Thursday 19 July 2012
Fantasy of the Day
SO I've recently become obsessed with the idea of running away to be an American hillbilly.
I think this was triggered by my obsession with Sawyer's (from Lost) accent, but now all I want to do is wear Daisy Duke hotpants and dungarees and tied up checked shirts with cowboy boots and hats and spend my days in the super hot sunshine by a lake chewing on a bit of straw.
Definitely need to make this happen!
I'm trying to make a playlist of country music to help me create this sort of atmosphere in my mind, anyone got any suggestions of songs or artists to add?
Monday 16 July 2012
It's been so long since my last post I hardly know what to write about.
As usual, I've been having a mini crisis about what I want to do with my life. I'm finding it hard being away from university, because at least there I feel like I'm doing something.
I can't stand the limbo that is student life, having all my possessions spread thinly between what feels like six different locations, and I find myself drawn to minimalistic spaces and those are the kinds of things I like to look at online.
I like to dream about what my life will be like after I graduate in those silly gowns and hats, and while I know jobhunting is going to be difficult, and I may not know where I will be living, at least I know who I want to be living with, and what I don't want my life to be like. Taking a proactive approach to life is something I like to pretend I do to make myself feel better! When in reality all I can see are the things that are holding me back from that. The main factor in this equation right now is the fact that my parents' house, where I'm staying at the moment, is so far from civilisation I can't get a job doing anything remotely like what I want to be doing in the future, and I can't even volunteer for the experience either as there's nothing around here. I know people exaggerate by saying these things and use it as an excuse but people who know where I live will know what I mean!
What is it about ranting into cyberspace that makes you feel more productive?!
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Sunday 16 October 2011
And So To Spain!
This last August, the boyfriend and I booked a spontaneous holiday to Southern Spain.
Now, I say spontaneous, but we'd been thinking about going for at least 6 months. We had bounced a million destination ideas around, before narrowing it down to the cheapest options. We both really wanted to go abroad rather than staying in the UK, and due to some other plans earlier in the year falling through, we had the option of staying at a family friend's villa in Pueblo Alcasar, near Moraira on the Costa Blanca, for £150 for 10 days. Perfect! When these dates were set in stone, we hastily booked our flights (£260 for both of us, return) for the end of August.
Now, what we hadn't realised was that the location of this villa was an hour's drive from Alicante airport. We had to really quickly research public transport to the area, and after discussion, the options were either:
- A £100 taxi ride
- A mixture of buses
-A TRAM/train ride with a taxi for the last few miles.
We settled on the last option, incorporating, as the research suggested, the 4 hour train journey into our sightseeing experience.
While in Spain, we noted down what we were up to with the intention of whacking it onto this blog here for future reference, and to give what advice we could to anyone who would consider going to this area of the world without a car. (In short, don't do it!)
So here is a day-by-day account of our holiday, for your enjoyment:
UNO
2am wake up call. Got to Stanstead at 4am (Thanks Tim's Dad!), check in and security all quite efficient and leisurely.
We boarded the plane at 6am, with a 2 ½ hour flight ahead of us, armed with choccies and free xenophobic newspapers. Landed 9.45 local time, somewhat informal customs process -one man standing at a door- but a swift airport exit. I deftly changed clothes as I was already sweltering in my jeans, and armed myself with the printed instructions on how to get to our final destination- our villa, La Golondrina.
Bus from airport, our first use of funny money! Which led to number one blunder- got off bus too early, as Tim heard the driver gave someone directions to the BUS station and thought it meant train..etc. Wandered around town until we plumped for a taxi to the TRAM station, which was lovely and modern and clean and not at all like the London Underground.
So began the longest leg of our trip! First, a tram from Alicante to Benidorm... 1 hour 10 mins. it was such a beautiful scenic route, we really didn't regret this choice of transport, and it only cost 5 euro each. We travelled THROUGH mountains and along the Miami-style beach fronts. Then we sat in Benidorm for half an hour, waiting for a transfer. The train from Benidorm only took us so far due to maintenance work – we alighted at Olla Altea, taking a bus to calp(e). Then back on the train from calp to teulada, where we wandered around stressfully, aimlessly looking for a taxi. Tim rang a taxi company, and spoke to a very essex bird, much to his relief!
