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Published: February 23rd 2009
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I am alive... I swear. After a long winter break of travel with the fam and Brendan and then some couch bumming in Laura´s flat, I am back to the semester life. This semester I am staying with a family in a house near where I lived last semester in the dorms. More will come soon on my house. We just finished our three week intensive period and I celebrated by traveling to that funny little tippy thing at the bottom of Spain. That is TArifa!
We decided to go to Tarifa because... well... we needed to get out of Sevilla. Sevilla is just starting to get super beautiful again and we are all falling in love with it all over again, but how can I ,miss it if I never go away, right?! So we went to TArifa. I went with Laura (met her in the dorms, from Lake Oswego) and Gaby. We met Gaby over winter break through another friend. She just got here in JAnuary. She is from Mexico City, studying Communications and Publicity, she is super beautiful, and an amazing person. So... we all spent the night in LAura´s apartment on Friday night. We caught up,
relaxed, and made dinner together. Then on Saturday morning we woke up early, walked to Starbucks, picked up breakfast, and headed to the bus station. It was obviously LAura´s first morning walk to the bus because she packed a super heavy bag for a one night trip. I bought about 4 new magazines, LAura and I bought GAby a package of Twix bars (her main source of energy) and we all bought coffees!
We got on the bus and got settled for a 3 hour ride all the way South. It was so beautiful. We passes farm after farm with rolling hills, bull farms, olives and wine. I knew we were getting close when we saw about a million HUGE windmill wind power things. I forgot to tell LAura and Gaby that part too!! Tarifa is a windsurfing capital of the world; it was going to be a windy place.
So mostly TArifa was divine. It was pretty tiny, but full of hippie surfing culture, a ton of surfing stores, vegetarian food, granola, and sand. Woah... it was my kind of place. It was so refreshing; Laura and I kept noticing that we felt so at home like
we were in Portland. The first day, we got lunch at this tiny vegetarian place where I got falafel, hummus, pita, and salad with tzatziki. Then we did some window shopping, walked down to the beach, fell in love with Tarifa, etc. We of course made time for a good long siesta and then went out to dinner at a spanish restaurant before we went back to bed. I got up early (ha... 9am) on Sunday morning to go for a run because SUnday is my long run day and I am training to run the lisbon half marathon in MArch. SO I got up to go running, thinking it would be a great new run and a great place for an 8 mile beach-side run. Well, I found out that Tarifa is about 1 mile long... and VERY windy... and not flat. hmmmm... That was a reality check! I had a beautiful morning run, but a little annoying because I was constantly trying to figure out where to go. Finally, with two miles to go, I discovered this beautiful wooden path that went over some green shrubbery on the back side of the beach that went forever... oh well.
We started the day after that with breakfast at a cafe we had found the day before. It was a combination of a granola, fruit, yogurt bar, a smoothie bar, and a big surfer breakfast place. It was so cute. So we all got coffee. I got the desayuno catalán which was jamón, toast with tomato, and fresh peppers and garlic. Laura got eggs, bacon and toast (very excited), and GAby got this hot sandwich with ham and cheese and tomato. We all wished, however, that we would have gotten the chocolate crepe that the lady next to us got, but we were ok because we had also seen all the pastry places the day before and we were eager to go there too! Next, we went to the beach which was absolutely beautiful. We were, again, super excited that we could see Africa. You can really fully see it. There are mountains on one side and flatter coast on the other. We were also right where the atlantic meets the mediteranean. They were different colors and temperatures!
We really enjoyed watching the kite surfers who looked like they were flying over the waves, the surfers who seemed
to wish they had kites, and the windsurfers who were in the mediteranean. The kites were beautiful, the waves were AMAZING, and the culture of everything was just so perfect. It would probably have been a little better if it were warmer because we were still in sweats, but it was really pleasant because it was so beautiful.
Before heading to the bus station we went to a bocadillo shop where we were super excited to see an variety of ingrediants to choose from like SUbway, but Spanish. I got pork, tomato, ketchup, and lettuce and thanked god for ketchup because it was so delicious on a fresh baguette. Laura and GAby both got jamon iberico, alioli, cheese, and tomato. We also got a bag of gummy candies because we are obsessed, and some fantas and cokes for the ride. We got on the bus with all our stuff and GAby looked at me and Laura with all of our food all ready for the trip and she just said ¨wow, everything is fun with you guys, even getting on a bus!¨ It was really cute. GAby says she loves how LAura and I are excited about everything we
do. The three of us literally go to get coffee at some little shop every day and for some reason we are super in love with it every single day. We just really love Sevilla and are so grateful to just be enjoying it. I HAVE to go back to TArifa before I go home because I am super in love with it and can´t wait to see it when it is warmer and busier!
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You will be going home????
Fantastic!!!!! Is there any country you will not be visiting???? Glad you have this opportunity!!!!