Travel Journal: Spain

October 14 – 22, 2008

Cody and I invited my Danish grandfather, Gregers, to meet us in Spain to celebrate is 87th birthday. We planned to meet at the Malaga Airport, which had direct flights from his hometown in Denmark. Our planes were scheduled to arrive at the same time. I called the airport ahead of time to ask them where we could meet, given our originating countries of Denmark and the United States. A tentative English speaker told me that the Malaga airport is “not giant,” and that we could meet at the Information Booth marked with a big red “I.” It sounded simple enough, though I still had nightmares before we left that I couldn’t find Morfar.

Cody and I arrived on time, left the plane and followed signs directing us and our fellow passengers to the baggage claim area. In baggage claim I found the corral for Billund, Gregers’s originating city, and looked around for him. I didn’t see him, but I did see the information booth. The big red “I” was blue, not red, but I wasn’t concerned. The passengers from Billund were arriving from their plane, so I waited for Morfar by the security door where Cody and I had come from. Meanwhile, Cody walked up and down the baggage claim area searching for the corral for our flight from New York City.

Morfar arrived five minutes after us and we were overjoyed and relieved to see each other. Cody joined us and told us that our baggage still had not arrived, and he along with a group of passengers from our flight asked an airport employee. He told us that we were in the wrong terminal for our flight. They forgot to change the directional signs telling us where to go when we got off the plane, so a group of passengers sitting near the front of the plane ended up in the baggage claim area for flights arriving from the European Union. Cody went to the correct terminal, found our bags, and came back to us. If we hadn’t gone to the baggage claim area for the EU by mistake I can’t imagine how we would have found Gregers. It was fate!

We rented a car and drove to Hotel Humaina, 8 kilometers outside of Malaga in the Montes de Malaga Natural Park. It was the perfect introduction to Spain. We drove up, up and further up a mountain range on tiny roads with hairpin turns. The views of Malaga and the Mediterranean Sea were phenomenal, and we passed little white-washed farmhouses dotting the countryside.

The hotel is located in a beautiful, peaceful setting and we were lucky enough to be some of the only guests. We spent the afternoon napping, walking the nature trails, snapping pictures with our giant new super-touristy camera, and playing with the three German Shepherds that live at the hotel and err, guard the grounds (they spent most of the time sleeping on the lounge chairs by the pool).

We had our first Spanish meal at the hotel that night, and I mean night. Dinner is served between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. Most restaurants don’t open until 7:30 or 8:00 because the Spanish workday ends at 7:30. The big, hot meal is eaten during lunch time, which is around 2:00 p.m., and followed by a siesta when most shops close for an hour or two. The evening meal is made up of tapas, which are mini meals of ham, fish and mayonnaise (or at least it seemed that way to Cody and I).

Though tapas are the typical evening meal, larger dishes are available at most restaurants, including our hotel. That night Gregers had shrimp in a hot garlic sauce, Cody had artichoke hearts sautéed in mint and lemon, and I was brave and had swordfish. The food was rich and exotically flavored, and the hotel staff (a family) pampered us as their only guests.

We slept well that night in the peaceful, quiet atmosphere, knowing the German Shepherds were keeping us safe from the wild Spanish animals. The next morning, we enjoyed a buffet breakfast of breads, cheeses, and meats. We shared the meal with a black cat that hung out at our table and on top of the buffet table with all of our food. We would soon learn that cats are everywhere in Spain.

After our hearty, delicious breakfast we said good-bye to the friendly hotel staff, told them we would give them a positive review on Tripadvisor.com, and headed for Sevilla.

Cody and I purchased a GPS for the car to use on this trip. It was both a blessing and a curse as we circled, searching for our hotel in Sevilla. It is a big city with an old city center with streets too narrow for cars. On some streets you can stand in the middle and palm the buildings on each side. Our hotel was located right in the middle of the old town and the GPS told us to turn down a tiny road to get to it. We drove around and around the same narrow city streets trying to find the hotel but didn’t know where to go. There is no rhyme or reason to the organization of the streets, and we seemed to circle and end up right back where we started time and time again. We finally used our guidebook to find a parking garage. Without the car we walked down the narrow, stone streets and found the hotel, relieved.

