Carnaval de Cádiz - Day 5

Monday 11th February

This is marked on all my calendars as ‘the saddest day ever’ because both Claire and Kira left Cádiz on 11thFeb. Kath had stayed at mine the night before and we woke up early as she was popping over to Kiras house to help her with a few last minute things before she left then returning to my house for our pancake breakfast/lunch for Claire. Anissa and Sophie arrived first and we got to work making the batter, once mixed and after a quick trip to the shops to but a few extra ingredients we finally had a large pile of pancakes along with lots of slices of lemon, sugar, strawberries and melted chocolate. We all tucked in and I for one felt completely stuffed by the time we had finished and just a little bit sick. We tidied up our mess then headed off to the coach station, Claire and I headed to her house to pick up her cases and do a last minute sweep of her room whilst the others headed to the station with Emma, who is also heading home but only for a short visit.

Once we arrived at the station Claire gave us each a little gift of a heart lollipop with Te Quiero written on it, just so we feel loved on Valentines Day. We also slipped a certain something into her case, but I won’t say anything about that just yet in case she hasn’t yet found it... We also presented her with a goodbye card which she decided not to open in front of us as we were all emotional enough as it was. Saying goodbye  was really hard and there were certainly a few tears shed, it crossed all of our minds to somehow sabotage Claires bus journey so that she didn’t leave us. In the end she got on the bus and we unravelled our banner that read ‘Te Echeramos de Menos Clara’ which we hope reads we will miss you Claire, but we got lots of funny looks, so not sure about that one! Or perhaps no one was expecting to see such a send off, when the bus pulled away we chased it for a while before setting ourselves up so that once the bus had come around the island they would see it again, we could see Claire and Emma waving from the bus just as frantically as we were waving at them.

Once the bus was out of sight we had a few moments of feeling at a loss over what to do with ourselves now, as we were close to where we believed the police station to be we decided to head there in an attempt to sort out reporting my phone, so that I could send off the insurance forms. Unfortunately for us we didn’t really know where the police station was, we found one on the old town side of the gates, but after wandering around it we found that it was closed. We gave up and Kath and I headed to her house to do some cleaning and pick up a few things from her house. The streets were yet again overtaken by tractors dragging behind them stages carrying the brightly costumed choirs that attracted crowds wherever they stopped. Which often ended up being right outside my flat, which made getting in and out a bit tricky. 

That evening my flatmates had organised some food and a film night with our new soon to be housemate Stephane, he came round and we ate the patatas gratinadas and speciality bread that Geo had made before we all settled down on the sofas to watch 'Casa de Mi Padre' on reccomendation from Hannah. It was an interesting film, not ever going to be one of my favourites though - was nice to spend some time relaxing together in a large group and getting to know our new housemate.