The Bullock family come to Cádiz

Much sooner than I’d expected it was the day of the arrival of the rest of my family in Cádiz. When they booked the flights it had seemed forever away, but it really had crept up on me, they were landing at Jerez airport at around 9pm, so I had agreed to meet them there and help direct them back to Cádiz in their rental car. Not that I thought I would be much help, I haven’t ever driven around Cádiz as I’m not old enough to rent a car, so I’m not used to paying attention to all of the one way signs and things all over Cádiz. But before collecting them I headed over to where they would be staying to collect the keys for them and put a few provisions in their room ready for their arrival – because I’m a lovely person like that. Once their fridge was stocked with drinks and snacks I headed back to my flat to pick up a book for the train to Jerez then headed to the train station.

It would seem that Spanish trains and I don’t mix very well, usually at home you buy a ticket to a destination and get on any train that is stopping at your destination. But instead there are 2 types of tickets, in Cádiz anyway, one for ‘cercanias’ and the other for ‘media distancia’, of course this completely baffled me. I tried putting my ticket (which cost me €3ish) in the barrier and it was promptly rejected, so I panicked and headed back to look at the train times and stare blankly at my ticket some more in case of inspiration. This meant that I missed the train to Jerez that had been waiting, so I checked the timetable and the next one was in an hour, plenty of time for me to work this out. My second attempt at using the barriers was much more successful (I put the ticket in the right way this time) and I got on a train to Jerez. Annoyingly trains to the actual airport are rare and of course I didn’t manage to catch one. When I arrived in Jerez it was raining and so instead of faffing about looking for a bus or something I headed straight for a taxi and asked how much to the airport, €8 seemed ok so I got in and headed to the airport with a very perplexed driver who proceeded to quiz me about going to the airport at this time of night until we arrived at the airport. I sat around for a while waiting for my parents, who were as usual the last people out of the airport, my mum escorted by 3 lovely Spanish blokes who were here to push her around in her wheelchair. Quite why she needed 3 people for this I do not understand. We headed over to the pick up point for the Car and mum gave me a hoodie that I had asked her to bring with her, not bringing any of my scouting hoodies to Cádiz had been a grave mistake indeed.

Once we had picked up the car and dad had worked out how to turn the lights on we headed back to Cádiz, with help from the sat nav rather than me. That is until we reached the old part of Cádiz when I took over the directions and missed the turning for my parents place meaning we had to drive around in the one-way maze for almost another half an hour. Getting the car into the garage also proved a task, the owner of the hotel came out and parked for us in the end! I helped my parents up to their room and they gave me a few more things that they had in their case for me. My brother, Jake, got overly excited about the massive bath tub, although admittedly I had thought about using it earlier in the day and was most certainly going to make good use of it over the coming days. I left them to get some sleep and headed home.

Day 1 – Food Poisoning and wandering around Cádiz

I met Claire outside my flat bright and early to give her some money as she was heading to the ESN office to pay for our places on the Portugal trip. We had been gutted to find out that we had missed out on places and the coach was full, but then another bus had been provided so we were getting on those tickets as soon as they came out! After my first uni class I headed round to my parent’s place, it was only 400m from my flat so also very close to university to see how they were; unfortunately my mum was suffering from food poisoning from the airport yesterday. So I took my dad and Jake out for a walk, we walked basically all the way around the outer walls of the old part of Cádiz and the weather which had previously been dull finally perked up! We stopped at lunch time for some tapas, it was interesting finding something that my brother would eat – he is just as fussy as me, if not more. We managed to settle on some tapas and to Jakes credit he did try some of them, before heading off to the ice cream shop to get himself something more to his liking.

After the tapas I decided not to go back to uni – so much for attending a full week of classes, still haven’t managed that! Instead we checked on mum and then headed to Torre Tavira for a nice view of Cádiz, also because it is in no way a disabled friendly activity so it would be impossible to go with mum. Jake and I both got student rate tickets (€4), and try as he might dad failed to convince the lady on the reception that he was a pensioner so paid the full €5 entry fee, which wasn’t over priced anyway. After climbing many flights of stairs we reached the exhibition halls, which were really just landings with some information on the walls, although the second one about the history of Cádiz was much more interesting for me than the first one about camera obscuras. We then headed to the roof terrace for what was a lovely view of Cádiz, Jake enjoyed looking at all of the boats and my dad’s only gripe was that the new town is nowhere near as aesthetically pleasing as the old town. I pointed out where we had been walking today, as well as my square and some other things they may recognise.

One of the staff came on to the terrace to announce that the next talk at the camera obscura was about to start so we headed down a flight of stairs to the room for that. The tour of cadiz took around 15 minutes and was really interesting, the guide was witty and interacted with us quite a bit rather than just delivering a memorised speech which was really nice. The camera was really interesting, I have seen one before in Cuba, it uses lenses and mirrors to project an image onto a canvas, it is possible to zoom in and out to quite a startling degree. After the tour we popped up to the terrace for one last look out before heading back down all of the stairs and out of the tower. It isn’t an attraction that you can spend all day at but definitely worth a look especially on a nice clear day, the view is great.

