Espana/Gibraltar/The Canary Islands
Spain beat out all of my expectations. I will always think fondly of Spain...I might even want to study there during my Junior year, Spring Semester, but hold your horses people...it’s just in the works!
While we were docked in Spain, I had the unique opportunity to stay with a Spanish family. While Kellen studied there for two months, two summers ago, she was assigned to live with this family by the ASA program. She was lucky in getting the best family in Spain! Once she knew Spain was on the Semester at Sea itnerary, she contacted them, asking if it would be okay if she and a couple of her friends could visit them. It made it conveniant because the ship docked in Cadiz and the family lives in Tarifa; it’s only about a hour away. The morning of our arrival in Spain, the father drove all the way to pick up me, Kellen, and Brianna. He greeted us with smiles and kisses on both cheeks. During our ride there he and Kellen got to catch up from the last two years, and he asked me and Brianna questions to get to know the two other girls who would be staying with his family for almost a week. The only tricky part was that he didn’t speak English, and neither did his family! This made for a great opportunity to practice my poor Spanish speaking skills.
As we got closer to Tarifa, it started to feel as if we were in a desert, but soon enough we saw the beach. As we rolled up to the house (which was technically an apartment complex in American terms; there are no typical American houses in Tarifa) the mother, 11 year old daughter, and 8 year old son were standing on the porch waiting to greet us. At that moment I knew they were a special family! As we started talking, I and the little girl, Almu, figured out we both danced. When I went upstairs to change into my bathing suit and came back down, she had put on her black leotard and pink ballet shoes for me. It was so cute! At first I thought her leotard was a bathing suit, assuming she was going to the beach with us, but after she slowly and simply explained in Spanish that it was her ballet outfit I understood (and seeing her ballet shoes definitely helped)! I felt so bad that I didn’t get it at first! Afterwards she searched all over her house to find her dance videos from her recital. The ballet style was similar to ours, but their “funk” (which is comparable to our jazz) was very different.
Once we settled in, Kellen took us on a tour of Tarifa. It’s simply a ten minute walk along the boardwalk to get to town. There were many unique shops and restaraunts along the cobblestone roads. Tarifa is the kitesurfing capital of the world, and July and August are crazy then, so it was weird for Kellen to be there during the offseason because she was there in the summer. There were still a lot of people, but Kellen described to us how all the streets were covered with people that you could barely walk. After our journey into to town, we came back for our first of many delicious, home-cooked meals!
Mama was an incredible cook and not only that, but she cooked for every lunch and dinner while we were there. I wish I knew the names of everything I ate, but everything was very Spanish and very, very good. We did not go hungry in that house, that’s for sure! Each meal was filled with laughter and good feelings (and remember we’re communicating all in Spanish).
Their daily routine was different than most Americans. The father was a firefighter and his station was right next to Almu and Jose’s school. It was rare to have a fire in Tarifa though, so most of his day consisted of hanging out with the guys at the station. It’s touching how proud he is to be a firefighter. One night he took us to the station to show us around and meet his friends. He even made me dress up in his jacket and helmet, and then made me get into the truck to take pictures! (He looooooves to take pictures) He had to work the first two days we were there, but the other days he had the night shift. The kids and their mom would wake up at 8am to get ready for school which started at 9am. They both slept in the clothes they were going to wear to school because they said they were too tired to get dressed in the morning. No one really eats breakfast in Spain, except for maybe some toast (But she always had gronala cereal, toast, jam, butter, orange juice, and milk sitting out for us each morning). Then she would take them to school. Afterwards she would work from home; she organizes vending machines that are sent to the universities. At 2pm school’s out, which means lunch time. We always waited for them to walk through the door to see Almu’s precious smile and Jose’s giddy laugh. Then we’d all eat lunch together, and the dad would come home from the fire station sometimes to eat with us. The kids had to finish their homework before they could play, but once they were done they had the night to hang out. Almu wasn’t starting dance for another few weeks, and Jose had soccer twice a week. Their parents were much more relaxed than parents in the states. We’re all used to having our day planned out for us from 7am to 10pm so it was interesting to see Almu having a friend over each night and Jose playing basketball all the time. (He always asked me to play with him) But I think because they had that freedom, it made them really responsible. Around 10pm, Almu would kiss everyone goodnight and would head to bed without any instruction from her parents. Jose was a little bit of a different story though....he had trouble going to bed and would always want to keep playing.
