Bermuda. 

Despite the fact that we had been warned that [older] women often go topless at the beaches here, we could not attest to that fact.  However, it seems that girls, toddler-aged through middle school, don’t wear bathing suit tops.  Interesting.

We both fell asleep on the beach for about 2 hours.  Though I applied sunscreen, I must admit that I got some nice sunburn.  (Sorry, Mom.)  Definitely learned my lesson for next time.  But it was so worth it because the beach was so glorious.  How many study abroad locations come with a beach like this?

 After the beach, we returned home to find our dinner sandwiches (very European: baguettes with Spanish ham and cheese) wrapped in tin foil so we could eat them on the way to meeting our friends in one of the plazas to watch Spain take on Italy for the Euro Cup championship game!  As you can imagine, it was absolutely insane.  There were fans everywhere, all decked out in red and yellow.  It was basically like watching the SuperBowl in the city of the one of the teams playing in the game.  The energy was contagious!  I wish I had filmed the crowd going wild after each of the goals.

 Once we won, everyone poured on the energy.  We followed some Spanish kids around the town (sort of like a parade?) chanting  “Yo soy Español, Español, Español” and similar cheers.  We recruited more people to walk with us as we passed them.  We must have walked for an hour, and I can honestly say that we were more spirited than half of the Spanish people whom we encountered!  We finally reached the main fountain in the city.  It was full of people who were jumping in and splashing everyone.  When I say full, I mean absolutely packed.  There were tons of crazy fans there.  Not surprisingly, most members of our group (including me) jumped into the fountain.  What a fun memory!

 After getting out the fountain in our sopping wet clothes, we continued to walk around the island.  This time, though, we walked toward the beach.  It was quite an experience: People were waving flags and were screaming out of cars, drivers were honking to the beat of our chants, and everyone was going absolutely nuts.  Such a night to remember!  It was so incredible to be in Spain when the team made history by winning three consecutive major tournaments.

Sunday might have been the second longest day of my life (hence the length of this blog post): We went to bed at 3:30, the reason being that we ran into some slight difficulty in finding our way back to the house.  Once we made it, though, we collapsed into bed to catch a few hours of sleep before our first day of classes. 

Here are some quick observations that I have made thus far from my time in Spain:

1.  There are many, many dogs here.  Leashes are not very popular.

2.  Basically every store/restaurant here sells ice cream and beer.  They all have the same sign outside advertising the different types of ice cream.

3.  I will probably be returning home with lung cancer due to the extremely high number of smokers that resides here.

4.  There are very few, if any, overweight people here.  There is hardly any greasy fast food; everyone eats healthy.  I have experienced this at the house too: Though we eat a lot of food (especially at lunch, the main meal of the day), it is always healthy.  We have salads twice a day (with tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions, all of which I now eat- be proud, Mom and Dad!) with olive oil instead of salad dressing.  We never have butter with our bread and don't have dessert (that's what all those stores selling ice cream are for).  I have yet to have fried food here.

So there is still hope that I will not gain weight during my stay here!