Following the Torre Tavira we headed to the supermarket to pick up some more snacks for the hotel and then sat in Plaza de Flores for a drink and some Ice Cream for Jake. We wandered back through the winding streets to the hotel, mum wasn’t feeling any better so we arranged to meet later for dinner, just dad, Jake and I. When I came to pick them up the weren’t feeling like eating tapas, so I took them on the bus down to Mare’s where we ordered steaks, but unfortunately they weren’t available, so instead we chose alternatives. It was warm so we sat outside as we watched the sunset, it really was a beautiful setting, the only let down was that the food that we had wanted was unavailable. Dad was still finding it hard to come to grips with the pace of service in Spain, despite us being three of only seven people in the restaurant it still took us two and a half hours to get through a dinner, which wasn’t best as I wanted to get back to check on mum. We headed back home on the bus (once dad had found the change) and sat in Plaza de Mina for a couple of drinks before I decided it was probably best to go back home to get some sleep so that I would actually wake up and go to some classes the next day.

Day 2 – Taking it easy

After a morning of classes I headed back over to my parents hotel to meet them and check on my mum. Thankfully she was feeling much better and felt strong enough to venture out and see some of Cádiz with us, first port of call was of course to see my flat. We wandered up the road to Plaza de Mina, where I live and squeezed the four of us into the tiny lift up to my flat (easier said than done when your brother and father are both topping 6’2 and built like rugby players). After a brief tour mum was satisfied that my flat was suitable and I wasn’t suffering in squalor and poverty, of course I had told her this but being a worrying mother she had to see for herself. Following the flat tour we headed back down to the square and headed off in search of some lunch. We ate at some tapas, after which I had to head back to classes so my dad and Jake took mum for a short walk out to the sea, which she hadn’t yet seen.

When I returned after my classes my family were having a little siesta, very cute that they were getting into the Spanish swing of things already! I decided that before dinner I was going to hijack their bathtub, it was amazing, I have really missed baths. Once my brother had woken up there was no keeping him quiet so that mum could continue resting, so we took him out for a walk to see the boats and the cats that live along the sea walls. In the evening we headed out to Balandro as it was the nearest restaurant where I could think of something that all of my family would be able to find something on the menu that they liked the sound of. We arrived and sat at a table, we had opted for a sit down meal because we had a date with Claire and her family on Thursday at Balandro for Tapas and mum still wasn’t 100% so sitting on the tall tapas chairs wasn’t looking likely.

We were given menu’s in English (thank goodness! I wasn’t excited to translate a massive menu for them). Everyone flicked through and immediately Jake insisted there was nothing that he would eat, even though I pointed out a few menu options which would have been fine, he instead opted for the children’s meal of chicken goujons, mum went for the same as she wanted something plain. Dad wanted a starter and a mustard sauce with beef, I opted for a tenderloin with roasted vegetables. When dad’s starter of prawn skewers arrived it smelt delicious, I would have tried some if it didn’t contain prawns or I ate seafood, but he said it was delicious. When the main meals arrived Jake was quite disappointed by what were described as French fries, they were more like really tiny crisps, he did enquire as to if that was because it was a children’s portion and if that was why they were so small. However, the goujons were really nice and the portion size for a child was massive! Both mine and dad’s food was also delicious, we ended up finishing mum’s goujons too as she had eaten enough. Jake was of course intent on having a pudding and pudding is mum’s favourite thing so she wanted at least to taste something choclatey and gooey, so we ordered some puddings, despite the fact that I was already feeling very full I ordered the chocolate sponge with ice cream center and chocolate sauce. The puddings were, as expected, delicious, even though the bowls they came in were almost comically large. Dad settled the bill, after my brother had shouted ‘la cuenta’ in an awful accent a few times, it was great having the parents pay for my food – I was definitely going to make the most out of this! The four of us sat in Plaza de Mina for a few drinks before I dropped my parents back at their hotel and headed home for some sleep, we were going to be up early the following day as we had planned a trip to Gibraltar – yay!

Day 3 – Back to Gibraltar!