Family is the most important thing to the Spanish. Everything was centralized around the family. Most of their family lived in Tarifa, so we would walk down the street and we’d run into their nephew or their parents. The first day we were there it was the mother’s nephew’s birthday. It was at a restaurant that had a play place that someone in their family owned. There were probably 50 people there, 45 of them related. All the little kids were running around and having so much fun in the jumpy houses. Almu stayed with us though and introduced us to her family members. They were all so welcoming and happy to see us. You could feel the love. Ironically, it was our Spanish mom’s birthday too! Her husband’s sister and her husband and their grandkids came over for dinner. The little baby girl was only a year old, but the boy, Alejandro, was 3 years old and man was he a ham! He was so adorable. It was such a fun celebration and I think our Spanish mom really loved having us there for her birthday.
One of the days that our Spanish dad didn’t have work, they took us to Bolonia. Bolonia is an ancient city with Roman ruins. On our way there, they took us up to the “El Campo” area which is where a lot of people in Tarifa own houses (even though it’s 5 minutes from where they all live). Once we got to the top we could see all of Tarifa and got a better look of Africa. Then we drove about 20 minutes to Bolonia. The ruins were all intact; it was so interesting to see. You could walk around the whole area and you really felt like you were living thousands of years ago as a Roman.
On Thursday morning we had to say goodbye. It was so sad leaving them! I had so much fun and they completely surrounded us with their love. What made it worse is that it was pouring. With all the traffic because of the rain, we barely made it in time for my Semester at Sea field trip to Gibraltar with Rachel! It was about an hour and a half bus ride from Cadiz to Gibraltar. Once we got to the border, a border patrol officer got onto the bus and walked through the aisle and we all just had to show we had a passport, he didn’t even stop to check them thorougly. It was probably one of the most relaxed borders in the world! Then we met our crazy tour guide. She was this tiny, little firecracker. Her British accent first shocked me, but I quickly remembered Gibraltar is a British terroritory. She told us how thousands of Spanish and Moroccans come to Gibraltar each day for work. The whole of Gibraltar sits on a huge rock. Anyone who is sailing into the Mediterrean from the Atlantic Ocean has to sail right by it. It’s only 100 feet from Morocco. We toured the inside of the rock through all the tunnels and then we went to the WWII tunnels. British and American soldiers lived inside the rock for two years straight! They couldn’t go outside the entire time. They would bomb the Germany troops from inside of the rock. The war tunnels were so massive that it would take up to three hours in one of the many directions to get to the end of the tunnel. Gibraltar is famous for it’s monkeys! The monkeys were everywhere, jumping on people, trying to get their food. As my mom cleverly put it, their monkeys are like our cats and dogs, running all over the place. Afterwards they took us down to the town. It was so confusing; it felt like we were in London again!
That night we got back on the ship, to have a day on the ship before the Canary Islands. We docked in Tenerife, Santa Cruz. The Canary Islands is a Spanish terroritory, off the coast of Africa. It felt like we were in Spain though; everyone was speaking Spanish and had similar characteristics to the people in Spain. It was definitely a tropical island, a prime vacation spot. Everyone we met were on vacation and European. Our teachers said this many times: it was a “great tragedy” that we were not be able to go to Morocco. There wasn’t much to do besides the beach, except the first day we went to an African market. It was huge with booths lined up for miles! The Canary Islands to the Spanish is sort of what Hawaii is to us. It was definitely was fun though and relaxing!
We’ve had 6 days on the ship, and tomorrow we’ll be in Ghana! I can’t wait. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I’m going to be in AFRICA tomorrow! Wow! As our teachers put it, it’s our first “foreign port.” I’m excited to see where my time in Ghana takes me.
I miss you all so much at home! Keep emailing me :)
Love always,
Jamie
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