Benalmadena Palace

... was when I called my grandparents in Florida. They were hosting my uncle, cousins, and Melanie and that my grandma had to get off the phone so she could put the turkey in the oven. For a moment I felt like I was there with them. Other than that it is sad missing out on such a great day but I took it pretty well. I am enjoying Spain too much to be all that sad. It was fun talking to my grandma. She told me that she saw my belly ...

... Alex, Maria, Juan, and two friends from an intercambio) were all super proud of me. No pasa nada!

Afterwards we went to a bar where they played a lot of older Spanish songs…very good and upbeat even though some were from the 60’s. Also, after I left the bathroom in the bar I saw Maria standing waiting for the girls bathroom and she called me over. She had met a girl from Jaen in the line and I talked a little bit to ...

... selling sea food and having bbqs on the beach. The weather is amazing cant believe that its still around the 25 degrees mark at this time of year.

We walked for a while and then worked our way back to the hotel where Ian went and lay by the pool for a little while reading his book while I had a little sleep. Its only a few days now until we come home and I am excited although I want to keep on travelling around. We got ready ...

... the ferry over to Algeciras it only took an hour and half and then we where in spain, I felt a huge weight lift as now we can relax a little. In morroco you are always on edge always watching and not trusting people that it makes you a little crazy. So we went and got our bus tickets and we waited in a little bus station cafe and had our first taste of Spanish food. Ian had some paella and I had some meatballs ...

... our ship, the navigator of the seas (royal caribbean) is repositioning to the caribbean for the winter. pricing on these types of cruises is very affordable and the type of people that cruise on the transatlantic sailings tend to be laid back, not the type who needs to be in a different port every day especially since we will have 6 sea days in a row as we cross the atlantic. i will have internet access on the ship so hopefully i'll be able to post daily.

... the Moroccan midget down to a quarter of his asking price. We probably still got ripped off, but hey, we got to bargain with an actual Moroccan. After a couple more stops in the twisting streets of the Medina, and trying to avoid the gaze of guys selling everything from cheap bracelets to cheap drums to cheap wodden camels, it was back on the bus to see the real thing. We were told we would get a chance to ride the camels, but because of the rain we had to look at them from afar ...

Sylvie repart pour la suisse... heureusement, je ne suis pas seule à l'auberge et passe une bonne soirée avec d'autres voyageurs!! On boit un peu, beaucoup, trop de sangria... et je décide à 6h du matin de repousser mon départ de Malage au lundi... j'ai trouvé un prof d'espagnol que je prendrais bien avec moi pour un petit bout de chemin ,-)

... for lunch is an area called Chininitos where there are lots of chairs and tables set outside for a great seafood.
Teatro Romano is another nice place to visit, heading up to the Mount Gilfrano from there allows to see the whole city underneath. Amazing view of the Torre where the bullfighting occurs.
Once seeing the precaussions was over at night, we head out to Cordoba for our last day of visit in the Southern Spain.

... were retiring after a few hard years at the pub. I guess business wasn't that great because he was watching Coronation Street on his two big screen TV's all by himself. (US gang--that's a british soap opera) Anyway, we left the next day on the train to Malaga for the overnight train to Valencia. Still trying to convince myself that there are towns other than Marbella...

... we had to come back the follow morning to purchase our entrance tickets. That pretty much gave us the entire day to plan for tomorrow. We started our way down back down to the main city from The Alhambra. As we walk down, we wind through narrow streets with lots of small stores that sells everything from tourists trinkets to custom make Flamenco guitars. There were many hostels with restaurants adjacent or next to them ...