One month.

¡Hola!

I have now been in Cádiz for one entire month, and I can hardly believe it. Life here is splendid. As is to be expected, I struggled with a bit of homesickness and culture shock, but moving past that took only a few days of taking in the sights, the sounds, the food and the language. My first two weeks were equally relaxing and exciting. I spent the time getting to know the other students in the program, and attempting to get to know my way around Cádiz. The latter was not particularly successful. Cádiz is a city on a small peninsula. It is the oldest city in Spain, and possibly the oldest city in Europe, and for centuries the city has had nowhere to grow but up. Today, to someone new to the city, it is positively a labyrinth of old buildings  towering over narrow cobblestone streets whose layout lacks rhyme or reason. While this adds to the charm and character of Cádiz, it makes getting lost one of your primary tourist activities for the first week or so.

The view from a tower in the middle of the city, to give you an idea of what it looks like.

Orange trees and old buildings are common sights in Cádiz.

Though I spent a good deal of time wandering the city wondering where I was, the first two weeks were also occupied by our first class, a language intensive every morning. Speaking Spanish is still difficult, but I can already see a huge improvement in my ability, especially in terms of understanding when others are speaking to me.

Southern Spain, despite being only 3 hours from Africa, is not a tropical place in January or February. And this year is no exception; all of Europe has been hit with a cold front from Siberia, and temperatures have been at record lows. The strange thing about the weather here in Cadiz, is that the best way to escape the cold is to go to the beach, an unthinkable act in Seattle in January. Although it is cold, generally in the 30s or 40s Fahrenheit, it has been sunny every day except two, and the sun is what keeps you warm. The houses certainly don't, all the houses here are old, and lack insulation or efficient heating systems, and most people have no heating at all inside. Bundling up with blankets is the common cure for coldness.

I've yet to do much traveling, though the second weekend almost half the students in the program went on a day trip to Arcos de la Frontera, a small town about 2 hours away from Cádiz. Arcos, as it is generally referred to, is a collection of white buildings surrounding stone castles and cathedrals, all perched on the top of a cliff.

The clifftop town of Arcos de la Frontera

Not much else to remark on from the first two weeks, just a lot of getting used to the language, the culture and the climate. Though I did learn one important lesson my second day here: do not eat oysters at festivals from street vendors.  My stomach did not appreciate my decision to slurp down a raw shellfish.

Probably enough for a first post, I'll be back to comment more soon!