Sheep Guarding Llama

Everyone was exhausted last night and slept in quite a bit today.  Dominica got up when Luciana discovered ants in her chocolate milk carton from last night.  I got up at ten.

Shortly after getting up, I opened the basement window and discovered the remains of an umbrella sitting on the street outside the window. Our umbrella.  Argh.  That is going to take a lot of effort to deal with one way or another.

Shawn and Rachel slept in until after two.  Everyone was pretty tired today and struggling to function.  It is Thursday and this entire week has been an exhausting one.  And I only have a few days to get caught up on rest before I am off to London early next week and will be tired all over again.

This evening there were fireworks in Órgiva again.  This is our second time seeing them and this time I managed to grab a quick shot of them with my iPhone.  You can check that out on YouTube.

Was up at ten minutes until eight this morning, way too early.  Only two or maybe two and a half hours of sleep.  That was a bit rough.

Ryan was up just after me.  It took us until about a quarter till nine before we were able to get the Corsa loaded up and got on the road.  Since the morning light was good, we would have a lot of picture taking opportunities on the drive.  We checked the view from town and it was so clear this morning, while standing on the edge of the village parking lot, that we could see the waves rolling in on the Mediterranean down at Salobreña.

We probably pulled over to take pictures ten times or more between Cáñar and the highway.  We went the Órgiva route, taking the A346 along the north side of the southern ridge.  We got a lot of good pictures that I am not normally able to get when I have Dominica and the girls in the car with me.

We made good time, other than the photo opportunity stops, getting down to Salobreña.  It was about seventy five degrees this morning, very nice for getting to the beach.  We parked easily, there was almost no one there, and found a little place out on the beach that was serving breakfast.  We ordered coffee and found a table our on the sand.  There were probably four other tables out there enjoying the morning too.  Most with beer or wine, not with coffee.

While we were there I got to talking with the table next to us.  They are locals like we are and live up at the head of our valley.  Not technically inside La Alpujarra like we are but just outside of it.  They retired here from Britain.  They told us about the Friday market that happens in Lanjarón from eleven until three.  I am hoping to make it there tomorrow to check it out.

While I was having coffee, Ryan went and took a dip in the Mediterranean quickly.  It was a very quick dip, but at least now he can say that he has been to the beach on the Costa del Sol in Spain and swam in the Mediterranean Sea.  Big bucket item lists for any traveler.

We did not stay on the beach long, even though it was very nice.  There were only maybe half a dozen people actually “on” the beach and the rest of us were just eating.  Nice time of day to check it out.  But we needed to get to the airport so were back in the car and driving pretty quickly after our coffee was done.

Very bright, but not overly hot day.  Perfect day for seeing the southern Spanish coast.

We had a nice drive and got to the air port only half an hour after Shawn and Rachel had landed, gotten their bags and gotten outside to wait for us.  So the timing was just about perfect.  Ryan had plenty of time to get through security and make his flight but did not have a long wait in the airport.  Ryan waited just long enough to say hello before heading into the airport.

Rachel and Shawn were pretty tired, only getting about two hours of sleep like me, but pretty excited to be in Spain.  This is the first time that they have seen the sun or been warm at all in two months!

We were all pretty drowsy on the long drive east.  We got into Órgiva right as shops were opening up for lunch and none of us had managed to have any food all day so we stopped on restaurant row and checked out the options.  We decided on Paradise Pizza which we had hoped to eat at two nights ago.   I parked in the city’s big private parking lot in the middle of town and the guy working there immediately knew me and knew that I was from Cáñar.  I think that he was up drinking with me the other night.

We sat outside for a full half of an hour before the waiter even came over to us, or even knew we were there, I think.  He was not paying much attention.  There were people getting food, but very slowly.

We ordered three glasses of wine (not each, for all of us) and sipped that while deciding on food.  We ended up getting a tuna pizza for me and they split a meat pizza of some sort and a roast chicken.  The food and wine was all good and the bright sun and light breeze were perfect for sitting out under the umbrellas and enjoying the Spanish warmth.  Rachel took the chance to photograph the orange trees at the church.

We used the opportunity to stock up on cash at the telebanco and loaded back into the car and ascended the hill.  It was probably after four when we got to the top of the mountain and they got to see Cáñar.

This is the first that I have seen Rachel in nearly two years!  It was September, 2013 the last time that we had a chance to hang out because that is when I moved back up to New York!  Really hard to believe that it has been so long.

We all hung out on the terrace.  I worked in the kitchen for a little bit and then went up to the terrace with everyone and hung out up there. Had a good, productive day at work today.  Feel pretty good about that.

Dominica made dinner tonight, pasta primavera.  We all sat on the lower terrace to eat.  It was very good and nice to get to just stay in and relax.