We waited for our taxi, and then had a short ride to Pueblo Alcasar, which as it transpires is very very very hilly, as we discovered as we tried to find our villa suitcase in tow. We wondered around the un-signposted holiday-home-development, before finally finding the place. Never been so relieved in our lives! The air-con was on, it was BLISSFUL.
We immediately stripped off our clothing from our already lengthy day. After a brief recce, we found the pool, which was very deep by anyone's standards, nicely situated by a little cafe/restaurant. No less than 2 minutes in Tim was told off by the lifeguard for sitting on the fun little island thing in the centre of the pool, rendering said island redundant!
After the dip, we popped down the hill to the supermarket! I LOVE European supermarkets- full of funny yummy foods and non-EU-regulation (ironic) vegetables. We opted for a cheese and salad and crisps and suspect fish baguette dinner with the little cash we had on us at the time. At the checkout Tim was scolded by local number 2 for not wearing a shirt in the shop (we think!). Then it was back up the hill and time to munch our dinny dins, then we went straight to sleep when our heads hit our pillows at 7pm.
DOS
Thanks to the shutters on the villa, we awoke after 13 hour sleep, suitably refreshed. No sooner than I woke up I was surprised by a lovely ring set for the both of us as a 1 year anniversary gift from Tim.
After some puzzling, we decided we couldn't get the hot water to work in the ensuite shower so we crammed into the tiny main bathroom shower, before taking a short walk to the supermarket to get some provisions- BBQ food for later, some brunch, cheese, cereal and ring shaped bread.
Brunch was a lovely pain au chocolat esque thing, al fresco in the already toasty garden.
We went to the pool for a little swim; I laid and read my book while Tim did laps around the pool like an excited child.
After just a little bit of sunburn, we retired to the villa and failed to get the hang of this “siesta” malarkey. Nevertheless, we put in motion our idea of BBQ for lunch, after some faffing by my man we failed to light it, so we popped down to the supermarket again for charcoal, fuego gel and a big bottle of water.
Finally we had our BBQ for linner- some fish and cheese (what looked like cheese, grilled like cheese but tasted like a silage pit) kebabs, burgers for the boyfriend and some yummy trout, salad, crisps and some 'grilling cheese' which promptly melted through the BBQ grill, but was still yummy in bread after being deftly rescued.
After dinner entertainment was scaring a local gato with the hose as it prowled through the flowerbed. I then took Tim's scrabble virginity- he won by a good 30 points though...
We then went to the pool for some poolside reading, under one of those palm tree umbrella things for a while.
Tim finally figured out how to work the TV when we got back, albeit with about 5 different news channels and nothing else to watch!
TRES
Today was Friday, or Market Day in Moraira. This was our objective for today- marketing!
We awoke quite early today, and had “bollas con chocolit” for breakfast- Nesquick like cereal. We picked up some iced tea at the supermarket before ringing for a taxi, while waiting for the taxi we took a look at the strange Chinese-run shop- that sold EVERYTHING- in the small shopping complex at the bottom of the hill– so many cushions!
The taxi arrived- the same woman from day 1, who was extremely helpful and told us all about where to go in Moraira. We wombled round the market looking at all the fresh fruit and veg, pottery, jewellery and clothes, bags and churros along with all other usual market tat, fake rolexes and all. I had wanted to get some authentic Spanish blanket or something Spanishy to take home, but thought we'd settle for some nice fruit for the remainder of the holiday.
We explored Moraira which is a very small town with lots of restaurants, estate agents and a very pretty marina. We went to the beach for a short while, which was small but not too crowded at 11am, there was a little adjoining river with the biggest ducks I've ever seen. The beach has nice sand and the Med was nice and warm although Tim wasn't convinced about its warmth. We had a little paddle and a sit down then walked along the seafront to the marina where there is a fort type thing, vowing to return to the beach soon.
