Spring Break!

Mañana, por la mañana, I'm leaving my house at 5am to catch a 6am bus to catch a 9am flight. Why? Because I'm meeting my sister in Paris! Just wanted to post something quickly because I won't be blogging for at least a week and a half as we travel through Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid dring my spring break. I had intended to publish two more posts this week (one about our Mallorca trip, another about our visit to Ronda) but for some reason my two exams, one presentation, and manly Amuricah food night at Katie's house made that a little difficult. Oh, I just realized I could share our presentation with you! If you're interested in learning about the persecutions and expulsions of the Jews in the Middle Ages, click here. My presentation group for Tres Culturas is Claire, Michelle, and me; now we're pretty much experts on Twelver Shiism (our first presentation this semester) and the turbulent history of the Jews in medieval times (and by "we're pretty much experts on..." I mean "at one time we knew a lot about..."). For this last presentation, Michelle introduced us to Prezi. It's an online presentation software and basically is one of my new favorite things...FO REALZZZ. One of my favorite aspects is the ability to edit the presentation with your whole group on different computers, simultaneously . Basically, it's like combining powerpoint, hanging out with friends, and A THEME PARK. And the UI is pretty sweet.



Okay, I'm done lauding Prezi. Like I said, this post was supposed to be about Mallorca, but that'll have to wait til after Ty's and my vacation. Here's a sneak preview though, ripe with Don Quijote references. Well, it only has two. But still.



This is where we went hiking on the northern tip of Mallorca. It was beautiful! As for the Quijote references, Chapter 22 in Part 1 of Quijote (read it here; really, you should!) talks about a chain of prisoners that Don Quijote and Sancho come across. They're all "galeotes," prisoners condemned to working on galley ships as oarsmen. Hence, Gramling (Lane's last name) and the Galeotes (galley slaves). The name of the album? I think I've mentioned this before, but many times Quijote talks in old Spanish because he's pretending to be a knight errant of centuries past. "Malferido" is an archaic way of say "malherido," which means badly injured. Anyhow, yes, we are a band, and yes, the local newspaper has already written about us.

From the Diario de Sevilla (translated from Spanish by José María): "Bringing a new wave of appreciation to the once-immensely popular genre of post-Iberian forge core, Gramling y los Galeotes transcend all musical and philosophical constraints in their inaugural album, Malferido. Said to contain influences from the sound of rocks colliding with more rocks and undertones of socialist political agenda, Malferido is a must-have album for the masses (even the canis). Stay posted for news of their impending European tour."

:)

Well, I need to figure out how to meet up with my sister tomorrow. Hooray for figuring out the Paris Metro system. I'd appreciate prayer for safe and easy travels!

Tsa luego!

Toledo, Spain; not to be confused with Toledo, Ohio.

A couple of weekends back, all of us SISers headed out to Toledo for Friday and Saturday, a city some lots of hours north of Sevilla. Toledo is located in the area of Spain called La Mancha ("The Stain") and isn't known to be the most geographically-stunning area. Nonetheless, we had some good views of the Manchegan farmland on the way out. What made it even better was the fact that Don Quijote is from La Mancha, and we were able to stop at a group of molinos (windmills) like the ones that Don Quijote fought (well ok, like the ones that were actually dangerous giants but were turned into windmills by the evil Frestón right before Don Quijote attacked).



These are the formidable giants!



On the left is our Quijote class. On the right is the QuiBROte class.



Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: La Mancha. The weather wasn't the best we had had (double hads always sound so weird)...it was pretty cold and windy the first day. It could've been worse though; when I had checked the forecast before leaving Sevilla, it said it was going to snow! However, I soon realized that I had accidentally looked up Toledo, Ohio. Whoops.



Some of my friends!