The hotel, Hostal Callejon del Agua, was tiny but nicely decorated, and despite the difficulty in finding it, was in the perfect location. The largest gothic church in the world, The Cathedral of Seville, was about a ten-minute walk through interesting streets filled with little shops, cafés, and white-washed apartments with cute little balconies.

While Gregers napped, Cody and I spent the afternoon exploring our surroundings, getting lost in the confusing maze of the old city, and drinking wine. We ate churros at a sidewalk café in a square filled with adults, children and animals. There were so many birds chirping in the trees above it was almost distracting, but the place felt alive. This happened a few times throughout Spain. It seems that certain types of trees attract flocks and flocks of tiny birds that you can’t see but can hear for blocks.

We had tapas that night for dinner. Cody ordered “toasted cheese,” and they brought him a round block of cheese on top of sliced apples and “toasted” with a blow torch. It was not what we expected but it was a beautiful presentation and delicious!

The next day we celebrated Gregers’s 87th birthday. Cody and I were thrilled to spend it with him in Spain. We spent the first part of the day touring The Cathedral of Seville. Christopher Columbus’s tomb is in this church which was interesting. Cody and I climbed the bell tower to see the expansive view of the city. The white buildings create quite a contrast against the blue sky.

After the church, we crossed the street to a sidewalk café for lunch. Cody and I had heard how delicious the fresh fish is in Spain, so I decided to be adventurous and try it. We weren’t very hungry, so we shared a big salad and the “white fish” dish. Out came a plate of about 12 breaded and fried large, whole sardines. Head (with eyes), tail, side fins, bones and scales were all intact. All three of us were surprised, but being from Denmark where fresh fish abounds, Gregers wasn’t fazed. He showed me how to filet the fish and get the meaty parts off of the spine bone. I filleted and ate one on my own but after that my bravery waned. Cody wasn’t even brave enough to eat the tuna in the salad.

After we ate we took a taxi back to the hostel and Gregers had a siesta. While he slept Cody and I walked the streets past the church, down to the river, and stopped off for some familiar food at a Tex-Mex restaurant. We were the only customers, but the stale corn chips and tomato sauce-like salsa tasted like heaven. At that point anything without eyes would have been delicious!

On the way back to the hostel we stopped at a bakery and bought birthday pastries for Gregers. I brought birthday candles from home which Cody lit with the one match we got from the Tex-Mex place. We surprised Gregers with the makeshift cake, and sang happy birthday to him.

We concluded the day with a late dinner at a nice restaurant in the square near the hostel we had come to know so well. We sat outside in the warm air and ate jumbo shrimp, cold potatoes mixed in olive oil and vinegar, French fries, and fried peppers and onions. Skal! (cheers in Danish)

We left Sevilla and, thanks to the GPS, found our way out of the crazy city. Our next destination was Torreliminos, a city on the Mediterranean Sea not far from the Malaga Airport. After getting settled in our rooms at the Apartmentos Bajandillos, tourist capital of the world (or so-it-seemed), we headed to the beach. It was sunny, warm and perfect for a walk along the shore. We spent a few minutes wading in the water, and Gregers went back to the hotel for a nap. Cody and I walked far down the beach, soaking in the sun and views of the surrounding mountains.

Torreliminos is very touristy and reminds me of Daytona Beach, FL. It is built up too much and without much style. I will remember Torreliminos for the strip-mall-like beach-front cafés with pictures of the foods on the menu instead of words, so as a non-Spanish speaking tourist you can literally just point to the plate you want. The problem with this is that you have no idea what the food is. There are pages and pages of pictures in each menu. There is a page with five different sandwiches. One has “white” meat as a filling (maybe fish or chicken?), another “dark” meat as a filling (maybe a hamburger?), another with possibly ham, and another maybe an egg. It was impossible to tell what kind of meat it was or if there was anything vegetarian on the menu. We ate at a place like this for lunch the second day, and it was as bad as one would expect from ordering food-by-pictures.

Another strange thing about Torreliminos is the items the street vendors sell. There were tables set up along the sidewalk outside of our hotel that sold black dolls about 10 inches tall with exaggeratedly large lips and shirts that read “Black Music” and “Marijuana.” I pointed out the dolls to Cody and the street vendor took that as I was interested in buying one, so he “turned on” the doll with the shirt that said black music and it danced to hip-hop music playing out of its butt. Bizarre.

