Spain

Having made our break from the Funny Farm, we found ourselves with a bit of time on our hands which we thought might be best spent in Spain. With two years worth of Wednesday night Spanish lessons under her belt and with Glenn's Spanish repertoire gleaned from the Simpsons ('un momento por favor') and Terminator ('Hasta la vista, baby'), we were fairly confident in our ability to get by in Spain. Until we were booted off the bus at the Portuguese/Spanish border at what resembled a truckstop with market stalls, with no further idea of how or when we'd arrive in Seville. Bec was able to understand that there was one bus per day to Seville and that it would leave from said truckstop/market stall at 3pm. We wandered off to kill some time. Not as much time as we'd thought though, as we'd changed a timezone at the border and this only became apparent while sitting in a smokey bar with a clock above the cash register.

We caught our bus and it took well over four hours to arrive in Seville via every tiny town and narrow street along the way. It's amazing the only damage the driver did to the bus was on backing out of a bus station and not while weaving down the narrow cobbled streets.

After finding a bed for the night, we set out for some Spanish cultural immersion in the form of a tapas bar. We spent four days in Seville, which is quite possibly one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The orange trees were full of fruit (apparently more ornamental than edible though) and Seville is home to some of the most beautiful buildings.

Gorgeous Seville

Plaza de Espana, Seville

Still in search of some warmth, we went south in our hire car to the small town of Cadiz on the Costa del Sol. Deserted as the coast was, it's not hard to see how it could become a British enclave in the peak summer season. Our lunch stop enroute to Cadiz was the setting for Bec's first severe language failure which resulted in a 40 euro lunch and a budget-imposed diet for the next two days. We'd only planned on staying one night in Cadiz but found ourselves in the middle of a festival known as the 'Spikey Fish' festival (still not sure what this was about given that we saw no fish and definitely no spikes) and decided to partake in the merrymaking. We bought a litre of beer for $2 and took to the streets with the rest of Cadiz.

Alocal fiesta in Cadiz

Our next stop was just outside of Gibraltar to spend a couple of nights with Bec's old Bundy neighbour, Steve, and his very pregnant wife Tatiana. It was excellent to catch up with them (and play with their crazy dog) and though we wanted nothing more than a bed, Steve and Tati turned on the hospitality. Tati is an excellent cook and we spent two nights by the fire eating, drinking and generally just being merry. Steve and Tati have an awesome view from their home and the most beautiful nursery awaiting the arrival of the bella baby Boge.

The view from Casa del Boge

Enroute to Gibraltar we passed the most enormous windfarm with no less than a thousand wind turbines dotted across the hillsides. Very impressive. We spent a day in Gibraltar itself (a British territory on the southern Spanish mainland) which necessitated us parking the car in Spain, flashing our passports as we crossed the border (which also happens to be the airport runway, they have to close the road when a plane is about to land) and then reverting to spending pounds instead of euros for the day. We paid a cabbie to take us around the famous Rock of Gibraltar. We like to say that Glenn got a trip to England and a view of Africa for his birthday (you can see Africa from the very south of Spain).

Bec on the runway/border at Gibraltar

From Gibraltar we ended up in Granada. The weather was still rubbish and our hotel was in the middle of a slushy, muddy, cementy building site that made parking difficult. We thought we were being clever in avoiding parking tickets by moving our car after midnight, no such luck. We'll see if we're billed through the credit card for that one!!

Bullring in Ronda, Spain

We then meandered our way north to Madrid where, nerves and patience shattered after a week in a hire car together, we spent the night in an airport hotel before flying to Bucharest the next day.