Hmm, let's see, Toledo. What can I tell you about Toledo? For one, Toledo is known for its metal artisans. The Lord of the Rings ring was crafted in Toledo, the sword from Pirates of the Caribbean, Conan the Barbarian's sword, etc. We definitely spent a lot of time on Saturday wandering into many of the hundreds of tourist-snatching sword-tile-jewelry-souvenir-selling shops, buying gifts for friends and family back home, and some for ourselves (a few people bought some substantially large swords [read: TSA-unfriendly merchandise]).



Dog bush arch stairs. Moving on...

On Friday, we had the privilege of visiting the church that has this painting in it. No big. El Greco, the painter, lived in Toledo from the age of 36 to the time of death, so the city has a good portion of his work in it. On Saturday, we also checked out Toledo's cathedral, which is considered, in the opinion of some authorities, to be the magnum opus of the Gothic style in Spain (I plagiarize from Wikipedia). They didn't let us take pictures in there, so I'll have to link you to a picture of my favorite part of the inside. Afterwards, we went to a monastery that was founded in 1476 (yes, before Columbus sailed the ocean blue; well, towards the Americas, that is, I guess he was sailing before then). Anyhow, it was a good two days of exploring a new city, albeit a very touristy one, and best of all, I got to room with Aaron the younger bro Hamstra. If that's not a big deal, I don't know what is.

Here's a brief pictorial summary:



The picture above and the next two below are all of the monastery.





Now for some views directly outside the monastery...





Later, we walked down to the river! It was pretty impressive.





One does not simply take a picture with Kane Ransom.



Ah, and now the cathedral. Like I mentioned, they didn't let us take any pictures inside, but outside was fair game :)



Afterwards, we went to a metalworking shop where they make swords and jewelry and other neat stuff, all completely by hand. A lot of the tourist shops within the city actually get there "Toledan" swords and jewelry shipped from bigger cities and put Toledo stamps on the products, but this place let you watch their products being made, so you know they're legit!



And last but not least, on our way out of the city we stopped alongside the road to get a good view of Toledo from a distance.



And that's a wrap for our Toledo trip! On to several updates/anecdotes from the past couple of weeks:

The weather has finally warmed up! I can now bike around in just a t-shirt and shorts, just like back in Santa Barbara. It's a good feeling, let me tell ya. Yesterday, we went to the park and played frisbee and volleyball and ukulele and guitar and curling, and I wore shorts, a brotank (brank), and flip-flops. It was definitely worth the several stares I got from passerby Sevillans on the way to the park. All the midwest folk said I looked Californian. Represent! :) The mornings here are still a little chilly, so jeans and a sweater are helpful, but by the time the end of classes rolls around each day, the jeans and sweater are not your friend. And the weather is only going to get warmer, to the point where we Santa Barbarians start calling it hot and not warm. But hey, at least I'm not freezing in room now.

Meanwhile, on the home front...

One of Alba's favorite games to play is rather simply, but apparently very entertaining for her. She comes into my room, points to an object, and asks, "¿Es tuyo?" At this point, I respond with either, "Sí, es miyo," or "No, es tuyo," or a close variant to that. Then she points to another object, and the cycle continues :) Oh to be a kid again and be satisfied with such activities.

Speaking of Alba, we had our first musical collaboration yesterday. To try to get her mind of off her "¿Es tuyo?" game, I started playing guitar for her. She looked confused for a little bit, but moments later started clapping along. If only she knew I was playing Christmas music out of season :)

Favorite interaction between my host parents this week:

Maricarmen: (inquisitively, while sitting at the dinner table) Cariño, porque has puesto tres copas diferentes?
Victor: (matter-of-factly and with a fair share of smugness) Variedad. Poco de variedad.