Next we set off in search of food, looking at all the menus outside restaurants and inadvertently taking a tour of the whole town- only about 4 streets in total- but plenty of choice , particularly on the seafront. Tim got very excited by places with pictures of the food! We eventually settled for a cheapish looking tapas restaurant and ordered fried battered squid and fish, patatas bravas and prawn cakes, as well as some toast with alioli- all were delicious. The squid were whole, and this proved quite the turn off for the boyfriend, owing to his mortal fear of “little wiggly things”. This left us more than full so decided against ice cream for pudding.
We wandered up to the market again to buy fruit – watermelon, peaches and nectarines- for dinner before catching a cab up to the villa again.
The weather was far cooler in the afternoon- looking a bit stormy, so we left out the pool trip this time.
Once again we Scrabbled... the score is looking slightly more favourable today with myself being a whole 5 points above Timmy-we're keeping a cumulative score.
Iced tea and pistachios were the next order of the day. At first Tim wasn't sure about the taste and smell of the room temperature bottle we purchased but chilled in a glass with ice and lemon seems to be more his thing, he even pronounced it 'refreshing'.
After this, we got a little bored so we popped to the pool for a dip. Dinner was a selection of fruits from the market, all fresh as you like and misshapen; a trait which only adds to their deliciousness. We then discovered a stash of (terrible taste) DVDs, and whacked on the Truman Show, while watching the rain in Spain falling not onnly on the plane, but all over the place.
QUATRO
Today , with the weather looking a little iffy, we opted to just relax by the pool at first, after a wonderfully refreshing (and surprisingly filling) breakfast of watermelon- the perfect holiday breakfast.
Tim bet me 5 euro I couldn't eat a massive hunk of watermelon and I won! Lots of photos were taken of me with a face full of watermelon juice.. sure there must be a profile picture in there somewhere.
We popped to the supermarket in strange weather- super hot but with a light trickle of refreshing rain. We got paella ingredients after much searching; and other yummy treats including some nice truffley chocolatey things. Had to put the peas back as we were 20 cents over our 20 euro budget. A tad embarrassing having a Spanish woman try to explain this to us, me never having learnt Spanish in my life and Tim only having a little understanding of it.
We used up some of our cheeses and bread for lunch, Tim had a burger, he insists they were a good purchase, but I am dubious about the non-British beef... wasn't there some outcry about this in the 90s?!
Later we sunbathed outside the villa on sunloungers reading.
For dinner we had a home-cooked by Timmy, beautiful, very spicy paella... Tim was a bit heavy handed with the tabasco for his tastes, but I ate it all, yum yum. The paella contained clams, mussels, two types of prawns (shells on and off) and scallops, along with occasional very hot chillis. My dadda would be very jealous.
That evening we simply curled up in our Spanishy haven and watched a couple of rubbishy movies.
CINQO
This morning started out with teaching Tim to hand wash our clothes in the absence of a working washing machine. We just could not work out how to get the machine to work, so reverted to a bucket. This was followed by a yummy breakfast of chocolate croissants. We decided that today would be a beach day, so planned the day around this. We found that the area became a ghost town due to everything being shut on a Sunday- something we hadn't expected. This time it was an expensive taxi to Moraira... Emma Font is very helpful but this apparently comes at cost! Fare started at 5 euro before we got in the car.
The beach we went to today was Playa del Perto, a very narrow beach by the marina on the opposite end of the town than the one we went to earlier in the week. We both swam in the med! Finally- after days of saying we should. I then got creeped out by lil wiggly things and seaweed in the sea and had to get out. The rest of the time on the beach was spent sunbathing and reading.
