cadiz and lisbon

November 16, 2012: Cadiz
I woke up really early this morning for some reason, so I was at breakfast and back in Club HAL earlier than usual. I didn’t have much time alone up there before the girl came and was ready for me to teach her how to play one of the video games I was playing the other day; it’s call “de blob” and basically you’re kind of a paintbrush and you have to make the world colorful because the evil Commander Blanc has taken over and made everything white or inky. Seems like an easy concept, but to a 4-year old it’s definitely not easy. She would ask me to help, but wouldn’t do what I told her she needed to do (go left slowly, she’d blast off to the right). I sat beside her helping her with that game while I changed to Lego Harry Potter. A few minutes passed before she decided she wanted to play that, and I had to teach her how to play that. It was kind of a trying morning teaching a 4-year-old that doesn’t follow directions how to play video games. She kept asking why it wouldn’t let her go somewhere and I’d have to tell her it’s because she hadn’t finished the task she had to finish before the game let her move on.

Brian came at 12 and I went to find Kayley and Sam for lunch. We had lunch, then went downstairs to get ready for an afternoon in Cadiz!

I thought the plan was to go around and take pictures, shop a bit, then get wifi and dinner. However, we got off the ship and all they wanted to do was shop. I looked around in the stores of course, but they weren’t my kind of stores (expensive and very trendy clothes). So, I spent a few hours waiting as they looked at stuff, tried it on and deliberated about buying it. I was kind of frustrated by the time we found a place with wifi that was open during siesta. My phone doesn’t seem to like wifi much in Spain. It wouldn’t even say the network existed. Thankfully Sam had brought both her phone and her laptop, so she let me use her laptop while she and Kayley chatted with their boyfriends and families on their phones.

Finally we left to walk around for pictures for about 30 minutes before finding a place for dinner. An hour passed and we had gone in quite a few more stores before we decided that we really needed to eat something before we had to get back on the ship. We found a bar that had baguette sandwiches and wifi, and 20 minutes later were headed back to the ship.

I went to the show with Sam at 8, then again at 10. I went to the 10 o’clock show so I could take pictures of the HAL Cats. However, I sat in the wrong place to take good pictures of them. I got some good shots of the cast though. Now I know for the next show to sit in the balcony so I can actually see all of the band.

November 17, 2012: Lisbon day 1
I worked 9-12 today, nothing too exciting happened there, just the girl was there and she was happy to sit beside me as I taught her how to play video games (she doesn’t quite understand the concept of moving the buttons on the remote instead of the actual remote yet).

I had lunch, then went downstairs to change and head out for the rest of the day. There was a really long line at the gangway because it was slightly steep and I happened to go when two tours were getting off and lots of crew.

I ended up with Blake, Glenn, Mack, and Edison and we went walking around Lisbon together. We walked up to a huge cathedral and through the market that was next to it, then we found our way to the main part of town. We wandered around, not really planning on going anyway in particular (except Glenn who needed to main a package, and Edison who was desperate for wifi). We stopped at a café and got a little to eat/drink while Edison went to McDonalds next door for internet. After a while, the four of us got tired of waiting so went off to find him, and he told us to just go on ahead. So, we found the post office for Glenn then went in search of a way to the castle on top of the hill. We went up a lot of stairs and hills to find quite a few dead ends.

Mack left so he could get to work, so Blake, Glenn and I wandered around some ourselves. We found a very small restaurant (now I think it was more of a large kitchen in the woman’s house) and had a little bit to eat since it was dinnertime. We had sangria as well, and the woman left us for a few minutes and returned with fruit for the sangria. She was really nice, there was a concert DVD playing and she checked on us a lot to make sure we were doing okay and didn’t want anything else to eat.

We left and found our way back to the ship somehow – we had followed a lot of winding, narrow back-roads and wound up at the restaurant – because Glenn and Blake had to work, for some reason they had been scheduled to play in the Crow’s Nest, on a night when no one was sure to be there since it was an overnight; it was even called a ‘rehearsal’ on their lists.
I was getting a headache from walking through smoke all day (it seems to me that the Portuguese rival the French in smoking habits) so I took a nap until the band came down and Cass invited me to go out with her, Chris (the drummer) and Robyn (band leader/pianist). We set out and walked, and walked, and walked. I was hungry so we searched for a place with food and live music. We never did manage to find one. We found a kebob shop though and Cass and I got food before we walked some more. We ended up finding a place that let you try different types of wine and port. We talked to the girl that worked there for a bit, I found out that she lived in Provence for a few years, a few years ago. It was getting late so we all just went back to the ship. I really enjoyed hanging out with them, even if we didn’t do much other than just walk around.