I worked until about midnight.  Then Rachel, Shawn and I ran over to the Meson Rural Los Angeles and we had some beer before calling it a night.  Rachel was really impressed by how good the beer was.  I am so glad that we have discovered Alhambra beer!

Today is Wednesday, our big day to tour Granada and finally get to see the Alhambra, the biggest tourist attraction in the whole of Europe.  We all had to be up very early this morning, which was rough, since we got very little sleep last night.  I only got three hours, at most.

Had to be up at six thirty, which really sucked.  But we were able to get up, as painful as it was, get everyone into the car and get on the road on time.  Ryan got a chance to see morning in Spain for the first time.  It was a gorgeous morning.

The drive went well.  We had just a tiny bit of traffic as it was the morning commuting hours, but nothing that delayed us.  We went west through Lanjarón which we had seen last night.

Dominica had all of the information on where to park in Granada so it was actually pretty easy getting off of the highway and getting out to the old town and getting into the Alhambra parking.  Very easy.  We had heard that this was hard but it was not at all.

We parked and were out of the car just before nine!  We were quite early.  Our group was not supposed to meet until ten.  Our tour group, that is.

So we hunted around until we found the welcome center and there we were able to get a light breakfast.  Ryan got a tortilla and Dominica and I each got a chocolate filled croissant which are rather popular here as a breakfast food.  We all got café con leche.  The girls just got chips.  Rather odd, but there was no normal food that they wanted.

Dominica spent a lot of time dealing with the tour logistics, like figuring out where to meet, getting our tour stickers and listening devices and whatnot.  That was quite a bit more work than it should have been and there was apparently some complication that things did not start when they were supposed to but there was no clear way to tell us so we were never really sure what was going on and Dominica had to check in a few times to make sure that they had not started the tour without us.  But at a quarter after ten we finally got started and went out to the parking lot to meet up with loads of other confused people and were slowly sorted into different groups to begin the tour.

We had a great tour guide who was local but his Engish was clear.  We had little radios that we carried so that we could hear him even when we could not see him.  The Alhambra is enormous and it is really crowded all of the time so it is easy to get separated or lose sight of the group if you stop to actually see anything.

I had thought that the tour was going to be about an hour and a half.  Boy was I wrong.  The tour went from a quarter after ten in the morning until after one thirty in the afternoon with us walking the entire time!  What a long day that was and it is amazing that the girls were able to handle it.  They did such a good job.

The Alhambra was amazing.  We got to see so many of the most beautiful gardens.  And the archeological site and the castle and grounds were all amazing too.  Tons of great fountains, amazing tile work, etc.  So much interesting history.  The tour really ended up making it much better.  We ended up being really thankful that we did things that way.  Originally we thought that the tour was just an extra expense but after doing it we realized that it forced us to really see everything and learn lots of things that we would have otherwise missed and we ended up spending the entire day there rather than just an hour or whatever we would have done until the girls started to get tired.

It was nearly two when we finished up at the Alhambra.  What a long day!  Four hours of continuous walking.  I checked on my iPhone’s pedometer and found that we had done 7.6 miles today!  We carried Luciana for part of that but Liesl walked every bit of it!  She is such a good walker.

As we were heading out to look for our car we saw the Grey Lines city sightseeing trolley thing pull up outside of the Alhambra and we decided that this would be a great way to see the city as this is probably our only chance to actually do sightseeing in Granada before we head out of Spain and certainly Ryan’s only chance to get a real tour of a Spanish city.  It was not too expensive and it would take us down to the area where we wanted to go to find lunch so it was pretty much perfect.

The tour was pretty good.  The little trolley thing was pretty cool to ride around in.  It was a warm day and this was a nice way to get around.  We rode for about an hour before getting out to look for a restaurant.

Ryan did some searching on his phone and found a place that he wanted to go to find.  It was not where the trolley had dropped us off so we had to walk for a bit.  When we found the place we went in and found that they were only serving prix fix and not their normal menu and there was nothing that the kids would consider eating.  So we had to go somewhere else.

We ended up going to the place next door (which later we discovered was a well known gay bar in the area) and the food turned out to be completely amazing.  Maybe the best food that we have had in Spain!  We ordered wine and got some meat-based tapas that Ryan got to eat.  We ordered cheese, eggplant in molasses, caprese salad and a leek pudding.  Amazing.  We could not have found better food had we spent all day searching.

Unfortunately the meal took a while between the walk and having to switch places so we were actually racing to get back to the house.  And we got a little lost trying to do it.  So we missed the first trolley that came by.  So the rest of the afternoon was spent in a little bit of a panic trying to get back to the house.

We finished up the tour which dropped us back off at the parking lot for the Alhambra which was perfect.  We were able to drive right out and home without any issues.

It was a race but I got home just in the nick of time to start work.  That was quite stressful.