We initially planned to walk back to the villa from the beach, but decided against this when we got lost. We instead walked back towards the town along the coast, gaining some great views of the Mediterranean, and the beautiful marina full of pretty boats. This walk took us through a nice little tropical garden thingy and to the town, where another market was going on by the fort thing and along the beach front, with donkey rides and owls and everything! Many of the stalls were the same old market tat, but there were more food based ones and lots of jewellery stalls too. We didn't buy anything but enjoyed looking.
We walked to the shadier side of the town and got a solitary scoop of Kinder Egg ice cream for 2 euros for us to share. By this time we were feeling very hot and sticky and sand-covered so we decided to head home. We got a taxi back to the pool and jumped straight in, it was blissful! We swam for ages feeling as if we were in heaven.
By now we were finally making progress on our tans... Timmy looking a little pink around the edges... 'should be cooked in about another two to three days'. For lunch I had a fried cheese sandwich and iced tea with ice and lemon, Tim had a bacon and burger burger.
Through spending a lot of time in the villa with the radio on, we have become accustomed to Heat FM- an English speaking Spanish local radio station playing a wonderful mix of 90s classics and today's chart music on a short loop.
We discovered that the tree outside in the garden is a carob tree- that stuff they make fake chocolate out of. We had previously wondered what on earth the shrivelled chili pod looking things on the ground were, sniffed one and decided it was disgusting. Shows our loyalty to chocolate really.
Later on we played scrabble al fresco, and made some lovely shrimp and mussel and tomato kebabs which we cooked on the BBQ.
I read a lot of my book, ate the kebabs, had a refreshing fruit salad and put the sequel of the terrible movie from the night before on the telly. My fruit consumption has been well above 5-a-day! Holidays and Mediterranean diets and lifestyle definitely agree with me.
SEIS
Today we went for a walk to the ceramic shop we had seen whilst in a taxi, along a road towards Moraira. It wasn't a difficult walk, just treacherous. Walking along the road with no path was, at times, scary but for Tim and I it was nothing as we had done this before, on another holiday. ON the roads.
We arrived at the shop, browsed for a while looking at all the pretty pottery. I wanted to get something to bring back for my parents as a souvenir, also I wanted to bring back some authentic spanishy things from my travels to start my collection of travel goods for my future house.
Tim found a gun.
I eventually settled on a pretty mug and bowl, and what we presume to be an olive plate thing, with little pots for the stones and sticks.
Tim bought the gun.
We wandered back along the road, stopping in Aldi which turned out to be wholey uninspiring, so we decided to go to the Mercado which had served us well so far. We purchased some avacados, seafood sauce in a bottle and some ice tea, as well as some chocolate plated doughnuts.
We got back to our lovely air conditioned villa, made up some avacados with prawns and sea food sauce (disgusting) and enjoyed our doughnuts.
We played scrabble in the naya, but by this point I was feeling a bit rough around the edges and far too hot so I obviously wasn't up to my full playing potential.... Tim won.
We went to the pool for some reading, Tim had a quick dip. Upon our arrival back at the villa we watched Notting Hill with a big bowl of melon, then ate our pizza that tasted of nothing, even after our additions, and had the rest of our doughnuts. Then we watched a bit of two episodes of Glee.
SIETE
Bolas con chocolate for breakfast again, with a fruit salad.
We decided to check out Rusty's, which is an English-run restaurant-come-bar place at the bottom of the hill, for lunch. We were met by a very unenthusiastic waiter man who just stood there while we fumbled asking for drinks. Eventually we were brought our food; fishcake and chips for me and steak and chips for Timmy. Food wasn't amazing but was quite cheap, especially since we didn't leave a tip due to the mediocrity of the whole experience.
From the restaurant, we went to the supermarket to buy some dinner, settling on salmon with roasted vegetables.
Later on I read my book in the naya for a while, being waited on with iced tea by my man- how lovely!
Watched Brokeback Mountain, Tim wasn't impressed. And we never did eat the salmon that evening.
More to come, hopefully with photos!
