Ola from Cadiz!  I have to admit that this has been a “lost” kind of day!  I finally made it to bed around 10:30 pm last night – two hours later than I had planned!  R went out looking for pizza, and it took him awhile – and honestly, he brought back a truly dreadful cheese pizza – but when you’re hungry, you eat!  And NO, absolutely NO photographs of pizza, that’s for sure!  [I followed Google Maps to a nearby pizza place along the waterfront but when I got there, there was no pizza place.  So, I tried another – but in the opposite direction along the beach and, again, no joy.  At that, I gave up and headed back to the apartment, this time walking along the main street and passed a place that advertised “pizza”.  That was a mistake. - R]

 

The other thing that happened last night, and I’ve NO idea why, is that I got really and truly chilled!  We closed up the windows and R turned on the heat, which worked well, as well as turned on the “fireplace” – lovely to look at, but I don’t think it really puts out much heat.  At any rate, I went to bed with my socks and jacket on … only getting up once, as far as I can remember, to remove same and hit the pillow!  And then – believe it or not, I woke up around 9:30 am this morning!  Good grief!  What a SLUG!  But that’s okay.  I’m thinking that besides all the driving we’ve been doing, the stress of the last couple of days before we left may have caught up with me.  [Spain is due south of England and so should be on London time (as is Portugal) but instead is on Europe time, an hour later.  Add to that, we are now on Summer Time which pushes the clock even later, so when the Sun says “noon”, the clocks say “2:00”.  This doesn’t help getting over jet lag!”

Our first cooked breakfast!

Beach photo taken from beach level!

All sorts of things going on!

Our balcony 4 up in middle!

 

So!  It's Sunday, and it’s May 1^st!  (Oh!  We did find out that tomorrow, Labor Day Monday, is a holiday here in Spain!) which brought back memories of us taking our friends Chris and Brenda to the Sarlat, France train station – and the train wasn’t there, because it was May 1^st!  The good news in this situation was that as we were clustered around the locked station door, here comes a guy with his lunch pail in one hand, and his keys in the other!  He let himself in and opened the front door … and then had to take a few minutes to walk out to a platform and actually turn on one of the trains!  Wow!  Talk about a man of many talents!

 

At any rate, I found Robert exactly where I had left him – in front of the computer scheduling telescope time.  He did take a break so that we could make breakfast – which was interesting in and of itself!  First of all, we couldn’t find a cutting board (which we eventually managed to discover, right after R had had to hand-cut our bacon; it wasn’t sliced!). So, R fried up the bacon – which was fabulous, but a tad thicker than normal, and I scrambled up some eggs.  Made for an excellent breakfast, which we ate on the balcony.  We also found that there were no dish towels…apparently the cleaning crew never returned them.  So, we did the best we could with what we had, and cleaned up well.  (If I may note right now that neither of us can deal with an ELECTRIC stove, which is what is here…UGH!) 

 

However, R returned to the computer and his scheduling issues, and after straightening up and putting things away, (it was now noon-time at the earliest!) I decided that I would head over to the Dia supermarket, as they were going to have shortened hours today and tomorrow.  Packed up our three newly purchased shopping bags, and head across the street – looking now for dish towels, water and paper towels (which we used in place of dish towels) – only to find that while I thought the signage was clear Dia was open until 2, of course, it wasn’t!  So!  Took a nice walk down the main street and was able to find – two dishtowels for 1 Euro each in one store, then a second store provided paper towels, and finally a third store that had some sparkling water!  Wow!  We were set!  

 

Back up to drop things off and back down for a walk along the promenade of the beach.  Stunning day, lots of people eating and enjoying the beautiful weather, and a fairly large crowd heading to the beach.  There are some people in the water, but for the most part, people are basking in the sunshine or walking along the shore. I did find several restaurants that were recommended by Alberto and Maria, so we do have some ideas for dinner tonight.

 

I also did some homework about bodegas (sherry or port houses, depending if you are in the south (sherry) or the north (port) areas while Robert took a short break/nap.  We tried several times to make a reservation in San Lucar de Barrameda, but kept getting rejected.  I think we’ll head over there on Tuesday morning for the 11:00 English tour, and see if we can get in.  Time will tell!

 

I had hoped that we would be able to take the bus into Cadiz “old town” but as Robert was on such a roll, we decided that could wait – again, I know that if something is nagging at him, he won’t really relax until it’s fixed.  So … that’s what he did today!  Hard to believe that it’s almost 6 pm!  The good news, though, is that R has a schedule he feels fairly good about, and is about to send it off to Caltech for comment!  So, on that note, I will close with a few pictures, and will cover whatever we decide to do for dinner tomorrow!

Much love,

m

xxx