Sunrise over the Med
Trip Start
Unknown
1
2
11
Trip End
Ongoing
Málaga,
Andalusia,
Spain and Canary Islands
Saturday, November 7, 2009
terry and i made it from essex to london's gatwick airport by public transport, only took 1 taxi, 6 trains, and 1 bus to get us there but we made it. since i'm a bit loaded down with luggage and one piece that is heavier than i normally travel with, getting around the london train stations is challenging at best especially when there is no escalator or elevator.on two seperate occasions during this trek i was surprised to get two seperate offers from complete strangers to help me carry my luggage down the stair. i look at this as nothing more than good karma, if you put it out there it will come back to you. i guess helping the lost tourists in san francisco paid off?
terry and i fleweasy jet to malaga which is one of europes many budget airlines; we were within a couple kilos of our allowed baggage weight allotment so we arrived with our funds intact. the weather has been wonderful here except for one morning when we woke up to gale force winds but they soon died down by the afternoon. our friend carla arrived on wednesday after her long trek from san francisco to malaga via d.c., munich and rome. we've taken nice little walks along the promenade in benalmadena which is the name of the town we are staying in. there are actually 3 cities in a row that start 'la costa del sol' they are torremolinos, benalmadena and fuengirola. the promenade begins/ends? in benalmadena and goes through torremolinos. All along the promenade are restaurants, pubs, shops selling souvenirs and of course the beach; the beaches are topless if you so desire. benalmadena is mostly made up of british expats and tourists who pop in for an affordable holiday. torremolinos tends to have more belgian, dutch and northern europeans.
terry and i travel well together, we usually don't go out to eat and prefer to shop for our own groceries, stay in and cook. we usually rent a time share or in this case an apartment/hotel which is like a time share only the kitchen does not have an oven, just a stove top. there is a hybrid microwave with convection oven that i am afraid of using after my toast started to spark and caught on fire, nothing that needed the assistance of the local fire department however. i like to cook, he likes my cooking and he does the dishes so it works.
cooking in a kitchen without an oven is interesting, it takes some planning to think about what can easily be made. we brought a few items with us from london like spices and wheatabix (similar to shredded wheat, you eat it with hot milk) for our brekkie, i like to make spanish tortilla which is like an italian fritatta or french quiche, i learned how to make them when i was in madrid in 1990 and stayed in a budget hotel that sat over a tapas bar. the smells from the tapas restaurant drove me crazy so i popped in for a look. i remember seeing these huge yellow round things on a dish sitting on the counter and asked what they were. the owners were very nice and told me that is the spanish tortilla, they even invited me around the counter to learn how to make them, they are quite easy to make and you can add pretty much what you want to them but the main ingredients are egg, and potato. i like to add roasted pepper, cubed spanish cheese like manchego, salt, pepper, and a bit of comino (cumin). i brought some new mexico red chile with me to make a chile sauce to go over the tortilla just to spice things up; the spanish don't embrace spice like we new mexicans do.
for dinner we have been buying roasted chicken from the grocery store, not as good as costco but still pretty good. i have been making soups with chicken and veggies and noodles, a nice salad, some spanish rice too. we've been enjoying drinking the spanish red wines here which are very cheap, we actually found a bottle at the local market for EUR1.00 which is roughly usd1.51; take that two buck chuck! it was definitely drinkable and cheaper than soda!! terry found a steal at the local super sol grocery market, eur.17 a can of beer of the store brand which was surprisingly good.
i guess i should mention why i am writing this blog. it's something i have always wanted to do, i have slowly taken an interest in writing, especially about travel, mostly my travels. i'm not sure where this writing experiment will lead but isn't that part of the fun? i decided to start with this trip because it involves my upcoming 12 night cruise from malaga to miami via the canary and madeira islands and the bahamas. 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.