Waking up early was somehow much easier knowing I was heading to Gibraltar, I was more than excited to get some cider, there was a very long shopping list that I was planning on filling my parents car boot with. I arrived at their hotel and managed to open their garage ready for them to get the car out, we all piled into the car and plugged the sat nav in and we were ready to go. Unfortunately for us the sat nav was not feeling on its best behaviour, we should have known this from it trying to lead us out into the sea before we even got out of Cádiz, however we continued to follow it until about 45 minutes into the journey we ended up in front of a hospital car park which the sat nav believed was a road that we needed to drive along. After a further 45 minutes of driving around in vain looking for another route (Gibraltar isn’t very well signposted, at all!) the sat nav eventually changed its mind and we were back on track again. After a further hour travelling we could see Gibraltar (yay!). What wasn’t so cheery was the weather, it was a bit dreary and overcast, but nothing could kill my spirits. My mum was excited to see Gibraltar as nan has always told us about how granddad used to spend a lot of time posted in Gibraltar when he was in the Navy, so it would be a little trip of nostalgia for her. Jake on the other hand was excited about how cheaply he could buy cigarettes and alcohol, unfortunately for him he isn’t 18 so had no chance of taking advantage of buying either cheaply.

After a while in the queue to actually get into Gibraltar, which was mercifully much shorter than the car queue when we had visited with ESN, we flashed our passports briefly and we were in! That is until you hit the airport runway where we waited for a while as a flight landed, (very cool from so close) and then two fighter jet things took off (equally if not more cool). Then we were ushered across the road and into Gibraltar proper, first thing on the to-do list was to find a car park near to the main square so that we could have ourselves a pub lunch. Despite only having spent two days in Spain Jake was already feeling under nourished by the Spanish cuisine, and honestly I wanted a cider. So we parked up in a multi-storey car park and off to the Lord Nelson we headed, I wasn’t about to risk another pub not having Kopparberg cider (I’m beginning to sound like I have an alcohol problem here – trust me I don’t, but cider is very nice). For the first time of the trip Jake was thrilled with the menu and I was of course happy to be back on familiar ground, normal television adverts and food were all very refreshing. After our food we were all stuffed, so decided a stroll down the high street was what we needed to feel less guilty about our over indulgence, also to wake me up from the effects of the pints that I had to wash my lunch down.

We strolled along past all of the farmiliar names, making a stop at Marks and Spencer for some more squash before heading back to the car park. We were moving the car down to the cable car as mum won’t walk that far, and Dad and I wanted to go up the rock. Jake would have come too if we hadn’t scared him off with tales of overly vicious monkeys, then when he saw the small cable car going up the steep rock he decided that the trip just wasn’t for him.

So Dad parked up the car and we left mum and Jake there – hopefully they wouldn’t kill each other and we queued up for the cable car, which didn’t take too long and bought tickets, €12 each for a return I believe. We then moved on to a room with lots of pictures of monkeys and warning about how they bite, which started to make me nervous! We waited in this room around 15 minutes, as the carriages were only small so didn’t fit everyone from the room in them at the same time. We hopped in when the time came and the man who was operating it was very friendly, he comforted a girl who was nervous and then warned us about ‘his’ monkeys, no plastic bags, no feeding and no touching them. On the way up we got to see a prime example of why, we spotted a monkey jumping onto a woman and attempting to steal her bag – I quickly put my hoodie on and checked that there was nothing loose on me that the monkeys could steal.

We headed off on a wander around the top of the rock, taking some pictures of the view, which was very nice despite the low cloud, always keeping an eye out for monkeys. We certainly saw plenty of monkeys, there were some larger ones that looked rather angry all of the time and some small cute ones that looked harmless until they leapt out of trees onto your head! We passed some American tourists who commented that my hair was very nice but that perhaps I should tie it up as some monkeys had jumped on their heads and started pulling their hair, and I certainly have a lot of hair to pull! I didn’t need telling twice and promptly put my hair away in a bun. We wandered further, at times having to tuck in to the side of paths so that taxi’s full of tourists could pass by on the narrow winding roads, I wouldn’t have wanted to drive around them, but it was clearly possible.

After following the signs to the monkeys den we eventually came across it only to find hoards of monkeys on the attack. One American girl had been robbed of her brown paper bag of souvenirs by a cheeky monkey, who quickly got bored of the Gibraltar mug inside it when he realised it was inedible. The monkey then dropped the mug down the side of the rock it was sitting on, there was a tense moment with the little girl crying as her dad tried to save the mug from smashing, but he grabbed it just in time and everyone applauded his efforts. There were several more cases of monkeys jumping onto people’s heads and grooming their hair, then one poor Chinese girl had her jacket stolen, then was bitten as the monkeys tried to steal her camera, eventually the jacket was retrieved, but after all of the monkey waste that it had been dragged through I’m not really sure that I would have wanted it back. After looking at the other side of the island we headed back to the cable car, hoping that Jake and mum hadn’t killed each other yet. Whilst waiting for the cable car there was an awful moment where a monkey jumped on a father carrying his baby causing the father to almost drop his child, which was rather scary. However we all made it safely back onto the cable car and down the rock, back at the car Jake had chosen to take a nap rather than to fight to the death with mum in an enclosed space.

