OH MY GOD!!!!/ Barbate

Coming to Barbate

So last night was our first day/night in Barbate. Sarah and I had a bus ride that seemed like an eternity simply because we were semi hungover from a fun last night out in Sevilla...very worth it though. It was made even more fun by a woman that sounded like she was screaming every time she spoke. Perfect cure for a blasting headache.

My favorite place on the trip down was a hilltop pueblo blanco (White walled town) called Vejar. Apparently one of the other English teachers lives there and I need to make friends with this person immediately and visit. 

My town has about 22,000 people and is located pretty close to the Strait of Gibraltar. The people aren't extremely wealthy and there are a lot that aren't well educated but apparently is a hopping summer vacation spot. 

When we arrived in Barbate we found a taxi driver to take us to Sarah’s hotel to get her checked in and when they heard the hotel name they informed us that the hotel was literally five feet away. So we felt like big idiots and they helped us drag the luggage over to it...not an easy feat on cobblestones. We got Sarah settled in then headed to my apartment where we met my roommate Mirna outside. She is an adorable little Bosnian girl and seems like she will be a lot of fun. 

My apartment is perfect...the building is cute and feels very safe (even though I’ve heard this town is extremely safe anyway) and my room is small but perfect with two twin beds that I’ve pushed together to make a very cozy king. My window opens out onto out little patio where we hang our laundry to dry. We have all the necessities: washer, 1 bathroom, toaster oven, and we are one block away from the beach...you literally see the ocean when you walk out my front door...what more could you want!?!?

After I got settled in Sarah and I went to meet the other girls at the internet cafe down the street. I will be visiting this cafe a lot and am actually there now since Mirna and I decided not to get internet in the apartment, way too expensive and unnecessary. The cafe is adorable with funky art and is right on the beach. We met two other English teachers, Meredith and Leanne. I had actually spoken to Leanne via email because she actually taught here last year as well which is great because she knows how things kinda run here, and she knows where the good nightlife is. There are actually clubs here which I was NOT expecting at all.

After meeting the girls Sarah and I went to get a bite to eat in a little tapas bar nearby (where I had more totilla de patata, not vegan, but it seems that that is going to be wayyyy more difficult than I had imagined when traveling) where we sat across from some very attractive young Spanish men. In fact, we seemed to keep seeing younger decent looking men everywhere we went and Leanne later told us that the ratio of guys to girls was 4-1! Probably an exaggeration but still you can get the gist and I’m a pretty big fan of those odds! Apparently they all come home from the University on the weekends! (We have since learned that there are many men but they are..ehhhhh...not so appealing.)

We also found that many of the young men have pretty nice cars with unbelievable stereo systems. Which seemed weird since this is in no way a wealthy town. Most likely these are the drug dealers that we had heard about before. Since we live so close to Africa and it's a smaller town, many boats come over with drugs that are then picked up by the young men.

As Sarah and I began walking around the town all I could think and say was “OH MY GOD!!!” This place is unbelievable! It’s a dream come true for me to live at the beach and being in Spain, along with the cutest little town ever. I cannot believe I get to live here for a year. As we walked on beach around 7 or 8 in the evening it seemed that everyone had come out for tapas and a cerveza. Parents with their children and the boardwalk was packed. There were fewer people on the beach but a few lone couples or friends were still laying out soaking up the rays. We took some cute beach pics and then as we were about to walk back up we spotted a couple with the man mounted on his girlfriend/ wife and Sarah (who cracks me up) says, “Wow, that's some definite penetration.” Oh man...PDA is totally acceptable here and I have heard some absurd stories of other teachers awkward encounters with PDA. It's a cultural shock at first but once you get used to it you wonder why it ever bothered you.

We went to a few bars and chatted for a while, really trying to soak in the environment. The sky here is so clear and you can see ten times more stars.

The Break In

After being out for a little Sarah was exhausted and wanted to go back and since she lived really far away I offered to let her stay at my place and we walked back to my apartment. I had been having trouble opening the locks to the front gate of my apartment building and tonight was no exception. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to get in with people staring at us most likely thinking we were idiots or trying to break in. There is a front gate to the apartment building and then a frond door. I realized that I could fit under the front gate and thought that maybe I could get the second door opened since I had struggled with it less earlier that day. I couldn’t, and ended up stuck between the two doors. Sarah then flagged down a guy to help us and he somehow jimmied both doors under a minute each. We thanked him and headed up to my apartment. When we got to my front door I looked at the door curiously and then turned to Sarah and said, “I swear there were TWO locks on this door before. They changed the locks!” At the same time she was saying, “I swear you were apartment K, but this says E? What the hell, I feel like I’m in the freaking twilight zone.” Seriously. Everything else looked exactly the same, and while we stood there staring at the door a huge dog was barking at us because Sarah had buzzed everyone in the building when we were downstairs, hoping that someone would buzz us in.

We finally decided that this must be the wrong apartment building, but had a hard time believing it since it looked the same and we used the keys to get in. So we walked back out and headed about 4 or doors down to my actual apartment building where I had no problem using my keys to get in. When we got to my door I looked down and realized that I had also forgotten about the doormat that said HOLA. How obvious could  that be? We felt amazing knowing that we had just broken into another apartment building and most likely awoken everyone in the building.  It also did not make me feel very secure about the front doors since it seems like a swift kick will open them pretty easily. Great way to start our trip. We laughed for a good hour and then passed out.