The TV is on pretty much 24/7 in our house; during meals, it's like the fifth member of our family, and many times when Maricarmen or Victor come home, one of the first things they do is turn on the TV. Anyhow, there are some interesting shows on in Spain. One such program is a talk show called "El Hormiguero," meaning "the ant hill." Basically, it's a talk show with three hosts, two of which are puppet ants. Sometimes on the show they make snide remarks about current events and weird news stories, and one in particular made me laugh the other week. They were featuring a headline that stated, "Una anciana rusa afirma tener un extraterrestre en su congelador." Translation: "An old Russian women affirms that she has an alien in her refrigerator." The talk show hosts comment was that even the first half of that headline, "Una ancient rusa afirma," is an impossibility. It made me chuckle. Here's the article if you'd like to read it. I think the link is still live…

A couple weeks back, we put on a tiny concert at Caridad, the home for old men where some students in our program do their Acción Solidaria service learning assignment. It was so much fun! Michelle and I sang and played Needtobreathe's "Washed by the Water" (voice and guitar) and "Lay 'Em Down" (guitar and trumpet), and then Jessie and I played a really cool song, whose name escapes me, on ukulele and trumpet. Sarahjane laid down some classical improv on violin, and Jessie and Sarahjane played and sang another song on ukulele. We were all a bit nervous before playing, but were assured by Katie that we probably wouldn't be heard very well anyway… :)

My buddy Lane showed me a really cool website a while back. We're both into graphic design and love designing things in Photoshop, and Colourlovers.com is right up that alley. I'm especially a fan of the colour palettes that you can browse through; so useful!

Last Sunday evening, on a whim (well, on what I initially thought was a whim) I rode a Sevici down San Jacinto for a bit to get some fresh air before dinner. I stood in the center of the Puente de Triana for a little, watching the sky slowly turn continually deeper shades of blue, and then decided to walk down to the side of the river to look for a good angle to get a long-exposure shot of the bridge sometime later this week. Well, I didn't find the angle I wanted, but as I was leaving the crowded street that parallels the river, I heard someone saying something in Russian. My head shot over to the right, from where the talking emerged, and I saw a somewhat rough-looking guy leaning against a ledge. Then, even farther to the right, my peripherals caught sight of another man walking towards the first: who would it be, but Igor, the homeless Russian man I had met several weeks earlier. I guess for the evening he had come out to Triana instead of sticking around Macarena where he usually sleeps. He told me that he and Misha (Mike), the first man (Ukrainian, Igor told me), were "parking cars." Essentially, they would wait for a car to pull out of a parking spot, then would direct a new car into the spot (and would try to get paid by the driver, I'm pretty sure). Anyways, I talked to Igor for a bit, encouraged him for the 17th time to call the homelessness hotline number we had given him (that he still had in his pocket from weeks back), and parted ways. I'm really hoping that he eventually does get to a place where he desires a change so much in his life that he calls that number. He always complains about how hard it is to live on the street, but isn't willing to pursue what is probably the only path he has for getting off the street. If you could keep praying for him, I'd really appreciate it!

In other news, I got sick this week, and had two lit tests as well. Not a good combo. And I have two more tests and a presentation next week. But at least the first wave is over, and my health is slowly getting better. However, if I don't go to bed right now, I'll probably get worse, so good night!

Tsa luego!

The Great Andalusian Road Trip: Parte Tres (Puerto Banus, Parauta, Ronda, Grazalema, y Zahara)

Now for the final portion of our road trip. On Monday morning, Tori and I woke up early (Kane, Caprice, and Steph didn't have many ganas to madrugarse :) to catch the sunrise over Puerto Banus (luckily, the sunset isn't as early in south of Spain as it is back in Santa Barbara). We walked out towards the marina, hoping to figure out where the breakwater started (those breakwaters can be pretty deceptive), all the while slowly seeing the sky fill with the subtle glow of the sunrise. The sun broke the horizon some fifteen minutes after we made it to the end of the breakwater; in short, it was pretty great. There aren't many things like seeing the start of a new day, and what more, over the Mediterranean.









