'Merican Donut joke :)

Music we're cooking to: Adele & The Postal Service <3

“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” - Pat Conroy

Flowers from one of the 7 year old girls I tutor! She glued them so they would last....umm...well it was a very cute gesture!

Saturday night, I found myself at a bar around 4 am, explaining to another new friend from this program that my 62 year old dad (mind you, a tad bit younger at the time but nowhere near presumably capable of such feats) had climbed up into Indian caves when we visited a national park in New Mexico– this was a couple years back. So it’s in the loudest settings, or the quiet room in Chiclana where I experience bittersweet peacefulness, that this quote comes into play.

I am so happy. Where I am, what I’m doing, just makes so much sense right now in the midst of a loss for any certain direction.

This week on random nearby travels:

Jerez de la Frontera is another corner of this Sherry Bermuda Triangle thing that can only be found in Spain. The city itself, an 40 minute (?!) train ride away from my current hometown, is an entertaining attraction full of young people, scooters, more great tapas and orange trees. It’s framed by beautiful Tuscany-like fields of olive trees and said orange groves. We couldn’t escape the rain but it ended up showing us the smell of Jerez: accidentally fresh-squeezed orange juice. Somewhere between strange&delicious tapas like lasagna with goat’s cheek drenched with a sweet brown cream, potatoes drench in neon-orange Mojo Picon sauce, and finally discovering my favorite sherry of the 5 options (Oloroso, the one right before that liquid raisin juice flavored option)...or stuffing some of those oranges into my roommate’s bag because the look on her face when she discovered this thoughtful souvenir the next day was WORTH it…this run on sentence…the sight of a carnival and protest right next to each other…the view of a simple train station…I decided Jerez would require more than one visit. I want to travel around Europe, but my friends here and I constantly remind ourselves that we can’t leave Spain without traveling around there as well. So this would suggest that there’s no time for repeats because there’s only 6-7 months left (yes time flies)!

We were back in our second home of Cadiz by Saturday evening. We finally visited a TripAdvisor-approved restaurant called La Gorda Te Da De Comer, “the fat lady feeds you” haha. We stayed at our friends’ place in the new part of the city and their apartment literally steps out into the Atlantic Ocean view. That side has tall buildings, the soccer stadium, and a 2 story McDonald’s…no big deal. We met up with about 10 friends altogether and went to typical bars here: drinks allowed outside or in, techno music, party promoters offering coupons for 1 Euro shots, creative shots without said coupon, and no curfew. The weekend was fun but my own self is definitely past that, but I still stuck around with great new friends ‘til 6 am.

Next week is the big Thanksgiving dinner attempt with about 40 expats, a visit to Gibraltar, and London in a few weeks!

Finally, a little entertainment: This is our apartment after the washing machine broke halfway through and flooded our floors...the door was slightly cracked open when we saw this :( yes, the window's open because that's the clothing line where it hangs to dry.

 “Travel is not reward for working, it’s education for living.” – Anonymous, funny…someone should jump up to claim these wise words :)