Home again

I am now home, in the snow!

Final day report from Almunecar

Tonight we have had a "goodbye party" with awards and "thank yous" and lots of hugs.

Kristina won the day when coming from behind she saved the day for the bus team ! Pretty cool. She is very popular in this group as those of you who have met her will totally understand.

The waiters treated us extra special well tonight. This is Antonio, our very favorite who actually speaks Swedish and wore his special tie for the occasion. I believe he may have a Swedish "sambo" 

Yesterday I didn't share with you but we also had a "sangria party" at a family owned restaurant  near by. Our "girl waiter , Diana and her family served about sixty of us the best Sangria I have ever had along with yummy tapas.

Kristina wasn't  quite as excited about this party but it was fun.

This is our leader guide Margareta who is the best ever ! This year was the tenth anniversary for this group to come to Almunecar with Margareta. Some people here this year have been along every year , some were here on the first and only missed a few over the years. It was Kristina's sixth time plus we have also been to Italy with Margareta.

Tomorrow morning the bus folks go off towards Sweden through some wonderful parts of Spain, France and Germany. It will take them six days to get home. I did that trip last year. 

The rest of us will fly from Malaga to Stockholm and then by bus the last bit to the north parts of Sweden where most of them live. I will fly back to the US the following morning. Quite a trip for those of you who have followed along. I can't believe how fast the last three weeks have gone ! It has actually been almost five weeks since I left Colorado by the time I get home. I am ready to hug my boys....( Joel and Clarnce)

Signing off for now. By the time I do blog entries again I hope to have mastered the skill of placing pictures where I want them and maybe even be able to post some of the short videos ! The singing skills of this group is "awesome" !!

Hugs to all and see many of you soon !

A very windy day

Today we have not accomplished much of anything so we just decided to be a bit goofy. The wind has been blowing like crazy so no beach time.

We have Skyped with the kids at home and that was great fun. Then we decided to do a "selfie"

And show off our new socks....

There is a cute video but I still can't figure out how to post a video on the "glob".

Kristina had another boule tournament but things didn't go as planned in spite of excellent play. 

Ah well, can't win them all !

Special birthday dinner

Tonight Kristina and I went out all by ourselves and had a feast, just the two of us. I was reminded of celebrating a special birthday dinner in Portland where the waiter also made it a special event. 

We are having a very good time my aunt and I :-) !

Day trip......

Earlier today we went by bus to another little town named Nerja. There are lots of cute stores and Kristina found some new duds. Picture below...

There are some special traditions with the trip to Nerja. We sing a song in "canon" , three groups , on the Europa "dock" so named by Prince Alfonso . After this some various items are raffled out by drawing names. One item , a scarf which everyone has taken a turn to knit on during the trip. 

This year it was won by Bert. He was our accordion player and really deserved a prize. I wish I could post the video so you could get the full measure of this event. :-) 

Another great day. Only four days left but we will make the most of it I'm sure. Another big boule event tomorrow afternoon. We may have to look in to this "sport" at home ! It sure is popular in Sweden as well as here in Spain.

Another very windy day

Two days of very windy weather. Puts a damper on activities. In spite of that Kristina saved the day in yesterday's boule competition by rallying at the end to pull off a win for the last of the "bus teams" so that everyone was happy with 8 wins for the "flyers" and 8 wins for the "bussers". 

Such focus....they were down with 8-2 but through her efforts won by 13-11 . This tiny person has an incredible strong will to win ! And focus , even in "hurricane winds" ( well , not quite but windy enough to blow things off course )

We ate our chirimayo yesterday. It tastes like a very sweet smooth pear. With lots of seeds. I saved the seeds to grow but our cleaning person threw them out. Probably illegal to bring them into the country anyway.

Took a nice long walk to the other end of the waterfront this am . Much less wind and beautiful beaches there too. You can walk for miles !

There are lots of nice sculptures placed along the way. 

I saw a bookstore along the way with a book about the history of Almunecar. I need to find out more about the last three Mores who were executed. There are sculptures of the three headless men in several places.

