On the Southern-most Tip of Europe

Our first weekend in Spain was memorable to say the least. We made last minute plans to travel by car with our two German friends, Sebastian and Dennis, to Tarifa, Conil de la Frontera, Cadiz and Sevilla.

   We left Saturday afternoon from Granada and arrived in Tarifa around 10pm, after sunset leaving the sky a gray-blue. Greeted by a beach unlike one I had ever seen and a view of Morocco across the water, I realized how far away from how we were and how fortunate I was to be there. To save money, and for a better story to tell, we decided to spend the night on the beach.
For dinner we had fried baby fish, a strange ham and potato salad that nobody liked, shrimp with eyes and antennae attached and tortilla de camarones (shrimp), which was fried potato pancakes, eggs and shrimp, I think. I couldn´t get myself to eat food with eyes gazing up at me, so I left the shrimp for the boys. The alleyways were super narrow, much more than Granada I believe only a scooter could fit down them. While dodging people left and right in a search to find a bar or club that looked popular we passed by bright white, Arabian/Greecian buildings. We came to a tiny little surfer bar that could fit about 12 people comfortably and had amazing drinks made with their ice shaver and wooden pestle to crush the citrus fruits spraying lime and lemon bits around the bar counter. While the boys were talking up a group of Spanish girls I finished my drink and wandered up a flight of stairs towards a crowded discotech playing pop house music and danced inside the mass of Spaniards until the guys came up and joined me.We settled on the beach around 5am and woke up to the most beautiful beach I had ever seen. White sand and turquoise water; we were right where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. After a day of swimming and tanning, we took off to Conil de la Frontera.
   After wandering around for an hour trying to find an open restaurant that offered dinner before 8pm we parked ourselves at a cafe that sold chemically sweet Icees and watched people as they came home from the beach. We were also lucky enough to sit next to an elderly woman with the gnarliest foot I had ever seen. At one point, Sebastian made a joke that he was going to chew on her toenails. It´s a good thing that many Spanish do not speak much English. I took a picture of 'the foot' for him. After our long search for dinner we found a nice restaurant that opened early, early being 8:30pm, and were served the most amazing paella we had ever eaten by a man with three teeth, all of which were black. Tyler didn´t eat with us as he was too hungry to wait, so he went down the street to get a Kabob and we watched him eat alone from our table. Knowing Tyler, he thoroughly enjoyed his K-bob. After finding the perfect spot on the beach, hidden from much of the wind and blowing sand, we laid out our towels, drank our red wine, talked and listened to deep house on Ty´s ipod player. After two bottles between the four of us, we ventured back into town going from bar to bar and meeting a few Spaniards on the way. We found our way back to our spot on the beach and after a meal of bread, canned tomatoes, pesto and tuna we slept under the stars. Unfortunately, we awoke surrounded by a trail of happy ants who had found our empty cans of tuna and tomatoes, but I guess that's what you get when you sleep like bums.
     The next day we drove to Cadiz, a bigger metropolitan city that had some amazing Islamic architecture and then to Sevilla for our 3 hour train ride back to Granada. Needless to say, our first weekend abroad was amazing and we are looking forward to this coming weekend.