On January 29th, our group traveled to Cádiz as one of our cultural excursions. I fell in love with the city on sight. It is a little ocean town on the Southern coast of Spain that is almost completely surrounded with water. Around every corner, there are quaint little white houses and ancient ruins to explore. In the morning, we went on a guided tour of the city that showed us sites such as one of the largest Roman amphitheaters ever found and the old and new cathedrals. The tour ended with a trip to the top of the Torre Tavira to see the spectacular view of Cádiz and the ocean. Inside the Torre Tavira, they have something called a dark camera. It basically is a series of mirrors that reflect the light in such a way that a live panoramic picture of Cádiz is projected on the final basin. It was like a live-action google maps street view – you could even see the clothes drying on the rooftops flapping in the wind!
After wandering around Cádiz on our own for awhile, we decided to stop for lunch at the famous Freiduria “Las Flores”. As I had never been to a freiduria before, I had no idea what to expect. It turns out that a Freiduria is basically a restaurant specializing in fried food - in this case, fried seafood! As I’m sure most of you know, me and seafood don’t really get along meaning every time I see fish on my plate my brain starts a mantra of “eww, eww, eww…gross scaly thingy” repeating over and over in my head which really isn’t conducive to enjoying the consumption of said gross scaly thingy. I decided to suck it up and be brave so I ended up splitting a sampler platter with a few others. The platter had everything from calamari and shrimp (which I do actually love) to random fish fillets and fish ovaries. I never seem to be able to escape from the huevas – the damn ovaries keep coming back to haunt me time after time! All I have to say is that I ate a deep fried sardine WHOLE. It still had its head, scales, eyes, everything!! Dad should be proud…
The remainder of the day was spent exploring the fish market and soaking up some much needed sun on the beach. On our way to the beach, a bunch of the group decided to buy raw oysters from one of the many street vendors. I thought I had been adventurous enough for one day so I did not partake in this slimy venture. I have never been so glad in my life that I didn’t try something! Everyone that ate the oysters ended up with food poisoning for the rest of the weekend. Five people were even hospitalized! Needless to say, I think that will be our group’s one and only experience with street seafood…
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