Carnival in Cádiz

Last Saturday we decided to venture out of Sevilla and go to Cádiz, which is a small town on the southern coast of Spain, right near the little peninsula where Spain tries to meet Africa. It´s a 2 hour trip by train. After arriving, we wandered around for a while, looking at the buildings, searching for a map, and watching people crack open spiny sea creatures to eat raw. We found our way to the Torre Tavira, which I had read about in my Spain travel book (thanks for the Christmas gift, you-know-who-you-are!). It´s this really old tower you can climb to get amazing views of the city and ocean. After lunch we split up and my friend Carolyn and I hung out at the beach for a while, walking in the ocean and getting tan in Februrary while there was snow at Cedarville. We walked along the shore to the old castle (all resemblences to Alcatraz are completely incidental) on an island off the shore, around the cathedral, in the tidal pools.... In my opinion, Cádiz is the most gorgeous town in Europe (just forget about the fact I´ve only seen 2), and one of the most beautiful in the world. It´s also the oldest city in Europe, and evidently the Phonecians played a big role in founding it. My 200 pictures don´t do it justice, but here´s a sampling: We also managed to pick the weekend to go that was during Carnaval, which was fun to experience. Picture Mardi Gras Spain-style, but not quite as bad. People were dressed up in all kinds of costumes, the town was decorated, street vendors were selling food and masks, everyone was in the streets, the beer was starting to flow... so we left. We saw the fun part in the morning with the kids parades and costumes. According to my host family, most towns in Spain used to celebrate Carnaval, but Cádiz was the only one who kept the tradition after the dictator Franco banned it, so they are very proud of both Cádiz and the festival.

That was the biggest excitement of last week. During the week I did fun stuff like worked, had meetings for school, and sent in homework. I love and miss you all! Let me know how you are!