Spain- Day 2

Hot ham and cheese for dinner Sunday night was both welcome and delicious as the late hour of 10:30, followed, of course, by more news—no movie though—I opted for bed at that point.

In following the patterns of my lovely hosts I slept in again on Monday morning and rose to another beautiful day with the sun shining in bright blue sky. After breakfast I decided to go for a walk and try to discover a little town of Torre Del Mar. I was told to walk down the path to the right, along the water, until I reached a large statue of a man pulling fishing nets- this would be at the base of the main street in town and would lead me not only to the church but also to the shops and whatever else was important in the little center of Torre Del Mar.

Off I went, enjoying the weather, taking pictures and looking for a man pulling nets. I walked. And I walked. And I walked some more. At one point I saw a couple of ladies selling cheap purses on the side of the path and figured I had to be close to this statue but see it I did not.

So I kept walking- all the way to the light house. By this time I was certain I had gone too far. So I started trying to ask in my limited Spanish, “Donde esta iglesia?” Unfortunately the response I got 3 out of 4 times was “nein.”… there were Germans everywhere!!! And silly me, despite my current slow attempt to learn German I could not for the life of me remember the word for “where”… (Woher- I remembered much later when it did me no good). So I kept walking back in the direction of the villa hoping I’d either find a Spanish speaker or see the man with the nets on my way back.

I finally did find a Spanish speaker- two actually. This couple was so nice and they explained to me in very slow and confusing Spanish where I needed to go and then gave me all sorts of probably useful superfluous information I, of course, didn’t understand. But I did find the street I needed. FYI- that statue is not on the path like I had thought, it’s off on the actual street and is, thus, not all that easy to spot from the where I had been walking. But find it, at last, I did and the exploring of town began. It ended rather quickly though as none of the shops seemed all that interesting, the church was closed, and it was getting close to lunch time at this point. So I went back by that silly man and his nets and returned to Mercedes’ and Robert’s for lunch.

While my hosts took their siesta I took my computer and headed back into town in an effort to find a café that had wifi. (See, I really did TRY to keep in contact with you all while on vacation). But it was basically ultimate failure. Between asking in bad Spanish for a café that had internet access and finding that most cafés didn’t have internet access I was getting frustrated. I finally found an eye glasses place with a sign that said “We Speak English” as well as several other languages. I went in and explained to the kind woman that I didn’t need glasses; all I wanted was a place to plug in my computer and have a coffee at the same time. She knew of one, thank God, and off I went in search of it.

Talk about old school!! The man took out a cable and plugged it into the back of my computer… well, at least I had internet! I chatted briefly with my mom and my sister, answered a few emails and looked up information on the Alhambra in Granada, where Kim and I would be going sometime later in the week. Without much progress in the email/blog sector of things I gave up on my internet, paid for my coffee and headed back along the beach to villa to spend some quality time with my hosts. We chatted and enjoyed the evening. Hot ham and cheese for dinner was just as delicious as it had been the night before; then, in keeping with tradition, we watched the news and then the movie “A Fish Called Wanda”. I love Kevin Klein.

Then it was off to bed—Kim was coming tomorrow!!! YAY!!!

BONUS: Here are a few photos from my 1st day there and of where I was staying:

This is Mercedes- my amazing and lovely host!

This is from the first day when Mercedes and I walked down to the peer. Mercedes was so nervous that I was going to fall in the water. :) It was really windy this day so I had my coat on, but I swear it was beautiful out!

This is Villa Mercedes, where I stayed with Mercedes and Robert :) SO PRETTY and right on the water!

See... this is the path behind their house-- you can walk to the left, d

own towards the peer, or right, towards a light house and the town of Torre Del Mar. The Mediterranean Sea can be seen just off to the right in this picture :)