A lovely weekend in the south of Spain

oh what a lovely time!

Wednesday evening my flatmates and I met Lydia at the train station and set out for El Puerto de Santa Maria, which is where our freind Hayley lives. The train was packed as I am sure many people had the idea to go to the southern province of Cadiz to pass the puente. We had heard there is quite the bustling night life in El Puerto, so of course we had to check it out.
First we hit a tapas bar and sampled some exceptionally delicious bacaloa, then we continued out with a very mixed group consiting of americans, brits, spaniards and of course our german.

The next day we headed to Jerez de la Frontera, the home of sherry wine. Jerez actually means sherry in Spanish, go figure. We went to the bodega of Tio Pepe which is one of the most well known sherry producers in the world! We had a great tour of the bodega, it was so much fun! We also go to sample two sherries ( one sweet and one dry, i liked both) and some tapas. It was the most lovely afternoon.

Friday we headed to Gilbralter by way of Cadiz. It was freezing in Cadiz that day so although we intended to do some more sightseeing there we decided to cut it short and catch an earlier bus to La Linea, which is the town right next to Gilbraltar since you can't actually bus in Gilbraltar itself, being a different country and all. In La Linea, we actaully had a lovely indian dinner, quite surprisingly delicious. (International foods in Spain are usually risky.)

In Gilbraltar itself we only had time to go up to the top, snap a few pictures, see some monkeys and come back down againt o catch the bus to go back to El puerto because our poor little Hayley FORGOT her passport so she couldnt cross the border into Gilbraltar! So the poor thing had to stay ont he Spain side will we ran up the rock. We didn't run, we cable car-ed, but still we did so quickly. I would like to go back there and explore more, it is a very interesting place. You literally cross a fence and you are in a teeny tiny peice of Britian, surronded by Spain. Which is still a bit of a sore subject with the Spaniards, all of whom highly discouraged us from visiting there. (haha on of Hayley's friends in El Puerto told us that is was a "shit hole".... he spoke some English.) We were very glad that we ignored them though, it was awesome!

Saturday night we were back in El Puerto and we ended the weekend proudly, staying out with the Spaniards until about 5am. Sunday we managed to get ourselves on the train back to Sevilla and pour our tired little bodies into bed.

Photos of all of these events can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mclauerman/ElPuertoJerezGibraltar

This week, probably as a result of such a packed weekend, we have all been a little sick. I continue on trying to teach "Jingle Bell Rock"... they are getting it... slowly....

Today a very exciting thing happened: We got our NIEs! This was the last buerocratic hoop we had to jump through, to get our resident identification cards. With these cards, we will not only be let BACK into the country after christmas but we are also let in for free to many sight seeing spots around sevilla. So to celebrate we met Lydia and went to the Alcazar Gardens and I climbed the Giralda! What a full and productive day!

Tommorow we are going to have a Christmas-themed dessert potluck at our piso... should be fun!

I fly home next Thursday, less than a week!