Madrid - Day 37

We left Cadiz today. Before we left the guy had to come make sure we didn’t break the house.


We took a bus to the train station, and we were on the train to Seville. We got there, and had a few minutes for a brake. Then we got on the train to Madrid. We watched Inkheart on the train; they had an English channel, so we understood it all.

After we got there we took the C train to Ministerios. There we took the pink line (subway) to the airport. At the airport we wandered around until we found where the hotel buses picked up people; there we waited for half an hour in the heat, just for the bus driver to come and tell us to wait ten more minutes because his shift was over.

When we finally got to the hotel we got moved in and situated. We went to look for the mall the lady at the hotel told us about. When we were about to give up, mom asked one more person for directions, then we found it. It was a huge mall! We ate dinner at a Brazilian steak house. It was cool because they brought meat on sticks; they described it as a buffet that they brought to you. The walk home was much easier than the walk there.

Tomorrow we have a 12 + hour flight.

Cadz - Day 36

Today was a beach day. First we went crabbing on the pier. It was lots of fun, and we spent hours doing it. I was crabbing with Alia, and mom watched. Then an ambulance came, and there was a huge crowd on the beach. The police were standing around, while orange people were moving around whoever was hurt. After a while the orange paramedics left, and the police stayed to watch the body, which had been covered in a metallic emergency blanket. Mom said that the person who died probably had a heart attack or drowned, we watched for a while but the boys got bored and went to get water. They were gone a really long time, so Alia went to see what was up. I caught lots of small crabs while she was gone. While I was looking for a good spot to find crabs the fisherman on the end of the pier came over and asked me if I was crabbing (well he just said crab in Spanish, and I knew what he meant). Five minutes later he came back with some fishing line with calamari on the end. He showed me how to convince the big crabs to grab it, and then pull it up. Lukas was the first to catch one, and I was not far behind. A few minutes later Ben caught one, and it was just Alia. I stayed with her to help her, while we were looking for crabs we met two boys and their father, they were fishing. We talked with them for a little while, and then Alia caught a huge crab with one claw. We showed mom the crabs, and then went to see if the fisherman wanted his hooks back. He told us to keep them, so we gave them to the little boys and their father. By the time we left the body had been picked up by a large van.


We went to the SuperSol to get bread and dinner. Then we packed, and went to the beach. At the usual beach it was all gross with foul smelling seaweed, so we went to the one next to ours. We stayed for almost three and a half hours. Both Alia and I were buried by the boys, and we even met some fellow Canadians.

We came home to eat dinner, and then went out on our evening walk. Before going down to the beach we got nuts, chips, (for the train and plane) and ice cream. Our walk was fun, especially seeing all the pictures of us jumping.

I will write two more times about Spain, once tomorrow at our hotel, and once from home.

Cadiz - Day 35

We finally went on my walk today! My walk was called Shippers to the Indies. We saw three churches, five squares, a hospital, a tower, and most importantly the Museum of Cadiz! Some of the first things we saw were the flamenco centre, the admiral’s house, and Cathedral Square. We ended up coming back there to do all our souvenir shopping. Then we made our way down some winding streets, and a shopping avenue to the Museum of Cadiz. We went past it, to head back to the stores, and on the way we saw an oratory with two chapels and some paintings by Goya.


We made the shops before they closed, and headed back towards the museum. When we got there we ate a lunch of pizzas before going in.

The museum was cool. On the ground floor was archeology. We were able to see a variety of roman ruins as well as two giant Phoenician anthropoid sarcophaguses from the fifth century. One really interesting Roman statue was one of Trajan. Its head was high quality, and made in Rome, while the rest was just sculpted locally.

On the first floor was fine art. When we got up there the security guard motioned us over to a painting, and told us to stand in two different places. We weren’t quite sure what he meant, but he kept telling us to look at the feet of the angel in the painting. We looked at the angel across the room and tried the same thing. We then realized the angel’s legs looked longer if you looked at it from one side, and short from the other side. He also told us that a landscape had blues in it that changed if you moved.

