Takin' Care of Business: Day Trip to Chiclana

This just in: We finally got wi-fi in our piso!! Which is awesome, but because of all the time spent without it I'm a few weeks behind on blog posts.  Please bear with me as I catch up! We now return to your regularly scheduled blog programming.
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           At the orientation in Jerez, we were told to go to Chiclana to get our NIEs and apply for our residency cards.  On Friday, Shannon, Charlotte and I got on a bus and made the hour-long trip to Chiclana de la Frontera, a good size city near Cadiz.  Charlotte didn’t need to do any paperwork; she just came along for the thrill of sitting in an extranjería (foreigner’s office) all day. 

            We arrived at met up with the girlfriend of Shannon’s coordinator.  She was so nice and unbelievably helpful.  She took us right where we needed to go and helped translate when things got a bit too technical.  She’s French and has been living here in Spain for years, so she’s no stranger to all the bureaucracy.  We would probably still be wandering around Chiclana without here.  She also brought along her ADORABLE 2-year-old daughter, who was an excellent distraction from the monotony for Charlotte. 

            We walked in to the office and were waved into the back almost immediately, where Shannon and I faced a very nice police officer…who told us that not only had we filled out the wrong forms, but also that he couldn’t help us all that much.  He was able to look up our NIEs (which apparently we already had?) but couldn’t process our residency cards.  He said that since we would be here for more than 3 months we would have to go to Cadiz to get permiso de residencia, wait 4-ish weeks for that to go through, then come back to Chiclana to apply for the card, and finally wait another 4-6 weeks for them to actually make the card. 

Woof.

            Just when it seemed like all was lost, he told us that he was able to give us a certificate with our NIE on it that we could use to open a bank account.  There was a fee involved, but of course we couldn’t just hand him the euros then and there.  He gave us a form, which we had to take to a bank, pay there, and then take the form back to his office.  Such a process. 

            Having finished with the business of the day, we bid adieu to our lifesaving new friend and began the tourist-ey part of our day.  We wandered down some streets until we found the Iglesia de Jesus Nazareno.  This church is famous because the nuns who live there bake these awesome cakes and sell them to the public, but sadly they were on some kind of religious retreat that day so we didn’t get to sample them.

Can you smell the deliciousness? Neither can I.

            Just down from that church we came upon a plaza with another church.  There was a tapas festival in the plaza that day!  There were all these little booths and you could sample different types of tapas from all over the region. 

So adorable.

I forget the name, but this is the main church in Chiclana, on the plaza with the tapas festival.

            After checking out the festival, we headed to the highest point in Chiclana to take in the views from the Church of Santa Ana.  You could see for miles and miles (or should I say kilometers and kilometers?) in every direction.  The ocean on one side, the city and mountains off in the distance on the other.  So breathtakingly gorgeous.  The pictures don’t really do it justice, I’m afraid.

Cute little plaza at the highest point in Chiclana.  The amazing views are behind me, and you can see the ocean on the other side of the building.

Spotted: the church we were at before.

With fronds like these, who needs anemones?

            Once we had had our fill of the views, we headed back down the hill and caught a bus to the beachfront part of town – about a 25-minute ride.  It was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm, and we just walked along the beach towards the cool-looking cliffs off in the distance. 

Kite surfing.  Duh.

            We made it down there, ditched our shoes, and walked in the water a bit.  The water was COLD, but very refreshing.  We followed the water down to where it meets the cliff, where Shannon decided to be bold and climb up to a little walkway about 15 or so feet up a rock face. 

Starting the journey, and successfully at the top!

            Charlotte and I followed her up there and we walked down a bit farther, did a few photo shoots, and just generally awed at the beauty of it all.  There’s a small island just offshore that has an old castle on it, so naturally I was on a quest to get a great picture of it. 

Not too bad, I think.

            Our next mission: find food.  This was a little more difficult than it might seem because at this point it was 5 in the afternoon, and no Spaniards in their right mind would be caught dead eating an actual meal at such an hour.  After getting a few weird looks from servers when we asked them if they were serving food, we found a place that had a sign touting their cheeseburgers, and it was a no brainer from there. 

            With full and happy bellies, we went to catch the city bus back to the main bus station, only to realize that we had read the schedule very wrong and there wasn't one coming for almost an hour.  Whoops. We called a taxi instead (an adventure on its own as Spaniards speak very quickly, especially on the phone), and made our way back to the center of town.  We caught a bus back to Barbate, a little tanner than when we had left.