Now, I say spontaneous, but we'd been thinking about going for at least 6 months. We had bounced a million destination ideas around, before narrowing it down to the cheapest options. We both really wanted to go abroad rather than staying in the UK, and due to some other plans earlier in the year falling through, we had the option of staying at a family friend's villa in Pueblo Alcasar, near Moraira on the Costa Blanca, for £150 for 10 days. Perfect! When these dates were set in stone, we hastily booked our flights (£260 for both of us, return) for the end of August.
Now, what we hadn't realised was that the location of this villa was an hour's drive from Alicante airport. We had to really quickly research public transport to the area, and after discussion, the options were either:
- A £100 taxi ride
- A mixture of buses
-A TRAM/train ride with a taxi for the last few miles.
We settled on the last option, incorporating, as the research suggested, the 4 hour train journey into our sightseeing experience.
While in Spain, we noted down what we were up to with the intention of whacking it onto this blog here for future reference, and to give what advice we could to anyone who would consider going to this area of the world without a car. (In short, don't do it!)
So here is a day-by-day account of our holiday, for your enjoyment:
UNO
2am wake up call. Got to Stanstead at 4am (Thanks Tim's Dad!), check in and security all quite efficient and leisurely.
We boarded the plane at 6am, with a 2 ½ hour flight ahead of us, armed with choccies and free xenophobic newspapers. Landed 9.45 local time, somewhat informal customs process -one man standing at a door- but a swift airport exit. I deftly changed clothes as I was already sweltering in my jeans, and armed myself with the printed instructions on how to get to our final destination- our villa, La Golondrina.
Bus from airport, our first use of funny money! Which led to number one blunder- got off bus too early, as Tim heard the driver gave someone directions to the BUS station and thought it meant train..etc. Wandered around town until we plumped for a taxi to the TRAM station, which was lovely and modern and clean and not at all like the London Underground.
So began the longest leg of our trip! First, a tram from Alicante to Benidorm... 1 hour 10 mins. it was such a beautiful scenic route, we really didn't regret this choice of transport, and it only cost 5 euro each. We travelled THROUGH mountains and along the Miami-style beach fronts. Then we sat in Benidorm for half an hour, waiting for a transfer. The train from Benidorm only took us so far due to maintenance work – we alighted at Olla Altea, taking a bus to calp(e). Then back on the train from calp to teulada, where we wandered around stressfully, aimlessly looking for a taxi. Tim rang a taxi company, and spoke to a very essex bird, much to his relief!
We waited for our taxi, and then had a short ride to Pueblo Alcasar, which as it transpires is very very very hilly, as we discovered as we tried to find our villa suitcase in tow. We wondered around the un-signposted holiday-home-development, before finally finding the place. Never been so relieved in our lives! The air-con was on, it was BLISSFUL.
We immediately stripped off our clothing from our already lengthy day. After a brief recce, we found the pool, which was very deep by anyone's standards, nicely situated by a little cafe/restaurant. No less than 2 minutes in Tim was told off by the lifeguard for sitting on the fun little island thing in the centre of the pool, rendering said island redundant!
After the dip, we popped down the hill to the supermarket! I LOVE European supermarkets- full of funny yummy foods and non-EU-regulation (ironic) vegetables. We opted for a cheese and salad and crisps and suspect fish baguette dinner with the little cash we had on us at the time. At the checkout Tim was scolded by local number 2 for not wearing a shirt in the shop (we think!). Then it was back up the hill and time to munch our dinny dins, then we went straight to sleep when our heads hit our pillows at 7pm.
DOS
Thanks to the shutters on the villa, we awoke after 13 hour sleep, suitably refreshed. No sooner than I woke up I was surprised by a lovely ring set for the both of us as a 1 year anniversary gift from Tim.
After some puzzling, we decided we couldn't get the hot water to work in the ensuite shower so we crammed into the tiny main bathroom shower, before taking a short walk to the supermarket to get some provisions- BBQ food for later, some brunch, cheese, cereal and ring shaped bread.
Brunch was a lovely pain au chocolat esque thing, al fresco in the already toasty garden.
