Celebrating a New Decade

I don’t believe that friendship should be limited by age or similar life stages. That said, at my current life stage it is hard to find friends who can celebrate with me important life milestones like turning 30. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself about that, but then I had lots of great friends from various and sundry life stages and ages send me nice messages on Facebook, and that made me feel better. And anyway, I DID get to spend my birthday with a great old friend and a lovely new one—Captain Roy and his wife Carolyn. They took me under their hospitable wings and showed me how the English live in southern Spain. Fortunately, they never made me eat Marmite, though it was present in case being English is contagious and I suddenly lost my sense of what things taste good. I did enjoy being the fact that refusing coffee for tea was not met with any sort of trepidation or snarky remarks. 

Of course, probably the best thing about hanging out with English people is the conversation. Here are some examples:

• Dear, dear. It seems I’ve gotten my trousers a bit wet. I’ll just pop over to the car and get my spare ones out of the boot.

• Have you got any trainers?

• Well then, what do Americans call a ‘bathing costume’?

• Jolly good. Let’s keep going [on our hike] then, shall we?

• *Ten minutes of laughing at the way I pronounce the word “leisure.”*

• Also, after telling him about my anglophile sister who went to the University of Central Lancashire for a semester and thinks that qualifies her to spell everything with an extra ‘u,’ he said, “Well that is splendid. Your sister must be top form!” But then on finding out that she doesn’t consistently use British spelling for words like “tyre” or “programme,” he said, “Well that won’t do at tal.”

Lovely. Indeed.

Here are some photos of our last outdoorsy day (just me and el Capitano, as Carolyn had to get back before the end of half-term break). I went for a run in the morning. Then we went up to Roy’s son’s house to admire the view. Then down to brave a swim in the icy waters of the February Mediterranean, while pasty Germans bathed in frigid sunshine (probably under the delusion that we were having a nice summer day), then back up the mountain to hike as far as we could up the nearest slope in the local nature reserve.

Hanging with the Captain on the last day photos:

An Old Arab Village:

View of reservoir from Arab village

Cold swimming (note sunbathing
Germans in the background)

If growing up means it would be
a great indignity to climb a tree,
 I'll never grow up, never grow up,
never grow u---up, not me!

Anyway, Southern Spain is beautiful, if a bit cold in February. I enjoyed the pristine beauty of trash-less beaches and lovely Mediterranean villages. Carolyn rented a car and drove us around the area to nearby Nerja and slightly farther away Granada and even all over Gibraltar. We saw the Alhambra on a cold rainy Tuesday, and it was exactly like I thought it would be: incredibly beautiful and amazing and much worse than it would have been decades ago before tourism became a thing, but still really enjoyable. We went to Gibraltar on a beautiful sunny day (day of my birth) and it was very lovely and British-y (we started out with breakfast of toasted hot-cross-buns at Morrison’s) and yet also not…I mean, apes aren’t exactly something you associate with England or any other part of the UK, and yet they were there on that rock. Captain Roy said I could touch one so I did and it came after me, but he saved me.

Gibraltar Photos:

Gibraltar is just a big rock

Driving across the border

Map of the rock

Little old Gibraltarian ladies sipping their tea at Morrison's

English breakfast with Carolyn

English stuff in Gibraltar:

The Union Jack is flying, even if you can't tell from the photo.
It made Roy and Carolyn happy anyway.

Fixing the cable cars

With the Cap'n on top of the rock

Roy liked telling me about all the ships--where
they were going and how much cargo in them.

Reclusive ape

Hey, I'm 30!

Examples of bad panorama photos I took:

More apes, probably discussing the amount of traffic each
 port in view (Algeciras, Gibraltar, etc) can handle,
anyway that's what me and Captain were talking about. 

Lighthouse--that's Morocco in the background.

Super-creepy underground history display--
every time you turn the corner one of these
guys is watching you through a window.

The Middle-East representing in Gibraltar!

I did go to Morocco by myself. The going and coming and meeting people part of the adventure is in the other post about my traveling (before or after this one maybe), and I really loved it. I love the mix of cultures and languages, Arabic, Spanish, French…as you like…and I like them all. I loved seeing the tomb of Ibn Battuta, famous Arab world traveller. That guy got to see the world before tourism became a thing—also before efficient public transportation, the internet, and airplanes became a thing. At least I know that my iPhone photos are better than his. I also loved the light house, seeing the Kasbah from the outside (it was Friday prayers…), and visiting the Caves of Hercules (seaside caves where Hercules was said to have resided at some point for some reason). Just driving around town was super fun. Coming back through the beautiful city of Tarifa was also super fun. I haven’t decided if I want to live the rest of my life in Tarifa or Tangiers.

A few more Morocco photos:

Bint Batuta at Ibn Batuta's grave

Door to Ibn Batuta's grave

Breakfast view

Breakfast cafe-I think it was founded in 1921 or something…


Lighthouse and view from Hercules'  Caves

The Kasbah, which I didn't get to see