Today marked the first full week we have been here in Cádiz. I started off my day by going to the dining hall to meet my friends for breakfast before classes start. In Spain they do not have the same breakfast dishes that we typically eat in the United States. For breakfast we usually have a choice between either white or wheat bread with an assortment of jams that we can put on top. After that we all walked down together to the University to attend our classes for the day. We have classes here Monday-Friday from 8:45-2:15 with a 30 minute lunch break from 11:30-12:00. Initially when I attended my first day of classes I was very nervous and unable to follow along with my professors as they only speak in Spanish. However after a lot of practice and patience from my professors I have improved so much with my vocabulary and grammar in Spanish. While also being able to follow along and understand what they are saying throughout the whole class time. The professors are very kind and patient with all of us while trying to learn and improve upon our skills.

After classes we all went back to the dorms to have lunch together before getting ready for our activity we had in the afternoon. For lunch they typically have a main course of either pasta, rice, or soup. Then you have a choice between either a type of meat or fish and then they also typically serve fries and salad along with that as a side. After that we all went and got ready for our activity for the day. Today’s activity was we were going to el Puerto de Santa Maria where we were going to tour the Castillo de San Marcos and then we had a wine tasting of the wine made locally.

In Cádiz since it is a smaller city, everything is very close to one another so many people walk to all the places that they need to get to. As a group we walked about 20 minutes to meet our tour guide who then brought us on a boat which took us to the Puerto de Santa Maria. This province is similarly built as Cádiz however its architecture seemed more historical. We then walked to the Castillo de San Marcos which is a historical monument built by the spaniards to defend their colony and ships. We then had a tour guide walk us around and explain the history behind each area and part of the Castillo. After that they brought us to an open room where we then did the wine tasting. They had us taste a variety of five different wines to try all of which were from Jerez, Spain.

After that we walked back to the boat which brought us back to Cádiz. My friends and I then went to a restaurant called Ajolá where we all ordered a variety of tapas. Tapas are small dishes of different types of food which are made for people to share with one another. We ordered many different tapas which we just passed around and shared with each other. After that we walked back to the dorms where we then met in the library to study and prepare for our classes while also completing any assignments we had to do.