Casa Grande Hotel Jerez Jerez De La Frontera

... and colors inside!
The owner, who was a tall American woman with long red hair who wore a long gauzy skirt and most definitely went bra-less, explained the rules to all of us. The kitchen was communal, as in all things in the fridge that were not labeled were up for grabs, and breakfast was coffee, tea, and oatmel. In Cadiz, the plumbing is horrible so you can't, ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT, flush anything down the toilets. I don't think any of us ...

So today we didn't have an excursion because we had our own private tour guides in Rachel's host family from three years ago. They met us at the pier and were so happy to see Rachel it was great! They took us on a walking tour of historic Cadiz and we had breakfast at one of their places they like and we had churros an coffee with milk. Loly knew everyone we walked by it seemed and although they spoke no English and we speak little Spanish we were ...

Today was the second and last excursion we did through Holland America. Jacqui had wanted to see the Andalusian horse show, and we could also get in a sherry tasting with it!

First off was the tour of the Gonzales Byass winery. I'm not a big fan of the normal sherries, but I love the sweet sherries. And it was cheap. I got a ...

... show was actually really good - she just got very bored, very quickly. you see one horse dance you've seen them all...Mike took her outside to play in the courtyard. The arena is set in a beautiful garden with a fountain. They had a ton of fun running around the garden and I thoroughly enjoyed the dancing horse show. There are 8-12 horses and horsemen who come out in the arena and do the most amazing horse dances all to beautiful spanish music. It is ...

... Visigoths, Arabs and finally the Christian Spanish. We got to know it as well as one can in a day of wandering: lots of museums and medieval walks. It deserved another day. Cadiz is located on an isthmus, sided by the Atlantic with beautiful beaches. Unlike the Costa del Sol which was all British, Cadiz looked like a destination more for the Spanish. Back home at 7, dinner 8-9, and in the sack at 10. Whew.

I'd been to Spain for like a month now and I hadn't seen the sea yet, so I decided to change things and get a bit of suntan. I called up 3 friends, we packed ourselves to a comfortable train and after an hour or so we got off in Cadiz, an important harbour and a really nice city on the Costa de la Luz.

Although I went there for the first time in February, it was so warm that I could stay in the swimsuit and survive. We started with a cheerful visit in a ...

... of a barrel. I got the see one with José Luis, chelsea clinton, PICASSO, etc. It was really cool. After that we got back on the bus and took another hour ride south to the coast and visited the town on Conil. It is located on the Atlantic coast and is something like you´d see in the movies. All of the buildings are white and they rise up the side of the hill coming away from the beach so that when you are on the beach you are looking up at gorgous white buildings ...

... It was a bit cold to be on the beach, but we swam until I lost all blood to my fingers. We would jump out and charge back in after a dose of bota. Steve called out how dumb it was for me to say "It's cold this time!" when we went back in after warming up. Of course we were the only ones in sight brave enough to swim, but we were able to drag some british girls in for a while as well. A lot of the people we met during the day spoke English and were studying in Spain ...

... outside of things. All the shops were open though, so I checked out some of those. I also went to the cafe around the corner that has the best pastries. I thought about getting coffee but I was afraid that I wouldn't sleep later (which was probably a mistake). I just walked around wherever my feet took me, and found some really cool little areas I didn't see last time I was here (lots of fun little plazas and what ...

... through to the departure lounge. Here I purchased the essentials such as travel adaptors, new headphones for the ipod (what? they were cheap) and some books including the new Iain M Banks novel. The flight was particularly uneventful as I slept a lot and made use of the fantastic new earplugs I had purchased which stop your head exploding. When the plane touched down in Jerez the sun obviously got to me as I rushed straight outside to look for a bus ...