After work Ryan and I went back to the Meson for beers again.  Different crowd tonight.  Met some new friends, one who bought us drinks too, and we hung out until late.  One of the guys, Adolfo, who lives next door to me and is the person that we met when Dominica and I first pulled into Cáñar and parked on the plaza to unload the car when we were moving into town, ended up coming outside to ask us about a laptop that he was having problems with.  So he came back to the house and we opened some wine and Ryan worked on his laptop for a few hours while I did some work.

By four in the morning we managed to get his laptop actually working and I have him on Facebook now, as does Ryan.  It was very late when we got to bed.  We will be lucky to have two hours of sleep before we need to get up tomorrow and get on the road to get Ryan back to the airport.  It is going to be a busy day.  A little sightseeing then getting him to the airport and then picking up Rachel and Shawn and getting them back to the village.  Lots of driving and lots to do.

Today is Tuesday.  We were pretty worried when Ryan went to bed last night, being so tired, that he was going to sleep through the entire day today.  And we were right.  We had been talking about maybe going to Lanjarón today for lunch and getting some time to walk around and, if there was enough time, going to see the Moorish Castle there, but that did not happen.

It was after three when Ryan finally woke up.  Dominica has been saying that there is something about this house that makes people just sleep for forever and it appears to be true.  We are not the only ones.

We just had a casual day until Ryan finally got up.  Once we was up and showered and ready to face the world, which was around four, we went to the Meson Rural Los Angeles for lunch.  This is only our second time since moving to Spain that we are going to the local restaurant in town!  I can’t believe that we finally got Dominica to go out for a meal in town.

We had a nice lunch.  We forgot how good the food was there.  Luciana got the calamari.  Might be the best calamari we have had yet since being in Spain!

After our lunch we went for a little walk in the lower part of town, down the GR7, exploring some of the walking areas that Dominica and I have not even had a chance to go down yet ourselves.  I did not have much time with them, though, and had to actually jog up the hill to get home in time to make my stand up meeting.

While I was working, Ryan and Dominica tried to go for a walk on the GR7 which Dominica has not done before.  Originally Ryan was just going to go but then Dominica decided to go with him.  Ryan had been thinking that he would try to get to the next town over, but I think that this was a rather unrealistic attempt given the distance and the fact that these are very rural paths.  They ended up not making it very far before it got dark and needing to turn around.  They failed to follow the path and ended up going up the hill and finding the village cemetery which was neat, but not intended.

Dominica tried to buy tickets for the Alhambra tonight so that we could go see it tomorrow. They sell tickets online.  Unfortunately she discovered that the Alhambra tickets are sold out for six months!  Well that has altered our plans a bit.  She did more searching and found that there were just a few slots available in a guided tour tomorrow.  The cost is crazy, but it is our only chance to see the Alhambra while living here and it would be ridiculous to miss it now that we are here.  So we talked about it and decided to spend a few hundred dollars to have the chance to see the biggest attraction in Europe before not living right next to it.

After work was done, Dominica stayed home with the girls and Ryan and I went to the Meson Rural Los Angeles, where we had had lunch today.  We got there and ordered beers.  This is the first chance that I have had to get a beer since we moved to Spain!

We had a good time and got to meet some of the locals.  We had a good exchange using a mixture of Spanish and French and just a little English.  But we got to know people a bit and going out in town will be a bit more comfortable after this.  (It would turn out weeks later that I would get to know these guys well and they are all politicians.)

Today is Monday.  Tonight Ryan is arriving from New York.  He left last night and spent most of today exploring Oslo, Norway.  He has an eight hour layover there and is walking the city and taking a boat tour of the local fjord.

I had to work early in the day so that I would be able to drive out to Malaga this evening.  Dominica spent the day doing a lot of cleaning too.  Thankfully she can clean for many hours after I leave as it is a four hour or more round trip to Malaga.

Ryan’s flight to Spain ended up getting delayed just a little so I really was able to easily put in a full day at the office and did not have to leave early or anything.  I didn’t work late but I didn’t quit early either.

It was just after eleven at night when I pulled out of Cáñar and started my drive towards Malaga.  I took the Órgiva route on the A346 to the A44 and down to Salobreña, where we were last evening, and west on the A7 / E15.  The drive is a very easy one and the same one that we did our very first night as we arrived in Spain, but in reverse.

I had to get gas to be able to make it to Malaga but all of the gas stations in La Alpujarra region were closed and there is nothing on our section of the A7.  I had to go quite a ways before finding something but thankfully once you get to the Costa del Sol there are twenty four hour gas stations regularly.

I managed to make it all of the way through Malaga without needing to use a GPS.  In fact the GPS was all wrong and would have taken me all kinds of wrong places.  Getting to the airport was pretty easy.  My timing was really good too as Ryan was just ready for me as I pulled in.

Ryan was pretty exhausted having been up for nearly thirty six hours when I picked him up.  He had spent this morning in Oslo taking a quick tour of the city.

It was nearly three when we got to the house and about four when everyone got to bed