Arrival

The city
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I stepped out of the plane and onto the scalding pavement of Jerez airport (surprisingly small in size) and felt tingling in every inch of my skin. It was so hot that the air in the distance was moving. Has anyone seen the movie Traffic, when the cops are driving through the "wilderness" of Mexico? It seemed exactly like that. The land was dusty and desolate and lackluster, but just when you began to think that it had no character, you would spot a glorious tropical plant or lush, streaming palm tree.

(From left to right): Brittany, Antonio, and Me
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Brittany and I went through customs, then waited for our bags on a bench. Our promise to only speak Spanish to eachother felt incredibly impractical (not to mention boring) once we exhausted our entire vocabulary in the first five minutes. We alternated between Spanish and English for the remainder of the visit.

"It was so hot that the air in the distance was moving."

Outside the airport, we caught a taxi for 15 euros into the city, where we took a bus to Cadiz. There were two other tourists on the bus (at least two other non-Spanish tourists), but they didn't seem interested in the culture or language at all. They spoke in English to the bus driver (even though his English was poor) and then asked us about the bars and nightlife (Brittany was considerably more engaged in this conversation than me, both for having been in Barcelona so recently- August- and just generally being interested in such things). We got lost in Cadiz (turns out there are TWO streets called Santo Domingo) and ultimately called Antonio to come and pick us up. He was very nice from the first meeting. I have to admit, I have an irrational paranoia about middle-aged men taking in two teenage girls for a week in his apartment, but he was never anything but graceful. He's actually a close friend of the woman that runs the language school we were attending.

Flamenco
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So, after we unpacked haphazardly, we walked to the beach and spent the afternoon in glorious jubialation that we were spending the afternoon in a place than necessitated sunscreen!

The next few days, though each uniquely spectacular, were all much the same in format. We attended school in the morning, went to the beach during the afternoon (when all shops were closed for siesta), shopped in the evening, and went out at night. I bought a few souveniers, though I couldn't justify purchasing anything for myself. I kept thinking, "I'll be back someday. I don't need anything NOW...."