Cádiz con la Familia

As I struggle to remain awake for more than 2 hours at a stretch due to the relentless oppressive heat, I'm making my way through my last few days in Seville. On Thursday we'll be heading to the coast for a quick beachy holiday and then before I know it I will be drinking tea and looking at grey Irish skies again. I haven't quite decided how I feel about that yet, my brain is too occupied with trying to drink enough water to compensate for all the sweat (I'm sorry but seriously you wouldn't BELIEVE) and really, really struggling to study for one last exam. I can't even begin to tell you how much I am bored by the Modern Age of Spain. I can't even begin to tell you anything about the Modern Age of Spain, to be honest. I haven't studied enough.

As I won't be sleeping anytime soon, here are a few snaps from the day trip to Cádiz (remember I went at night that time and said I'd like to come back during the day? Well I did.) that I took with my family the other week when they were visiting for my birthday. 

by the seaaa by the wonderful sea

It's always nice to get out of a city when it's hot, and with temperatures in the mid 30s decamping to a rather blustery day by the sea in Cádiz was a good idea. Slight lack of forethought on my part left us with not much to do when I realised that on Mondays the museums would all be closed (Doh) but an open top bus tour, my mother's go to activity in a new place, accompanied by some serious levels of wandering filled the day.

We all know how much I love a cathedral, so of course we stopped by Cádiz's offering. Big, white, airy. Made of stone. Very nice colonial architecture though I must say, in fact most of the seafront in Cádiz is known for having a Caribbean look to it, and it certainly reminded me of Havana, which was a very important Spanish port back in ye olden times. Inside we were also able to go down into the crypts, which I can't see anyone not enjoying. Like Seville's, the cathedral in Cádiz is a great showcase for all the wealth that came flooding into Spain from the New World. 

Next, because we could, we climbed one of the towers of the Cathedral to have a look out over the city. It was nice, but no Giralda.

During our epic walkabout during which we rounded pretty much the entire peninsula of Cádiz's old town we encountered a modern art museum hidden in an old fortress, some small beaches and the park Genovés, complete with interesting topiary and some completely inexplicable dinosaurs in the duck pond.

The day otherwise was punctuated by food and coffee breaks, and we got back to Seville at about half past 8. We then went out for a Japanese dinner which is entirely irrelevant but look at it, the sushi came in a boat. How fantastic.

Ah, short and sweet. I really am very tired. Lately I feel more and more like the fat puppy in 101 dalmatians who is forever sitting down and announcing mournfully how tired and hungry he is. (I'm quite hungry as well.)

That's all for now, there'll probably be one more post before I up sticks.
Gosh, time goes in doesn't it?

Carnaval de Cádiz

Hola chic@s, hope you had a nice weekend. On Saturday night a group of us joined a We Love Spain (an events company here) trip down to Cádiz for the last night of Carnaval. Before this year I thought this week long festival to mark the beginning of Lent was something they only did in Germany because we learned about it in school but it seems it is a very big deal here as well. Remember at Halloween when I was confused about the lack of effort over costumes? It seems that Carnaval is pretty much the rest of Europe's answer to Halloween, in October you just wear scary costumes but you save your cute/funny/topical ones for springtime. It's a fun tradition which I kind of wish Ireland had (I love dressing up) but I'm not sure how well it would work for us.

We got into the town at about 10 and were left to our own devices until we were picked up at 5am the next morning. For a while it seemed like the night would drag on, at 12 it was already a bit cold and we were a bit bored, but we made our way back to the centre and just embraced how everyone else was doing things. Carnaval is very much a street/outdoors festival, as in, you stand in the street and drink. There didn't seem to be much else going on, no music or entertainment. This is why I'm not sure how well it would work in Ireland, vastly differing drink cultures had me imagining how much more aggressive and out of control people there might be at a similar celebration in Dublin, given the lack of security or distraction. In fact I don't think I saw a single (real) police officer all night, and only one ambulance. Fair play Spain. That's not to say there weren't people who 'couldn't hack the sesh', as it were, but all in all it was a fun atmosphere and nothing unsafe about it. Lovely.

Some sort of huge Weirdo Club meeting.

The costumes were great, everyone seemed to make an effort (no swathes of girls in cat ears and guys wearing "nudist on strike" signs here). We saw clowns, soldiers (lots of them), nuns, popes, pirates, matadors, burritos, firemen, babies and the entire cast of Toy Story. The lack of indoor places to sit down and have a rest, a drink, or something to eat meant that if you weren't wearing warm enough clothes you could easily get cold sitting still. The guys wearing onesies had the right idea.

still not sure what he was meant to be

All in all it was a great night, and Cádiz looks like it's a very pretty place. I'm looking forward to going back during the day when there isn't rubbish everywhere and the streets don't smell of wee.

Besos x