When we got back to the hotel, Kane, Caprice, and Steph were getting up (that's a lie: Kane was definitely still sleeping and trying to continue sleeping), so we all ate breakfast and started to gather our things to get ready for checkout. We had kind of a lot to figure out that morning, because when we arrived at Jardines the evening before, there had been no one to turn in the room deposit or required paperwork to, and because we wanted to figure out whether we could cancel our hotel for the next night and rent our place in the Jardines for another night. Why, you ask? Well, the affordable place we had found in Ronda was only for four people, and we had five. Potentially a problem (the cheaper hotels aren't very lenient with the number of people you have staying for the night). Long story short, the room was non-refundable, so we were stuck with our 4-person situation in Ronda. But that's another story for another time. As in, a little later in this annoyingly-long post :)

Our plan for the rest of the morning was to try finding Istán, the first of the Pueblos Blancos that we had wanted to visit. The Pueblos Blancos (or the White Towns of Andalusia) are scattered throughout the province of Cadiz, often situated on ridges where they overlook the surrounding countryside. According to highly reliable sources (I just forget what they were), I think they're located where they are for defensive purposes (it's substantially easier to see your enemies coming when you're up high, rather then tucked into a valley). Anyhow, the last leg of our journey, visiting these pueblos, was going to start with Istán, but Frestón decided to make the road to Istán undiscoverable.

Ah. I haven't told you about Frestón yet. Frestón is the reason anything went wrong on our trip. Whether it was losing our way, or someone tripping on a curb, sandwich cheese getting sandy, or dangerous giants turning into windmills right before they were attacked, it was Frestón's fault. Consquently, he's one of Don Quijote's greatest enemies as well.

Well, after meandering pretty much aimlessly through un montón de (that means a lot, just in case you're wondering) golf resorts, we ended up in a town a good deal southeast of Istán. The group consensus was that going to the beach would be a great alternative, so back to the beach we went.



This is where we spent the next couple of hours! We swam, laid in the sun, invented a environmentally-friendly food refrigeration system, and ate. Much better than driving by golf resorts trying to find a magically-hidden village.







Our next destination after the beach was the small pueblo of Parauta (pronounced "pa-ROW-ta," because the vowel "u" is a weak vowel, according to Kane, and also, but of lesser importance, the Royal Spanish Academy). One thing I really liked about our trip was that we had the opportunity to see lots of different landscapes and terrains. Once we left the coast, Rocinante took us into a rugged mountainous area, thriving with forests and rough mountain faces.



We didn't really know much about Parauta before heading there, save having seen a picture on a Google image search, but it turned out being a really tiny town. We got there during siesta time, so we probably saw about 5 people and 3 cats in the hour and a half we were there. It was really peaceful...but almost too peaceful :)











After wandering through the whitewashed houses of Parauta for a while, we hopped back in the car and started making our way to Ronda. Upon entering the city, we had a bit of trouble find our hotel, so I hopped out of the car at the McDonalds we drove by and snagged their wifi so we could orient ourselves. Kane pulled a loop through the surrounding streets while I used Google Maps, and in a couple minutes we were on our way to find parking. This is where we had to start being sneaky. Because we had rented for four people, I headed out back to McDonalds while the rest of the crew checked in. First step completed.

After we all met up again, we headed towards a tapas place that had been recommended to us. It was called El Lechugita, and it was really good! The prices were really cheap, the portions weren't too small, and the food was para chupar los dedos, as Jacob Miller would say. Having eaten dinner, we found the main street in Ronda, hoping to find a market to buy some breakfast and lunch food. However, after walking up the street for a while and asking a less than personable lady about a market, we realized that things close pretty darn early in Ronda. So instead, we walked to the east of town, not too far from where we were, and looked out into the gorge. Ronda is perched on top of a big canyon, so there are some pretty incredible views out into the surrounding countryside. But more on that later.