We went to the pool for a little swim; I laid and read my book while Tim did laps around the pool like an excited child.
After just a little bit of sunburn, we retired to the villa and failed to get the hang of this “siesta” malarkey. Nevertheless, we put in motion our idea of BBQ for lunch, after some faffing by my man we failed to light it, so we popped down to the supermarket again for charcoal, fuego gel and a big bottle of water.
Finally we had our BBQ for linner- some fish and cheese (what looked like cheese, grilled like cheese but tasted like a silage pit) kebabs, burgers for the boyfriend and some yummy trout, salad, crisps and some 'grilling cheese' which promptly melted through the BBQ grill, but was still yummy in bread after being deftly rescued.
After dinner entertainment was scaring a local gato with the hose as it prowled through the flowerbed. I then took Tim's scrabble virginity- he won by a good 30 points though...
We then went to the pool for some poolside reading, under one of those palm tree umbrella things for a while.
Tim finally figured out how to work the TV when we got back, albeit with about 5 different news channels and nothing else to watch!
TRES
Today was Friday, or Market Day in Moraira. This was our objective for today- marketing!
We awoke quite early today, and had “bollas con chocolit” for breakfast- Nesquick like cereal. We picked up some iced tea at the supermarket before ringing for a taxi, while waiting for the taxi we took a look at the strange Chinese-run shop- that sold EVERYTHING- in the small shopping complex at the bottom of the hill– so many cushions!
The taxi arrived- the same woman from day 1, who was extremely helpful and told us all about where to go in Moraira. We wombled round the market looking at all the fresh fruit and veg, pottery, jewellery and clothes, bags and churros along with all other usual market tat, fake rolexes and all. I had wanted to get some authentic Spanish blanket or something Spanishy to take home, but thought we'd settle for some nice fruit for the remainder of the holiday.
We explored Moraira which is a very small town with lots of restaurants, estate agents and a very pretty marina. We went to the beach for a short while, which was small but not too crowded at 11am, there was a little adjoining river with the biggest ducks I've ever seen. The beach has nice sand and the Med was nice and warm although Tim wasn't convinced about its warmth. We had a little paddle and a sit down then walked along the seafront to the marina where there is a fort type thing, vowing to return to the beach soon.
Next we set off in search of food, looking at all the menus outside restaurants and inadvertently taking a tour of the whole town- only about 4 streets in total- but plenty of choice , particularly on the seafront. Tim got very excited by places with pictures of the food! We eventually settled for a cheapish looking tapas restaurant and ordered fried battered squid and fish, patatas bravas and prawn cakes, as well as some toast with alioli- all were delicious. The squid were whole, and this proved quite the turn off for the boyfriend, owing to his mortal fear of “little wiggly things”. This left us more than full so decided against ice cream for pudding.
We wandered up to the market again to buy fruit – watermelon, peaches and nectarines- for dinner before catching a cab up to the villa again.
The weather was far cooler in the afternoon- looking a bit stormy, so we left out the pool trip this time.
Once again we Scrabbled... the score is looking slightly more favourable today with myself being a whole 5 points above Timmy-we're keeping a cumulative score.
Iced tea and pistachios were the next order of the day. At first Tim wasn't sure about the taste and smell of the room temperature bottle we purchased but chilled in a glass with ice and lemon seems to be more his thing, he even pronounced it 'refreshing'.
After this, we got a little bored so we popped to the pool for a dip. Dinner was a selection of fruits from the market, all fresh as you like and misshapen; a trait which only adds to their deliciousness. We then discovered a stash of (terrible taste) DVDs, and whacked on the Truman Show, while watching the rain in Spain falling not onnly on the plane, but all over the place.
QUATRO
Today , with the weather looking a little iffy, we opted to just relax by the pool at first, after a wonderfully refreshing (and surprisingly filling) breakfast of watermelon- the perfect holiday breakfast.
