SPAIN : Cadiz, Sevilla, & Cordoba

Dear readers, please forgive from my absence from blogging, I’ve been extremely busy! I don’t even know where to begin…Seeing land for the first time was amazing I was starting to get shipfever! The first day off the ship I wandered around beautiful Cadiz with some friends with no idea what to do. So naturally, we shopped and ate J We also took a double decker bus to tour the city more efficiently and went to an awesome beach to catch some Spanish rays. My diet consists of ice cream and the best sangria you could ever imagine. Day two I had a SAS trip planned and went to Sevilla y Cordoba! Sevilla was unbelievable, gorgeous tile, art, and scenery everywhere you looked. I went to the Plaza de Espana, Cathedrals ,and up 37 floors (worse than the stairs up to the Arc de Triumph in Paris, did you think that was possible Jax & Mom?) to the top of a tower for a panoramic view which was well worth it. Our group ate at a really nice restaurant with delicious TAPAS(!) and wine. Next we took the bus to Cordoba, set our stuff down at our hotel and went out for drinks…fell in love with Strong Bow but no Spaniards :(dammit! Woke up to explore Cordoba with the gang, first stop was Cathedral de Cordoba, which actually started off as a mosque so its architecture looked very Egyptian-like with its arches and unique style which was better than any cathedral I’ve ever been to. A guy in our group is Muslim and he really wanted to pray while we were in the building so we looked out for him because I basically just wanted to watch him do his thing. One big problem is 98% of Spain is Catholic, even though only 20% actually practice it. But that’s beside the point, and there was a pretty big confrontation and too much Spanish yelling so we ended up leaving the madness. This really showed me how lucky we are to live in a free country with amendments that protect us and where there is so much more tolerance towards people and their religion. We headed back to Cadiz and the great food didn’t stop so we went out once again for our last night in Espana ay yi yiii! The next day I was finally able to use the internet and uploaded some pictures on facebook which made me feel better haha media fasting is oh so bittersweet. We departed Cadiz with everyone out on the deck and headed to Morocco! The following day was “Morocco Day” and out on the deck we could see Spain, Gibraltar, and Africa all at once and it was awesome :) went to pre-port briefing to prepare for Morocco but I don’t think anyone or anything could prepare me for what I experienced there!