This is where things got a little tricky. We needed to all get back in our hotel without the hotel owner seeing me. We had spend a bit of time out, so we thought that maybe he would have already left his office for night, but, just in case, we had Kane, Caprice, and Steph enter first. Tori and I waited down the block and around the corner for about ten minutes, then walked back to the hotel to try to enter. Right as we got to the door, we saw the owner disappear down the hallway. Perfect. From there, it was a simple matter of running in and up the stairs to what would be Kane's and my room (in the girls' room, Tori, Stephanie, and Caprice slept horizontally across their two twin-sized beds; apparently, it wasn't too comfortable...).

As we had to check out the next morning, we once again had to be sneaky. This time, our plan was to have the four legitimate hotel-goers check out at the front desk while I walked out, talking on my phone in Russian (essential part of the process). The mission was a success. We packed our stuff into the car, headed back towards the lookout point over the canyon, and ate what you perhaps could call breakfast (lots of Maria Doradas with an off-brand type of Nutella). We then went sightseeing for another half-hour (we knew we were going back to Ronda later in the semester [earlier today, as a matter of fact] so we tried not to spend too much time there) and then headed out.







The drive to Grazalema was rather enjoyable; the road weaved in between forested cliffs and hilly pastureland, while we played "would you rather" with some pretty absurd situations. Tori tried convincing us that we'd rather give up our ability to walk than our ability to drive, but we weren't falling for it. Pretty soon, we arrived in the beautiful town of Grazalema.



Grazalema is one of the bigger Pueblos Blancos, and we happened to visit during Día de Andalucia (this holiday was the whole reason we had a four-day weekend). There was live music and dancing in the village square, so as we walked throughout the town we could hear it drifting up the narrow, hilly streets. Quite the experience!









We ate tapas for lunch, and then started walking back to our car when............we found the start of a trail up into the surrounding hillside! Naturally, we started climbing it. The view from up there was gorgeous (I try not to use that word too often, but it really is fitting here). I wish we could've kept climbing to the top of the mountain, but alas, our schedule was telling us it was time to move on.





Our last stop for the day and for our road trip was going to be the town of Zahara de la Sierra, but because we had spent more time at Grazalema than intended due to our hiking escapade, and also had gotten a pretty good share of whitewashed buildings in the preceding 24 hours, we decided we'd be fine with just stopping a little ways out of Zahara and getting pictures from a distance. We first found a little turn-off a couple kilometers out of the city, took a few pictures of Zahara, and then had our own photo shoot.



We then tried to get a bit closer towards the pueblo and came upon a dam. We turned into a dirt turn-off with a small utility building right past the dam to see a car with three older people in it, all laughing about something. We soon realized it was because the fourth person in their group, an older man, was finishing going to the bathroom in the bushes behind the building :)

We walked out onto the dam and enjoyed the tranquil view of Zahara in the afternoon sun, reflecting in the inviting water of the lake. If I had been wearing swim shorts, I think I would've jumped in. Also, we found out that the pier structure that we were near would echo really well. Pretty entertaining (well, for me at least).



When the time came, we piled back into the car for the very last segment of our trip (well, if you don't count returning Rocinante to the airport). Kane and I listened to Big Country (Béla Fleck!), as it seemed the most fitting for the landscape we were driving through, and various other solid jams (as the youth say these days). A few hours later, we were entering Sevilla, just a few days after leaving, though it seemed liked it had been at least a week since we embarked on our voyage. We dropped Caprice and Steph off in Los Remedios, and then got back on the road to the airport to return our trusty steed. That was probably the most emotional part of the trip...he had grown to be our friend, and then just like that, we had to let him go. But such is life :)



In short: some 700 km, 3/4ths of a tank of gas, two Dia stops, lots of rusty anchors, many wrong and more right turns, several sunsets and one sunrise, and most importantly, many wonderful memories later, we were back in Sevilla, still in a daze from our wonderful road trip. I'm not really sure how to conclude these past three posts, except to say that God was good, and his hand was evident in every turn of the way, whether it was a view of an incredible landscape, or us miraculously finding our way to one of our hotels. It was definitely a trip of a lifetime, and one that will nunca be forgotten!

