Hola from Estepona!

The view from our apartment:  Gibraltar, a.k.a. "Gib"

Hola!  I’m writing this from a bus station in Marbella at 7:30 a.m. (Spain time) meaning all you folks living up the CST back in Minnee-SO-Dah are just laying down for a good night’s rest—something we didn’t quite get last night.  We woke at 4:30 this morning to walk one mile to catch a bus to Granada for the weekend (Google image search Granada, Alhambra, and Spanish bus driver who woke up on the wrong side of the bed if you’d like to get a visual of this mini-adventure thus far).  

After 36 hours of luggage hauling, ear-popping, McDonald’s consuming travel, we arrived safely in Marbella last Friday afternoon.  A lot has happened since then--I’ll attempt to get you somewhat up to speed.  First, let’s address the issue of jet-lag.  To be honest, I’ve never had much sympathy for anyone who has complained of being jet-lagged.  Oh, poor you, you just got back from an amazing international trip and now you need to sleep…what a sad situation.  I still wouldn’t consider my feelings towards weary air travelers as being sympathetic, but I can now agree that changing the beat of your circadian rhythm is not easy.  It took a few late nights and 11:30 a.m. sleep-ins for us to get back into somewhat a routine.    

Back to the first day…we drove about 1 1/2 hours south along the Mediterranean from the Malaga airport to Estepona, where we were introduced to our two fabulous apartments on the beach (in regards to the apartments, we love them, and never take waking up to the sound of waves for granted).  After taking an hour to get settled, we literally did a U-turn and took taxis back up the coast to Marbella, where we enjoyed a delicious, delirious dinner with Deb and Lauren.  Although we arrived to the restaurant at 6:30, we were the first customers of the night—the typical Spanish dinner begins between 8:00-9:00.  So as the nocturnal Spaniards came in ready to dine, we requested la cuenta (the bill) with stomachs full of paellas, olives, and Crème Brule.  

We said farewell to Deb and Lauren, and taxied our way back to Estepona.  We must have had the wrong address to our apartment, because our driver pulled over at the port.  He didn’t speak English, and our Spanish was rough (we all felt really bad that we couldn’t communicate better) after about 5 minutes of driving around and having an intense Spanglish/sign-language conversation we decided to stop the taxi meter where it was, get out, and let the sea guide us home.  It worked—we discovered we were only about ½ mile from the port.  After less than 12 hours in Spain, we’d already put one adventure in the bag. Lots more to come…thanks for reading!  

P.S.  Chris, I’ll get even with you for putting that picture of me on our blog.  All in good time, my pretty, all in good time.