We got out of Sevilla! Sandy and I took an early bus (10AM is early in Spain) to Algeciras on the bottom peninsula of Spain. We then took a 1:30PM bus from Algeciras to Tarifa, half an hour ride away. Tarifa is the southernmost city on continental Europe. It sits on the Strait of Gibraltar and looks across the Strait where the dark blue water of the Mediterranean and the light blue water of the Atlantic Oceans meet and mix with Africa on the other side of the water. Pretty fantastic.
Africa is in the background. Oh hey.
Arriving in Tarifa was a bit strange. It is a town riddled with kite surfers and stores that service the kite surfing community, which is why it was strange because I felt like I was back home in Virginia Beach with places like Corner 24, Coastal Edge, and 17th Street. Very strange. Sandy was incredibly pleased to discover the owner of our hostel, Ilsa, was a German ex-pat and she could speak German with her. I just told her, in German, that I don't speak German. We walked around the old walled city of Tarifa, which has a hilarious plaque over it's main gate that says in Spanish, 'The very noble, very loyal and heroic city of Tarifa / Won from the Moors by King Sancho IV, the Brave on 21 September 1292.' I had a good laugh at that. The inside of the walled portion of the city reminded me a lot of Mykonos oddly enough. The white-washed buildings and the old cobbled streets ... it was very Greek. We accidentally stumbled upon a restaurant run by two Italian ex-pats who sat us down at their establishment (again, we were the only patrons) and convinced us they had spectacular margarita pizza. THEY WERE NOT LYING. It was probably the best margarita pizza I've ever had in my life. It was huge, had just a little tomato sauce, freshly cut pieces of buffalo mozzarella, basil and olive oil galore. I was in heaven. While we were there, the song, 'The Wild Irish Rover' sung by the Irish tenors came on the radio. I looked at Sandy and said:
'I'm in spain, at an Italian restaurant run by ex-pats, listening to the Irish tenors sing 'The Wild Irish Rover'. What in God's name is going on here?'
Never been more just generally confused in my life.
The gate to the old walled city.
Mykonos or Tarifa?
We turned it in early tonight because, well, while we were in Sevilla, Sandy called her mom, and Mrs. Halboth gave us the come to Jesus talk about Morocco. She said, 'Girls, if you don't go, you're going to wish you had. And I'm not putting up with you guys complaining about it. So just do it.' Thank you Mrs. Halboth for the 2x4. Although I think being able to look out our window and see the African coast would've convinced us as well. Also, I'm pretty convinced most of our hostel owners (with the exception of Kev-AN) of course, have thought us to be anti-social because we don't hang out with fellow hostel residents. For the record, we're not anti-social, we're wiped out.
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