The Great Andalusian Road Trip: Parte Dos (Getares, Gibraltar, Algeciras, Estepona, y Puerto Banus)

Last time I left ya, we were leaving Punta Paloma and heading towards the Gibraltar area. Along the length of this portion of our trip (well, during the whole trip), we had a CD player but no CDs, iPods but no method of connecting them to the car's sound system, a plethora of talk radio (on both the AM and FM bands) but a scant selection (and more often than not, none at all) of music stations, and most importantly three-college aged girls in the backseat with muchas ganas to sing and two-college aged guys in the front with little power to intervene. Hence, singing abounded, and yes, every once in a while Kane and I would join in :)

Before I go on, I'll give you the typical disclaimer that this is a substantially-long (by the way, I've started using the word "substantial" a lot for some reason) post. I'm trying to blog about the entire road trip in three posts, which means I have to cover considerable ground with the remaining posts. If you want the SparkNotes version, just scroll through the pictures!

Moving on. At this point of the journey, we were pretty excited to get to the place where we were staying for the night. We had found and rented a small house about a 30 minute drive from Gibraltar in Getares (essentially a small cluster of cliffside homes some minutes away from the city of Algeciras), and had paid a little bit more for this stay, as compared to our other three nights. To our delight, our home, on Calle Ortigas (Nettle Street :), didn't disappoint. Here she is!



Having the place for ourselves for a day was definitely one of my favorite aspects of the vacation. We were able to hook up some music to the amplifier, eat our food whenever we wanted, and lounge about in the living room or outside on the patio, enjoying the view of Africa. Absolutely loved it. Oh, yeah, our view! Take a look. That is, in fact, Morocco that you can see on the horizon, sleeping in the Mediterranean haze.



That afternoon, after considerable discussion and deliberation about what to do, we decided to head into Gibraltar and see what the British territory had to offer. We were thinking of maybe going into Gibraltar the next morning, but then realized the next day was Sunday and nothing would be open. Good thinkin'.



Here are some drive-by sights along the way. Oh, yes, in case you didn't know (I definitely didn't before coming to Spain), Gibraltar doesn't actually belong to the Spanish. It's a small chunk of land that's essentially a mini-Britain on the Mediterranean. British accents, red telephone booths, double-decker buses (or bus), and fish-and-chips. And we had to have our passports to get in (but it was probably the easiest border crossing of my life). I'm pretty sure I could have flashed a homemade cardboard passport and gotten in, as long as I painted it a blue somewhat similar to good ol' American Passport Blue. It also helped that we were on foot; we had heard from a couple different sources that driving into Gibraltar takes forever, so we parked a little ways away from Gibraltar in the Spanish border town described as "seedy" by the tour book Tori had, and then meandered our way south until we hit the frontera. Another interesting fact about getting into Gibraltar? You have to cross an airport runway, on foot, to get in.



Pretty neat, huh?







Our experiences that afternoon included but were not limited to: admiring the giant rock that protrudes from Gibraltar, using exercise/playground equipment whilst overlooking the port, watching the sunset, ordering fish and chips, and clandestinely eating fish and chips on a table hidden from view of the restaurant employees (because they didn't let you use the tables unless everyone was ordering something, and we just split a big fish-and-chips portion; it must've been quite the sight, seeing us hovering over the delicious fried goodness like seagulls at the beach on a July afternoon, yet crouching and peering side to side every 30 seconds to avoid detection by MI6). I was also a bit thirsty, so I bought a soda with Arabic writing on it. Turned out it tasted kind of like bubble gum. Never had I had bubble gum soda before that moment. Viva Gibraltar.





After the sun set, we set out for our car. Our bellies were a-grumbling, and the four frozen pizzas we had procured at Dia earlier in our trip were pretty lonely back at home.