Gregers was scheduled to leave Saturday morning but his flight was changed to Saturday night. This gave us an extra day together in Torreliminos. The weather wasn’t as nice though and it was too cold to spend time on the beach. We spent a lot of time relaxing at sidewalk cafés, just enjoying being on vacation and near the water.

We left Torreliminos the next morning and drove up through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the white-washed hill town of Ronda. It is an old city that was a sight of many battles. It’s famous for the large, stone bridge, spanning a deep ravine, and connecting the two neighboring hillsides. There are old houses and businesses built right up to and into the edge of the mountain. They look like they will crumble over the edge at any moment, but they have been there for hundreds of years.

We walked through Ronda’s parks, through the new part of town and over the bridge into the old town. As usual, we spent a good deal of time reading menus at the many restaurants and finally settled on a Chinese restaurant. While we ate it began to rain, and then poured. We brought our raincoats to Spain-but left them in the car. We parked on the opposite side of town so by the time we reached the car we were soaked and ready for the next adventure. We left town and headed for Tarifa, the Southernmost city in Europe.

The drive to Tarifa was picturesque. The rain clouds gave the sky a foreboding look. We passed several little hill towns that created a dramatic contrast in color between their white-washed buildings and the swirling, grey sky. In one town there were stork nests on top of towers (they looked like short cell phone towers, but there many clustered together so I’m not sure what they were for). A few of the nests had storks in them.

The weather in Tarifa was sunny but extremely windy. I don’t know that I’ve experienced wind like that before. Tarifa is known for its wind and attracts professional wind and kite surfers from all over the world. Tarifa marks the point where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. We walked out on a stone pier and to the west were kite surfers in the Atlantic Ocean and to the east were wind surfers in the Mediterranean Sea. The kite surfers were awesome, the wind lifted them over 50 feet above the water, but they landed back on their boards with ease. We, along with a handful of other tourists, spent quite a long time watching them.

Tarifa is a small town but because it’s a ferry hub to Tangier, Morocco, and because of the surfing, it has many nice restaurants and bars. All over town are old ruins from various wars of centuries past. It makes for an eclectic feel of old and new haphazardly mashed together between mountain and beach. Tarifa’s not the main hub to Tangier (Algecieras is, about 15 minutes away), so the town is able to maintain its small size and character.

Our hostel was neat, clean and easy to find (big bonus!). If I ever find myself in Tarifa I would definitely stay their again.

Marbella is known for its shopping, casinos, and fancy restaurants, so we were nervous about not knowing where we were going or what hotel to stay in. But, we got lucky and stumbled upon a nice hotel for a reasonable price in the middle of town, about two blocks from the beach. We were surprised about how cheap the rate was until we took a shower that night and were burned and then frozen by the water, over and over again. There was no way to make the water a bearable temperature, so taking a shower was somewhat torturous.

We had one of the best meals of the whole trip in an Indian restaurant that night. We ate delicious vegetarian food, drank yummy Spanish wine, and enjoyed the scene. The whole atmosphere was very fulfilling.

Rain! It rained our entire last day in Spain. It rained so hard the streets flooded. We donned our raincoats ventured out anyway. We walked the shopping streets in search of souvenirs for us and to bring home for others, but nothing was very interesting. After lunch and more walking, we spent the afternoon on our hotel room balcony eating olives, pickles and drinking red wine. We got a kick out of watching the people park all over the middle of the streets five floors below.

That night we had dinner at the Indian restaurant again because it was so delicious. The waiter recognized us from the night before and lingered at our table to make small talk. We mentioned to him that we knew quite a few people from India that work at Microsoft, both in the U.S. and in Hydrabad, India. It turned out that the waiter was from Pakistan, not India. He told us that Pakistan is very unhappy with America and that the people want the U.S. to share the money we make from the war in Iraq. He told us that the people of Pakistan will rise up soon against their government. He also said that Obama is too immature to be President of the United States… we will see if he is right about that! It was very interesting dinner conversation.

The next day we said good-bye to Spain and flew home to Washington State. It was wonderful to see our house, sleep in our bed, eat our food, and see the dogs again. But, I can’t wait for the next adventure!