Tim bet me 5 euro I couldn't eat a massive hunk of watermelon and I won! Lots of photos were taken of me with a face full of watermelon juice.. sure there must be a profile picture in there somewhere.
We popped to the supermarket in strange weather- super hot but with a light trickle of refreshing rain. We got paella ingredients after much searching; and other yummy treats including some nice truffley chocolatey things. Had to put the peas back as we were 20 cents over our 20 euro budget. A tad embarrassing having a Spanish woman try to explain this to us, me never having learnt Spanish in my life and Tim only having a little understanding of it.
We used up some of our cheeses and bread for lunch, Tim had a burger, he insists they were a good purchase, but I am dubious about the non-British beef... wasn't there some outcry about this in the 90s?!
Later we sunbathed outside the villa on sunloungers reading.
For dinner we had a home-cooked by Timmy, beautiful, very spicy paella... Tim was a bit heavy handed with the tabasco for his tastes, but I ate it all, yum yum. The paella contained clams, mussels, two types of prawns (shells on and off) and scallops, along with occasional very hot chillis. My dadda would be very jealous.
That evening we simply curled up in our Spanishy haven and watched a couple of rubbishy movies.
CINQO
This morning started out with teaching Tim to hand wash our clothes in the absence of a working washing machine. We just could not work out how to get the machine to work, so reverted to a bucket. This was followed by a yummy breakfast of chocolate croissants. We decided that today would be a beach day, so planned the day around this. We found that the area became a ghost town due to everything being shut on a Sunday- something we hadn't expected. This time it was an expensive taxi to Moraira... Emma Font is very helpful but this apparently comes at cost! Fare started at 5 euro before we got in the car.
The beach we went to today was Playa del Perto, a very narrow beach by the marina on the opposite end of the town than the one we went to earlier in the week. We both swam in the med! Finally- after days of saying we should. I then got creeped out by lil wiggly things and seaweed in the sea and had to get out. The rest of the time on the beach was spent sunbathing and reading.
We initially planned to walk back to the villa from the beach, but decided against this when we got lost. We instead walked back towards the town along the coast, gaining some great views of the Mediterranean, and the beautiful marina full of pretty boats. This walk took us through a nice little tropical garden thingy and to the town, where another market was going on by the fort thing and along the beach front, with donkey rides and owls and everything! Many of the stalls were the same old market tat, but there were more food based ones and lots of jewellery stalls too. We didn't buy anything but enjoyed looking.
We walked to the shadier side of the town and got a solitary scoop of Kinder Egg ice cream for 2 euros for us to share. By this time we were feeling very hot and sticky and sand-covered so we decided to head home. We got a taxi back to the pool and jumped straight in, it was blissful! We swam for ages feeling as if we were in heaven.
By now we were finally making progress on our tans... Timmy looking a little pink around the edges... 'should be cooked in about another two to three days'. For lunch I had a fried cheese sandwich and iced tea with ice and lemon, Tim had a bacon and burger burger.
Through spending a lot of time in the villa with the radio on, we have become accustomed to Heat FM- an English speaking Spanish local radio station playing a wonderful mix of 90s classics and today's chart music on a short loop.
We discovered that the tree outside in the garden is a carob tree- that stuff they make fake chocolate out of. We had previously wondered what on earth the shrivelled chili pod looking things on the ground were, sniffed one and decided it was disgusting. Shows our loyalty to chocolate really.
Later on we played scrabble al fresco, and made some lovely shrimp and mussel and tomato kebabs which we cooked on the BBQ.
I read a lot of my book, ate the kebabs, had a refreshing fruit salad and put the sequel of the terrible movie from the night before on the telly. My fruit consumption has been well above 5-a-day! Holidays and Mediterranean diets and lifestyle definitely agree with me.
SEIS
Today we went for a walk to the ceramic shop we had seen whilst in a taxi, along a road towards Moraira. It wasn't a difficult walk, just treacherous. Walking along the road with no path was, at times, scary but for Tim and I it was nothing as we had done this before, on another holiday. ON the roads.