That night we hit the hay and we hit it well, full of pizza (made on the panini maker, I should add, as suggested by the house's owner herself, as the oven was non-existent, and as this is a run-on fragment, and doesn't even have the merit of being a run-on sentence) and fully exhausted. We had decided beforehand that we'd be sleeping in the next morning: good call.



The next day was Sunday, so we had ourselves a slow calm morning, each of us journaling or reading for a bit in between eating breakfast and enjoying the view and sunshine. It was a really peaceful way to start the day, especially compared to waking up for school on the weekdays. Oh, and Tori let me have some of her Special K with Red Berries. That's a big deal, because Special K with Red Berries are worth their weight in gold.



Even the cat took the liberty of laying in the warmth of the sun for a couple hours.

After breakfast, we intended on finding a beach to spend the early afternoon on. We drove down our street towards the west for a bit to verify what we had been told earlier by Pascale's (the house's owner) husband/boyfriend (you never know in Spain…), that the beaches close by were all rock. Nonetheless, the view was pretty amazing. We also met a guy holding octopi and witnessed a Navy SEAL emerging from the water.



Our plan B to the rocky beach was a beach we had passed earlier (there was a picture earlier in this blog post of it), so we soon after headed out there. The next couple hours were full of a plethora of seashells, dogs of various types having a blast, some white guys swimming, snacking on Maria Dorados, and lazily-laying-in-the-sand types of behavior.







We had to check out of our house at 3, so when the time came we reluctantly left the beach and beelined for the house to grab our things and clean the place a bit before Pascale came to get the keys back. About a half hour later, we were heading out the door and on to our next adventure: finding our place for the night in the Marbella area. Rocinante seemed up for the task, as per usual (I don't usually same that; hmmmm...).



In the weeks preceding our trip, we had googled some of the cities along our intended route, and Estepona seemed like a great town to stop by. Glad we did! Though we had less than an hour to spend in Estepona, this quaint town was definitely one of my favorite locations on the trip. Reminded me a lot of Santa Barbara; I think that's why I liked it so much :)



We stopped to get ice cream at a waterfront shop as small as its Italian owner's national pride was large. He said that because his shop was a "casa italiana," the toppings were free, but in a "casa española" the same wouldn't be true. Definitely a character :)





I wish we could've stayed longer in Estepona, but we were once again on a schedule with the place of our stay for the night in Puerto Banus (some ten minutes from the city of Marbella), needing to arrive by 6 to check in. Well we pulled up to Puerto Banus at 5:45, found the street where Jardines del Puerto (our hotel) was, and dropped the girls off to quickly find the front desk before the hour ended while we parked the car. We ended up finding the gate to Jardines right at 6, and lo and behold it was closed and no one was in the office. Long story short, after panicking a bit and wandering about the place looking for employees, we found a number to call and were able to reach someone that was on the grounds of the hotel and could open our room for us (we later found an information sheet we had printed that had exact instructions for what to do if we arrived on a Sunday [which it was], because the office is always closed on Sundays; great :).

After settling ourselves a little bit and recovering from the momentary bout of anxiety, the five of us headed down to the beach, about a block away from our hotel, to watch the sunset. In a word: breathtaking.





The silhouettes above are our crew! And the silhouette below is Gibraltar. One of my favorite aspects of this whole trip was the continuity of going from place to place slowly, especially in the case of Gibraltar, with the enormous rock tying everything together. We could see the famous landmark from miles kilometers before reaching our place in Getares to kilometers after leaving.



Well, I need to finish a paper for Literature Española (we're in Mallorca right now; I spent the day hiking on the northern tip of the Island with Kane, Lane, Tyler, Jules, and Angeline) before we hit the sack for the night. Hopefully the next blog post will cover the rest of our road trip! Then I'll have to write about our short Toledo trip and this weekend in Mallorca, and then I'll be caught up on my blogging. Like that will happen anytime soon...jaja.

Good night (good afternoon/good evening) to all!

Tsa luego!