Here is a picture of our light lunch ! Lots of fun and laughter !

The cute little almond

I have forgotten to show you what happened to the cute and dizzy little almond....

We opened it up after the green skin started to dry up.

There it was , but it felt sort of hollow. Maybe it wasn't a real almond.....but my new friend here said it was. It was sort of hollow inside.

Correction friends......

The interesting fruit I mentioned in a previous note is called Cherimoya I believe. As is common for me , I got it slightly wrong....

Funny little detail. The "tablecloth" is a little scarf/neckerchief which we suddenly discovered used to belong to my dad. We found his name written on one corner. Makes us feel good that he is present during our coffe clutches in the afternoon. Too windy to use the balcony today.

Very rough water but a few brave ( stupid ? ) people were out playing in the waves. 

Comments

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Late night blog notes makes for mistakes

Joel just sent me a note to point out my flower at home as well as on the streets of Almunecar is a hibiscus , hyacinths. My brain is on vacation :-) ! Or maybe it is feeling the affects of....

More later. We went to the indoor market again today. An interesting fruit we will try later is called "chinimoya" ( hope I got that right)  It is the funny looking one in the middle next to the avocados .

Market day

Today and all Fridays there is market with all kinds of stuff for sale.  Look at what I found

Then we came home and had coffee on our terrace 

The finale of the day was the evening sky !

Just another day in "Paradise"

In the park there are some interesting soapstone sculptures. This is one of my favorites

Wandering in Almunecar

Today is a "blank" day and I have been wandering around in Almunecar. Found a hyacinth which looks like the healthy version of mine at home !

There was an "Oreo" along the way who kept me company !

I walked along the beach and came to the end of the beach front and there was a curious stone  staircase. I ventured out but saw nothing but an empty beach . It was a cloudy overcast day today. Two elderly gentlemen stood there talking and sort of looking across the empty beach. Turns out this is the "nudist" beach.  One of the members of our group who is not "quite right" had gone there and came back complaining that everyone was laying on their tummies .....:-) ! Nobody there today anyhow. Not a very soft and sandy beach either.

Today the only brightness came from the pretty flowers growing on the rock wall

Another nice relaxing day. We finished it at a neighborhood restaurant with friends. The hotel food is beginning to look like the buffet at Furr's cafeteria. One has to reach out for a bit of variety. Actually this is a good thing . Makes us practice portion control. The first few days everyone went all out and suffered the consequences. 

Visit to Malaga

A wonderful visit to the Picasso museum today. What a great experience .

This interesting statue was not a Picasso

Sorry i didn't write down the name of the artist but surely he was Picasso inspired !

Wandering around in Malaga in the small narrow streets reminded me of Old Town in Stockholm. The old houses are so wonderfully decorated. The old cathedral is in the background. It is called the one armed cathedral because only one tower is completed. The money for the other keeps getting used up by other projects :-)

Who knew what an almond looked like in his birthday suit

One of our friends here named Mona knows a lot about things that grow. We see a lot of flowering almond trees all over. The white flowers are sweet almonds and the pink are bitter almonds. I will show you a picture of the trees at a later time but here is the cute and fuzzy little almond in his birthday suit.

Pretty cute , don't you think. Now that I have taken a picture of it I will peel it and show you the inside but it will have to be tomorrow. I am preparing to leave here ( at the crack of 9 , Becky , I am reminded of your classes in Stockholm ) It will be a very exciting day visiting the Pablo Picasso museum in Malaga. It isn't with "our" group , but we exchange people when there is a need to fill a bus. We had some of their folks going with us to Alhambra. I could not miss this opportunity when it was presented. The museum is in his home where he was born and raised. Kristina isn't going but she urged me to go.

Stay tuned !

Swimming time !!!

Well, the sun was shining again and the sea was calm. A wonderful friend on the trip , Gisela , and I went for a swim again . We were actually in the water for about a half hour and it was "loverly" !

Kristina tried to take video and pix but it is very hard to see out in the bright sun. She captured us a couple of times. The video didn't work so well. You have to imagine the squeals !