Día numero uno: Córdoba

la mezquita

So far, so good. Got a place - the youth hostel - for €18 that has its own shower, toilet and everything. I'm very pleased. Also, I found the Mezquita quite easily and my dining establishment as well. The Altarea is an organic/veggie place that attracted me with its offer of specialty beer. There I was, seated with a cordobésa couple and tried my best to make myself innocuous or to not bother them. Nonetheless, they made polite conversation.

Two hours later, I was stumbling home, piss drunk, calling Becka a you-know-what for not being able to talk to me (I think she was at a movie or something). This morning, I woke up and my phone was gone. Crap. Two days into the trip and I've already lost my camera and my phone. Phone will be a bit bigger problem, not so much for the phone, but for the financial situation. I had planned to use it to keep track of all my purchases and thus get an idea how much I was spending on food, accommodation, entertainment and the like. Now I was without it.

Turns out I had gone out with the Cordoban couple after dinner and some of their friends and downed a few more beers at some trendy upscale bar (beers were still the affordable 1€ price, despite the swankiness). Then I blabbered to Becka in the hallway, considerately not wanting to awake my roommate, a Mexican. Apparently my phone did not follow me to bed, but luckily the cleaning folk discovered it the next morning and I was able to claim it at the front desk.

And thus begins my Great European Adventure Tour.

Adios, Cádiz, Hola Europa

la catedral de cádiz: a glorious site

After eschewing the 7:50AM train option for the more reasonable 4:10pm one, I set a departure time of 3:30. I left at 3:33, thereby going against my genes as the Brown family always leaves significantly after their intended DT, often by margins of hours.

I think I'm quite practiced at leaving now. I feel like I've done it so many times that it doesn't really seem that hard anymore. I remember leaving for college the first time just being excruciating. I cried for a good part of the day I left and felt hollow for a few days afterwards. Now, I sort of see it like this: if we're going to see each other again, we will. If not, then so be it. It's sort of a laissex faire attitude but it seems to protect me from the gushing tears that Becka can't seem to avoid.

I had a short moment when I said goodbye to Phil, Sara, and Alex last night, but it was dulled b/c I'd see Sara the next day and Alex in England. Plus I've promised to invite all of them to my wedding.

In the end, I've enjoyed my time in Cádiz. I'm not sure how helpful résumé-wise this year was, and I'm not sure if it would have been better to travel for the whole year, not buy the Moroccan rugs, but we'll never know. I've made some good friends but not as many as I would've liked, and with the exception of Alex, probably not as close as I would have hoped either. Part of that was the language barrier: i wanted to hang out with Spanish people to practice my spanish but didn't because I couldn't really connect with them and it was so forced. Towards the end, I really started just giving up on it and hanging out with Alex more, which ended up being more meaningful. Still, I probably could have put more effort into my original goal - become fluent in Spanish. But at this point, no use crying over spilt milk...