The four of us took a drive around the rock, it was interesting seeing the rest of Gibraltar, although there wasn’t a lot of it yet the tunnels under the rock were interesting. After our little tour we headed over to a McDonalds so that my parents could have a coffee, and from McDonalds we could see Morrisons so the decision was made to pay a visit and pick up everything on my shopping list. I was like a child in a sweet shop, there was so many things in there that I had been wanting for ages but couldn’t find in Spain, so of course I filled my shopping trolley. When I came across the Kopparberg my day was completely made, I scooped it all up and put it into the trolley, which should keep me happy for a while. I wasn’t too pleased when we came to the check out, the thought of the bill was a bit worrying, but the parents stepped in and handled that which was wonderful. The check out operator was a very friendly british ex-patriot, she told us that some people come from as far away as Malaga to do their shopping at the Morrisons in Gibraltar, which made me feel better – if only I had a car!

The queue to get out of Gibraltar was ridiculous long! Despite it being past 9pm It took well over an hour as we queued around roads and then in some massive lines which was all very confusing especially as when we eventually made it to the border we weren’t even checked, so it all seemed a little pointless. On the journey home it started chucking it down which made the drive a little hairy, but we made it without any problems from the sat nav this time. By the time we arrived home we were all knackered so headed straight home for some sleep.

Day 4 – Rainy day of Geocaching in Cádiz

By the time that I had made it out of university the weather had taken a turn for the worse, so we went for lunch in Plaza de Mina. Afterwards my family dropped me back at university for my final class, where my brother decided to attempt to embarrass me by waving me off and loudly shouting his goodbyes, it was really rather funny, put me in a better mood for class, that is certain. When class had finished I headed off to meet my parents at their hotel, the weather didn’t make it easy for mum to get around outside as the pavement was slippery. So instead to keep Jake occupied I took him and dad out for an afternoon of Geocaching. If you don’t know what Geocaching is, then shame on you, it’s great fun. Basically it is a worldwide treasure hunt, organised online, you use a GPS to find hidden objects, they can be boxes or just tiny cases containing a log book. Usually they are located in places that the person who placed them finds interesting or thinks that other people should visit. There are 7 Geocaches in Cádiz, so with the help of my GPS we headed off in search of the caches.

Jake has somewhat of a knack for finding these caches, so he won 5-0 the other two caches we couldn’t find. It was great fun despite the rain and took us around several interesting places in Cádiz that I have neglected since I arrived. It took us a good 3 hours and was a great way to spend an afternoon, I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is looking to fill an afternoon ( www.geocaching.com if you want any more information). After the afternoon of rainy Geocaching, where we encountered lots of police which was very strange, I think something important must have been going on but I have no idea what, we headed back to my parents hotel so I could lounge in their bath for ages before we headed to Balandro for tapas with Claire and her parents who arrived today.

At Balandro we managed to get my mum onto one of the tapas chairs and my family trawled through the menu to find something that they thought sounded good. Again Jake proved troublesome, but I managed to find some things that he decided to eat. We had two rounds of tapas and were very impressed with almost everything, although the fried fish was very different from expected, as it came whole with its head and eyes, which wasn’t the most appetising. We had the Asian style pork and the pork with caramelised onions which were both nice but I didn’t eat much other than the Pork. I’m not a fan of the large mushrooms in Spain they seem to be quite chewy so avoided them as best I could. Following that I had the toasted cheese with chicken and jalapenos which was delicious but I didn’t need anything other than that, it was really filling. We still managed to have a pudding though which was just as good as previously, Claire and her family also enjoyed their meal, although we did put them off the fried fish before they ordered it. Following the meal we all headed for a drink before bed.

Day 5 – Hasta luego espana

After packing a bag for my flight home with my parents I headed to university and then to meet them at their hotel. The weather had returned to its usual beautiful blue skies and sunshine, which meant that we headed along the beaches; we found ourselves a restaurant with a lovely view of the beach and ordered ourselves some food. We had decided to eat before going to the airport as Jerez airport is really small so there wasn’t likely to be much choice. At the meal we received the fastest service since my parents had arrived in Spain, my dad proposed that this was because the owner was looking to close the restaurant for the afternoon so just wanted rid of us. We wandered along the beach after the meal, enjoying the last rays of sunshine before heading back to England where it was forecast to snow and be freezing.

The journey to the airport was uneventful; the sat nav had decided to tell us the correct route this time, so we returned the hire car and then waited at the teeny tiny airport. I wouldn’t have been happy waiting in the massive queues, there was only one check-in desk open per flight so it was taking an awfully long time to check in each flight, luckily for us we were at the front of the queue. The flight was smooth, I started reading ‘Juegos del Hambre’ as I had finally finished Harry Potter, and despite the rough landing we made it home in one piece on our Ryanscare flight. The temperature difference was very noticeable though, and true to predictions the snow had started to fall.

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