Friday, August 22, 2008

We have the day off from school! Nevertheless I get up early—the first one up in the house—and make myself some breakfast. I jot down a note to Isabel, letting her know in my best Spanish that I didn’t want to wake anyone so I got some food, and I would be back for lunch at two.

I sneak out quietly and head for Plaza de Mina to use the internet and make some phone calls. Most of the girls are meeting here at eleven to go to the art store. Part of this exploration seminar involves producing some sort of final project to express our personal relationship with both the travel experience and the research and translation work we will be doing. Because Alberti was both a classically trained painter and a vibrant poet, many of the students want to use art and language to create their final projects. Some are painting, some are writing poetry, some are mixing the two into a hybrid piece. The art store is only open in the morning, but in Spain that means the store is open from roughly 10:30 until two. That doesn’t leave much of a window of opportunity to get shopping done. The art store is not very big, but they have quite an array of very expensive colored pencils and oil paints. The walls are completely covered in framed works and as I study them while the other girls peek around the store I realize that most of the art must be from local or well-known artists because some of the sketches are dedicated. I begin to wonder if there is something magical about certain cities or places or people that draws artistic types. Paris, clearly, London, New York, but what about the places that these creators and free thinkers go to for privacy and tranquility? I can’t help but think of Hemingway and Cuba, and I wonder if a place, a city, or even just a little house somewhere can be a muse…

There’s some discussion of the group splitting up this weekend since a bunch of the girls want to travel to other parts of Spain. A few are going to Granada, and some to Sevilla. I’m tempted to go, but I really can’t choose between the two cities and I would rather wait to go with my parents and with Else when they arrive. But I’m really excited for all the other girls to go and make sure they all know that they have to come back and tell me all about their adventures. I’m quietly happy with the chance to explore Cádiz on my own and I know I can log some beach hours this weekend.

We make plans to meet at the beach after lunch and everyone heads home to see what their host families will serve them today. I get quite a surprise when I sit down at the lunch table to discover I am expected to eat an entire fried fish. Basically, Isabel took a fish, uncut, uncleaned, dipped it in breading crumbs and then fried it in olive oil and plopped it down in front of me. There is also a plate of smaller fish fried in the same manner. I eat my entire fish, which is about the length of my forearm and twice as wide, and try one of the smaller fish. At the end of my meal I have a fish skeleton, in tact, with the head still attached, dangling with its mouth agape from my plate. I realize that mermaids probably don’t have the most glamorous dinner parties.

The beach simply cannot be beat. We have officially established a meeting and camp-out spot right in front of the big white building that crouches over the sand. This building reminds me slightly of something that belongs at the resort visited by Sugar Kane, Josephine and Daphne in Some Like it Hot, but it’s actually the center for Oceanic Archaeology. It’s built on cement pylons and looks like it’s standing on stilts sunk into the sand. The young boys tend to hang out under the building to play soccer and it can get kind of noisy, but is always fun to watch. We generally find the impromptu soccer matches most entertaining because it’s really an unofficial showcase of Europe’s most offensive hairstyles. Mullet after faux-hawk, after rat-tail (called a coleta, but shouldn’t be confused with the coletas worn by bullfighters), some are curled, some are bleaches, some are just obviously bad ideas… we love them all. You cannot get bad hair like this in Europe, some of these boys almost make it look good… almost.

In general, Spanish beaches will always provide the best people watching I have ever encountered this side of a monster truck jam. The beach is the place where we all quickly realize how self-conscious the Puritan foundation of the United States has made us all. The women in Spain really live in their bodies, wearing teeny, tiny swimsuits that barely cover their butts, or sometimes not at all in the case of the tangas (thongs) and bikini tops are totally optional. Women of all shapes and sizes worship the sun in these miniscule swimsuits. I can’t help but remember Else telling me that after a certain age she plans on hanging up her two-piece forever. Spanish women do not have such rules about age, or weight, or fitness… and I say good for them. I feel silly for worrying about wearing a two-piece because I don’t have the six pack that was mine years ago! Even softies deserve a nice tan!

After the beach we all split up, agreeing to meet for dinner later at Plaza de San Antonio, which is easy for everyone to find, especially for me since it’s two minutes from my door. Morenita Megan (we have two Megans, one blonde, one brunette) and I decided to head for the market. Megan has a vague idea of where it is, and that’s usually good enough in Cádiz. Sure enough, we come to find it without any problems, and all but a few of the cheap clothing and accessories shacks are packed up and gone.

We look at sundresses and then duck into the supermarket across the street to pick up a few supplies. We’re not supposed to help ourselves to food or drink at our host-families’ houses because they are not paid for that. So I buy a few things to tide me over and Megan buys cheese. She’s really excited about the cheese, but somehow it seems like an odd thing to eat in the heat. We run into blonde Megan and Rikki at Plaza de Mina and chat for a minute before heading home to get ready for dinner.

I get ready, keeping in mind that in Spain the night out has retained a little of it’s traditional roots; people still dress up to go out to eat. The cities are all built around plazas and once upon a time the young ladies would put on their finest dresses and mantillas and go out with their families or their chaperones and take walks around the perimeter of the plazas. The young men might walk too, or they might sit on the benches and watch the ladies pass by. If they were able to catch the eye of a young lady and got a good vibe, perhaps they’d strike up the nerve to ask the father’s permission to walk with the young lady one night… and romance was born. Still everyone collects in the plazas to talk and let their children run amok, still men and women dress nicely, and so I put on makeup and a nice outfit and make my way to meet the rest of the group.

The entire group has collected in the plaza and someone has formulated a plan to eat at a restaurant on the north face of the peninsula that came highly recommended by Courtney and Anita’s host mom. Of course, when we get there, it being such a gem of a restaurant, has no room for a group of sixteen people, and so we eat at the place next door. I ask the waiter to push tables together for all of us, despite my initial thought that a few separate smaller tables would be better. I sit at the head of the table, a place I generally find myself when we all go out to eat together. We all look at the menu and no one recognizes any of the food listed. Sadly, it seems as though everyone expects me to know what all of this stuff is, but I have no idea. We order blindly as I make a note in my cell phone of all the names of foods that none of us recognize. I will definitely look those up later.

Isar ends up with some sort of tuna and potato dish that is drowning in olive oil, Jared orders bull meat, a bunch of the girls end up with what appear to be latkes with shrimp in them, and I get a plate of fried shrimp, with peels, heads, tails, and legs still on and in tact. I have to commend everyone for their adventurous spirits. I particularly enjoyed the quisquillas (shrimp latkes) and the roasted peppers. Spanish food can be quite bland, but their pimientos (peppers) are amazing. They’re not spicy, but almost sweet instead. In general the food can be pretty salty, ham cured with salt, olives, salted potatoes… but the saltiness only increases the closer you get to the ocean. In Cádiz, a city surrounded by the ocean on all sides, the food is really salty. But the helado helps to balance it all out.

I pull my usual stunt and go in to ask for change at the bar so I can pay my exact amount and not have to hassle with trying to figure out change from the pool of fifteen different people’s money… After dinner, when the check has finally been settled, we split up to go home to get sweaters and then meet up at the beach.

I don’t stay out too late, I’ve been pretty tough on my brain with all these late nights and my group (Cortney and Carin) and I have to have a literal translation for Monday. As Tony and Giuseppe keep reminding us: play hard, work harder.