After the first floor we went up to the second floor. It had two rooms; the first one we went into was my favorite over all. It had stages of marionettes everywhere. They had a play with the Nativity Story, one with a bull fight, and one with knights. Some were strange, and some we could tell easily what they were. It was all really cool, and while we looked Alia, Ben, and Lukas watched the TV which was showing one of the puppet shows being preformed.

The second room on the first floor was contemporary art. It had modern art; some was really good, and others were just really crazy.

We came home, and ate dinner soon after. Then we continued our routine, and went crabbing. Unfortunately the tide was in, meaning the rocks we usually climbed on were submerged or very slippery. We walked along the beach a little, and then we went swimming with our clothes on. Everyone was very excited and we swam for a little while, before going home to shower and dry off.

Tomorrow is our last full day!

Cadiz - Day 34

This morning we went to go crabbing, but the crabs here don’t seem to be the morning type of crabs. We didn’t catch any, and it was hot too. We didn’t stay that long, but we saw the man we talked to the other night. We came back just in time for lunch, and then we set off on a journey to find a dustpan and a plate. Luckily we were successful.


We then spent the afternoon playing monkey in the middle and getting sandblasted.

After dinner and some Sudoku puzzles we headed back for some much more successful crab hunting. Alia and I had a hard time at first, until a man gave us a huge crab. He removed the pinchers so we could hold it, and later a boy gave us a similar one. We acquired one more slightly smaller crab (this one with pinchers) and six other rather small crabs that Alia and I gathered. On the way to set them free we ran into some other English speakers from Ireland, Canada, USA, and Germany. We asked if they wanted the crabs, but there were no takers. After the boys finally stopped playing we headed home.

Cadiz - Day 33

We did Lukas’ walk today (blue walk). It wasn’t as crazy as Ben’s, but it had less stuff on it. His walk was themed the Cadiz constitution. We saw buildings where it was signed, and written. We were supposed to go in an observatory, but it was closed for renovations because in 2012 it will be two hundred years since the constitution was signed.


We ate lunch and had ice cream after the walk, and came home when we were done. Everyone rested, and relaxed until it was time to go to the beach. The water wasn’t as gross as yesterday, and mom, Alia, and I played monkey in the middle. We came out soon afterward because it was cold; on the sand it was worse though, because the wind kept sandblasting us.

After dinner and another rest we went back to the beach, and we climbed on the rocks and looked for crabs. Two kids helped us; I think their names were Elaina and Alberto. We caught about twenty crabs together. When they had to go we came off the rocks, and we walked along the beach with mom and the boys. It was nice, because of the wind and we were near the water so we wouldn’t get sandblasted.

Cadiz - Day 32

We headed down to the beach for low tide and missed it, but it wasn’t that bad because it was still mostly there, and we got to look at hermit crabs.


Whoa! The moon is orange! I just noticed; it looks so cool. I will go get mom to take a picture of it; very eerie looking.

We came back to eat after going to the local grocery store. Then we rested and went to the beach. At the beach the water was all gross, and there was nasty seaweed, and trash in it. We only went in for a few seconds, and then came out. We played monkey in the middle, and I fell and choked on a wave. WE built a huge volcano the rest of the time. It took lots of work.

Then we came back for dinner, we had lasagna. After dinner we did our usual walk along the beach, complete with hermit crab hunting, and a sunset that we missed because we were too busy talking to a nice man we met there. I found the crab that was stuck to my finger for the third time!

Cadiz - Day 31

All morning we hung out here for a lazy Sunday. I read Alia’s entire book so I wouldn’t finish mine. After we ate lunch we headed to the beach. We swam a bit, and had tones of fun playing monkey in the middle. After we finished at the beach we came home to eat, and shower.


We came back to look for hermit crabs at low tide. I found one that looked like a moss covered pebble. I made a canal that went from one pool all the way down the beach to another. A man found two sea anemones one was blue, the other green. They were really cool looking. We watched the sun set again, and came back shortly after.