Day 8,9,10

Day 8 - Free Day
Cadiz is surrounded by water on all sides. I have a picture here:

The end of the strip is where the old downtown used to be. It is now mostly a tourist attraction used to take money away from tourists with their extremely expensive meals and items. I went to see some lame cathedral and ate poorly cooked food.
Oh yeah, I bought a totally sweet ds charger. It was sweet because Nintendo didn’t opt to pay the extra 20 cents to include a voltage convertor for their default charger. This one is USB and should be fine wherever compooters are used.
After lunch, we walked back to the hotel (did I mention the hotel itself is pretty sweet, except for the whole see-through bathroom door. Had a little siesta (afternoon nap), and then headed out for dinner. Went to McDonald’s again and this time I went for the value menu again. Spent 2 euros versus the 15 euros for the stupid expensive lunch. Blah.
Walked along the beach and then I mostly went to bed (after hanging out with some cool guys.)

Day 9 – On the way to Seville.

Checked out at 9 am and headed for Seville. The ride only took about an hour and a half. This City is very organic and old. What I mean is that the streets only have enough space for two lanes max. The rest of them only have space for one lane. In addition, the roads are laid out at strange angles (not parallel and perpendicular like ours.) This is the result of having a really old town centre that just grew outwards.
While I still had clean clothes when I got to Cadiz, I was running out of clothing by today. I went to see the Cathedral at Sevilla, which was pretty neat. One of the better ones I’ve seen in Europe. I then bolted back to the hostel to put my laundry into the dry cleaning. 3 euros for each machine, which is way more reasonable than the 3 per item at the Laundromat. Went for a walk for dinner, but ended up eating cheaply at some cheap place. I’m trying to conserve money for now. I don’t really think I like the whole Spanish-seafood stuff in this part of the province. I had this mussel that had disgusting things inside that tasted like grass or some sort of plastic. Not exactly clean water. It was within the mussel, so yeah.
Didn’t go clubbing or partying, but just stayed indoors. Went to bed at 1:30 am. One of the roommates got hella pissed off because she wanted to sleep. I can understand wanting to sleep, but the thing is that she disappeared downstairs for 3 hours ‘waiting’ for people to leave the room and when she got back she was angry it wasn’t over. By that point, we’ve winded down and people were leaving. She decided to ‘get back’ at us by playing Chinese music which was stuck in a loop. I put on my earplug/phones and lol’d to sleep. Fact: If she stayed in the room, people would have left for bed earlier, like at midnight. (the next day’s activity doesn’t start until 10.) Oh yeah, the hostel fits 6 people and she was the only one who didn’t want to do anything.
Day 10 – Los Cruces

Went to Los Cruces, a place where dreams are born. The deposit at the mine is intensely rich compared to other places and as such are able to afford many luxuries. I mean, just look at their front entrance. They have enough money to make a waterfall moat. They’re also in the process of installing new palm trees. Baller.
We got the usual mine tour. Apparently the clay in the region makes it impossible for vehicles to go when it is wet, so every time it rains, they have to stop operation. They’re still making a boatload of money though. Good for them. They served us lunch and we went back to the City.
I feel like I have to reiterate that alcohol is really cheap. I’m not sure if it is the taxes or what, but on average, I have to say it is about 40% cheaper in Spain.
Another awesome thing about Spain is that all of the prices listed have tax included. That’s right! What you see is what you pay. No more bullshit dumb calculation in the head.

Day 7 – Smelter, Cadiz, and Laundry

Early in the morning we left for the smelters in Huelva. Here, they take the copper concentrate, purify it, and the product is a sheet of copper 1 m by 1m and 65kg by weight. When I first entered the building, there was a huge conveyor type grappler that was moving above my head. Obviously there was more than enough clearance for safety reasons, but because of the huge scale of the object, my natural response was to duck down a little. Honestly, it felt like something from a science fiction movie.

After lunch, we left for Cadiz. By now, people in my class are desperately out of clothing and clean underwear. I understand their plight because my under wears weren’t exactly clean. Fortunately, I have many extras so I was still safe. Some of them were afraid though. We made a trek across the city to look for a laundramat, but it turns out that laundry is really expensive. I’m talking about 3 euro per item expensive. Apparently, the Spanish people aren’t really big on the whole self-serve Laundromat idea. I spent the rest of the night being dumb. Went to McDonalds and spent 3 euros on dinner. I got a Chicken Move-it, a Chicken Burger BBQ, and some onion rings. Vastly cheaper than anything else I could have eaten.

Jerks were staying in my room for way too long and I didn’t get to sleep until 3 am.

The hotel room was much, much nicer than the hostel we’ve been staying. Wide open spaces, INTERNET, great.

The problem with the room is that there’s a broken window pane. It is permanently stuck on open. Cold.

Day 5: Rio Tinto District

Rio Tinto. Red River in Spanish. The river is red because of the oxidation of base metals which is naturally exposed to the environment. However mining activities throughout the ages has contributed to more exposure, making the river really red.  The pH of the water is 2.52

We got up at 7:00, which was tough considering the night before. Drudged along to the bus with a small prepared meal. One of the weird things in Europe is the lack of a concept of a breakfast. Their lunch is served late and their dinner is served even later. Bah.

We got a tour of the Project Rio Tinto mine by IMED. They bought the mine along with all of the liabilities (environmentally, the previous owners were not good.) There’s still a lot of copper that can be profitably extracted, but there are a lot of concerns regarding fixing the environment and upgrading/updating the equipment before this can occur.
 
Went to the Mining museum afterwards. Saw the history of mining in the region. Went to a model roman mine and a restored tunnel leading to an open pit that’s filled with water. You can see the red tint in the water. After lunch (from 2 to 4) we went to take a train ride along the Rio Tinto River. Went back to the hostel afterwards. I’m going to try to find Internet now. Its been a couple of days without the Internet and I’m starting to feel a little crazy. Day 6 is a free day in Huelva. We leave for another place on Day 7.
Note: No internet : ( Went for dinner right after the attempt. Got some good old Pollos (pronounced Polos :D)    
 

Lisbon, Portugal.

I arrived in Portugal safely after a 10 hour flight to Frankfurt and a 3 hour flight to Portugal. There were many delays due to circumstances including one which involved the Icelandic Volcano erupting again.

One of the methods I use to beat jetlag is to stay awake the entire flight. I stayed up for the first flight (which landed ~3 am vancouver time), but I dozed off occasionally for the second flight ( arrived ~8 am vancouver time due to waiting for transfer).

 By the time we got to the hostel, it was around 6 pm local time. Shower was necessary because of the ickiness. Went out for din din at a restaurant about a kilometre away.

Indian Curry. Not the best, but not the worst I've had.
Beside it was a store with a lot of Hello Kitty merchandise. Too bad it was closed by the time we were done.

In the Portugal / German airport, there were these Camel Smoking Booths. It was an area where people can isolate themselves and smoke. Of course, it was ventilated.

Coming back to the hostel, there's a lot of drinking involved.