We spent a few days in Spain then decided to go to Cadiz, which is on the southern tip of Spain. We hopped on the train in the evening after spending the day in Madrid and decided to spend the night on Cadiz's beaches. When we arrived we walked around the little beach town and enjoyed it's breeze and salty air. We ate at this, of all places, American restaurant where Bella got a burger and I got quesadillas. We were in the middle of eating when we realized that we couldnt spend the night on the beaches. That's really not something two girls should do. So we set out to find a cheap hostel.
We found that a lot of the hotels and hostels were already full so when we found a hostel that looked like an old spanish house had one room left, we booked it. Little did we know that this place would help us have the third most unpleasant yet memorable night of our (at least my) trip. As we made our way up the old marble staircase to our room we were greeted by a dutch (maybe german) man who was just exiting his room and looked at us in surprise and said "oooohhhh american girls??? Welcome!!!" From then on we knew this night was destined to be memorable.
The room was a bit sketch. The windows were wide open, with no screens, to the street. The comforter and multicolored mismatched sheets were sure to have seen better and cleaner days. We were certain the closet contained a dead body but both of us were to scared to see if the ideas our imaginations incited were true. And the shared bathroom down the hall....well let's just say we tried to have zero physical bodily contact with any part of it. We called it a night despite the dilapidated state of the place and snoozed off into dream land.
That is of course until Bella jolted upright in the bed and grabbed me and said "did you feel that?!?!" I groggily awoke and asked her what she meant. She started to panic, so I woke up pretty quickly and started to ask her what was wrong. She stated in an alarming voice that she had got bitten by a spider on her foot and I needed to look at it. Bella has a bad history with bugs that bite her, she's extremely allergic to them. I looked at it and saw two diminutive bumps on her foot. I told her there was no reason to panic, it was probably mosquitoes. Well that made it only a little better. She groused a bit about it and then we both went back to sleep again.
Until she got bitten again. And again. And again. And this is how the night went. All night. Till I finally decided to just stay awake and read a book on my iPad and guard Bella from the bugs and do something with toothpaste.....something that only Bella and I will ever know. Then at 5 o'clock in the morning Bella said she had had enough. So we picked up and left.
We went to this square by a church which happened to have wifi in it, watched people breed their dogs on the front steps of the church and accessed the wifi to find a more legit hotel. We found this "five star" hotel at a reasonable price about a 45 minute train ride away. So we got on the train and by 7:30 we were saying goodbye to the southern coast of Spain and it's mosquitoes.
When we arrived to the station we grabbed breakfast at a small cafe and each stared into either our coffee or in Bella's case her coca cola.
We got to the hotel early so we wandered around then decided to just see if we could use the pool until we could check into our rooms. We did so. As we were laying out by the pool I reflected on the "five star" hotel we were staying in. Hotel Jerez was nice, but it wasn't five star by American standards. Five star for Americans means the newest latest technologically advanced hotel. Five star for Spain, even most European countries, means an old dignified hotel that offers plush but old style amenities. Yes, there is a bathrobe in the room, but no cd/iPod player; yes, it's immaculate in the rooms, but it is by no means new, the rug on the floor is old but expensive. It's interesting to see and note those variances in standards according to the culture.
We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging and leisurely enjoying our dinner. We watched the news at night and blogged until we passed out. Only to repeat it again the next day. It was a great way to spend the last few days in Spain. And I could find myself ready to go home but aware that I would miss these precious last days in Spain. Oh well. All good things must come to an end sometime mustn't they?
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