On the Edge of a Cliff

After buying quinoa a few months ago and asking for advice on how to cook it on Facebook (thanks for the responses everyone), I finally made it tonight. I cooked it with spinach and chicken broth amongst other things (and it's a Weight Watchers recipe for only 1 point per serving.) Although I am super late on the quinoa wagon, I recommend it.

I was listening to Shed Seven while cooking. Back in high school, I used to listen to the radio show "Rock Over London" on W-DRE (RIP) every Sunday night (same night as the ska show "One Step Beyond" - anyone remember that?) I just told Dave about how I used to listen/record the show every week and then make mixed tapes of the songs that I liked. I had one live song which for some reason I didn't have the name/artist of. Years later after the show had gone off the air, I had a flashback about it and decided to do some pre-Google internet searching. Although no results came up for the lyrics, I managed to track down the DJ. So I emailed him asking about the song - the only thing I could tell him was that it was live, and that he'd also played Tasmin Archer on that same show. The DJ had saved all of his playlists and found the song for me!

Have some Going for Gold:
Going For Gold by Shed Seven
Keep in mind I was enquiring about a live version with an orchestra. PS, I still have that tape in my parents' house.

I may as well finish off my Spain trip recap even though I just posted a bunch of the photos on Facebook (it's also a procrastination Sunday.)

On the second Saturday of the trip, Dave and I left Los Alcazares and took the coastal route to our next destination. We picked Nerja to end our travels for two reasons - the first was that Kay, our tour guide from Malaga, had recommended it. Secondly, Kristine had told me that this was the town that she and Travis had stayed at (when I got back I told her I went there based on her recommendation - turns out that she actually went to a place called Nijjar, not Nerja...whoops.) It was a happy accident in any case.

The sea and mountain views on the drive were breathtaking. Also breathtaking (literally) were all of the extremely narrow viaducts that we had to drive over to get there.

Upon arrival (and once again confronting another 90 degree twisty hotel garage) we headed into the main part of town. Nerja is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. It had a typical European feel, but really stood out against anything similar from recent memory. There was a circular look-out point in the town that had amazing views of the water and mountains.

Main street leading to the look-out point

View to the right

View to the left

Bonus Photo: View from our hotel balcony

We stuffed ourselves with the biggest pieces of schnitzel I've ever seen (we had olives first so that counts as the Spanish portion of the meal), and got a drink in the evening at the trendy rooftop Buddha Bar. There were heladerias everywhere (that's iced cream shop to you) so I opted to get a flavor called "Chocolate Africa"??

Giant palm

More auto-setting camera action

The next morning we grabbed some breakfast at the hotel buffet (sadly there was no chocolate cake on offer) and headed to the local beach. The waves were a bit rough so Dave went in for just a bit while I laid under a wooden umbrella.

Old Young Man and the Sea

While sitting in the main square for lunch, a proper race started around us. The first group were adult speedwalkers - they weren't allowed to have both feet off of the ground at any point, which was pretty hilarious. After their three laps around the town center, we thought that was the end of the race, until kids of about 8-10 years old started running. I thought this was probably the cutest thing I'd ever seen until the next race was all 5 year olds! Cute overload.

We walked to more viewpoints after lunch.

Crystal clear waters

I think this is a King. He obviously had no interest in me (maybe because I had my Majorca bag with me and not a Nerja one.)More views

Atop the winding walkway

Little cave

The top left is the main lookout point

BeforeDuringAfter

(Those rocks were extremely painful, just for the record)

After watching some bullfighting back at the hotel, we headed into town again for dinner. Our meal included a pitcher of sangria, and we got to take the jug home as a souvenir. I cushioned it in my squishy, round travel pillow in my carry-on on the way home, and now it's sitting on top of our fridge, so come on over if you want us to make you some sangria in a pretty jug.

Sangria Champion

Dave getting his Mexican on in Spain

The final auto-setting shot

On the last day of our trip we headed to the hotel breakfast at about 6:30 am, before it was officially open. We had signed our names on a list to do this the day before, but we were literally the only people there - not even staff were present. After feeling like Goldilocks, and leaving our table a slight mess for the other patrons, we got in the car to start our journey back to the Malaga airport. This was actually the craziest part of the trip. As you may have read from my previous entries, we had some driving issues in Spain (in basically every place we'd gone to.) Nerja was no exception. So, we got in the car and set off. I thought the drive out of Nerja would be extremely straightforward (it was literally one long road with some roundabouts on the way in.) About a minute after leaving the hotel, the GPS gave us a direction we didn't think was right but figured was a shortcut so we took it. After going down a small hill, we drove down a 40 KM/hour one-lane road (with no sign saying which way to go), in complete darkness except for our headlights. We reached the end of the road which turned to gravel and we suddenly we were at the edge of a cliff over the Mediterranean!! Granted, the cliff was only about 5 feet high, and luckily we weren't going the full 40 KPH, but had we, we certainly would have driven over the edge. Thankfully there were two of us so I was able to get out and carefully direct Dave to make a K-turn, but that certainly shook me up.

To make matters worse, I got a copy of the Daily Mail at the airport which had an article about two men in Spain who had followed their GPS while driving in the dark and actually drove their car (the same kind as ours) into a reservoir and the driver died. This happened the night before. Is Spain trying to sabotage tourists, or what?? Here's the article.

Adios Espana

Current Music: White Lies - Farewell to the Fairground