We arrived at the shop, browsed for a while looking at all the pretty pottery. I wanted to get something to bring back for my parents as a souvenir, also I wanted to bring back some authentic spanishy things from my travels to start my collection of travel goods for my future house.
Tim found a gun.
I eventually settled on a pretty mug and bowl, and what we presume to be an olive plate thing, with little pots for the stones and sticks.
Tim bought the gun.
We wandered back along the road, stopping in Aldi which turned out to be wholey uninspiring, so we decided to go to the Mercado which had served us well so far. We purchased some avacados, seafood sauce in a bottle and some ice tea, as well as some chocolate plated doughnuts.
We got back to our lovely air conditioned villa, made up some avacados with prawns and sea food sauce (disgusting) and enjoyed our doughnuts.
We played scrabble in the naya, but by this point I was feeling a bit rough around the edges and far too hot so I obviously wasn't up to my full playing potential.... Tim won.
We went to the pool for some reading, Tim had a quick dip. Upon our arrival back at the villa we watched Notting Hill with a big bowl of melon, then ate our pizza that tasted of nothing, even after our additions, and had the rest of our doughnuts. Then we watched a bit of two episodes of Glee.
SIETE
Bolas con chocolate for breakfast again, with a fruit salad.
We decided to check out Rusty's, which is an English-run restaurant-come-bar place at the bottom of the hill, for lunch. We were met by a very unenthusiastic waiter man who just stood there while we fumbled asking for drinks. Eventually we were brought our food; fishcake and chips for me and steak and chips for Timmy. Food wasn't amazing but was quite cheap, especially since we didn't leave a tip due to the mediocrity of the whole experience.
From the restaurant, we went to the supermarket to buy some dinner, settling on salmon with roasted vegetables.
Later on I read my book in the naya for a while, being waited on with iced tea by my man- how lovely!
Watched Brokeback Mountain, Tim wasn't impressed. And we never did eat the salmon that evening.
More to come, hopefully with photos!
Thursday 13 October 2011
And So I Forget
I truly believe my previous addictions to Facebook and the internet, as well as watching a tad too much TV, has contributed to my greatly reduced attention span.
In order to conquer this, I have been spending less time online on social networking sites, replacing this time with reading interesting articles; watching less pointless entertainment TV through watching more documentaries and through reading books in my spare time. So far I think it's working, as I have more time for conversation before my focus wonders elsewhere and I feel more focused in general.
I wonder if there are any academic studies on the subject.
In order to conquer this, I have been spending less time online on social networking sites, replacing this time with reading interesting articles; watching less pointless entertainment TV through watching more documentaries and through reading books in my spare time. So far I think it's working, as I have more time for conversation before my focus wonders elsewhere and I feel more focused in general.
I wonder if there are any academic studies on the subject.
Mind, Body and Soul
Yoga is my new thing.
The yoga society at the University is only £7 for a year's worth of classes, add to that a £17 yoga mat (in bright hot fuschia) and I have myself a super cheap new form of exercise, of which the benefits are myriad.
The instructor is a kind of ridiculously bendy, strict but funny woman who's class has kicked my bum from the first day. The morning after, I felt the aches and pains that signify my body working out in a way it hasn't in a (very long) while.
Yoga is known to have numerous benefits such as stress busting, relaxing, increasing physical flexibility and like a million other things.
Hopefully this will be something I stick with long term to get me some of these goodies!
Sunday 7 August 2011
And The Heavens Open
Little bit of a freak storm going on outside
Thunder, lightning and a LOT of rain!
For once though I don't mind
It feels like it's cleansing the Earth of all the stains and muck that people have stuck to its surface, leaving a nice fresh clean slate to start on tomorrow.
If only it were that simple!
Thunder, lightning and a LOT of rain!
For once though I don't mind
It feels like it's cleansing the Earth of all the stains and muck that people have stuck to its surface, leaving a nice fresh clean slate to start on tomorrow.
If only it were that simple!
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