Sidecar

Hi Everyone,
Well it's been so long since my last post that I wanted to put something up. I have to admit I'm cheating though. My friend Helen came to visit me for England and she wrote such a nice, informative review that I asked her if I could use it. Although I haven't been posting much, I promise I've got something huge in the works, a bit of a "reflective summary" of my time here I guess you could call it. In the mean time please enjoy Helen's account of our trip:
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> My friend from Olympia Lauril has been over in Spain for about 7 months now. She is there to work as an English assistant in a Spanish school, and is living in a town called Garrucha which is located in the south east of Spain on the coast of the Mediterranean. It is in the autonomous community of Andalusia, in the Province of Almeria. So last Thursday I headed off to Spain to visit her.
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> I left Manchester at around 8 in the morning although my flight was delayed so ended up getting into Spain an hour later than I was scheduled. Once I arrived we headed into the town of Almeria. It was quite warm as soon as I got off the plane. And even though Lauril swore it wasn't that hot, compared to what I had just come from in Manchester it was roasting. The province Almeria is the only desert in Europe with average year round temperatures of 19 degrees Celsius. It was probably around 25 to 30 degrees Celsius the whole time that I was there. We walked along the shore and then headed up into the town to go to the castle which is called the Alcazaba. It is a Moorish castle built in the 10th century. It is up on a hill in the centre of the city. In such a dry region it was surprising to see the amount of flowers and plants that were located in the Alcazaba. There were the ruins of a well that had been used to get the water up to the castle. It was pumped using a donkey walking round in circles and then the water was kept in a holding fountain and used in the gardens and in the house in the castle. The water features were pretty stunning, all the paths had channels of water running down the middle of them, and there were pools and fountains up in what had been the living area of the castle. It said that it was very important that there be water because of the Muslim faith of the castle builders. there were also some cats that were wondering around the castle, they were quite cute, although scared of humans. The middle part of the castle was where everyone would have lived. There was a grand open palace type place that now has the gift store in. This would have been where the king lived when he visited the city. Then all around this area were the ruins of the house of the inhabitants of the castle. There was a reconstructed house in where all the ruins were. It had 4 rooms around a central courtyard, but really the courtyard was also a room. It would have been covered with a sun shade made of fabric, and was the main living area of the house. The houses even on the hot day were quite a pleasant temperature. The top part of the castle was had been added on when the Christians conquered Almeria in the 16th century. There was a distinct change in how the castle was constructed, and looked a little more like other castle I have been to. It had a large open courtyard with a tower in the middle and guard towers built into the walls. After exploring the Alcazaba we went back into the town to get lunch. We wondered around the streets trying to find a certain restaurant that Lauril had been to before. She called up one of the teachers that she works with, who is from Almeria, he gave us some directions but we still weren't able to find it. We ended up at a little street bar and had drinks and tapas, before Lauril friend showed up and showed us around Almeria a little. We then had some really amazing ice ream, and headed back to the car. Garrucha is about a 45 minute drive from Almeria and is on the east coast of Spain whereas Almeria is on the south coast. She lives in an apartment just outside the centre of Garrucha, it is about 500 feet from the Mediterranean, and basically there is just a road and the rest of the apartment complex between her apartment and the sea. That evening we walked into Garrucha and had some Tapas, and walked along the beach.
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> Friday is market day in Garrucha, so we got up and headed to the market which is huge. There was one street that was cloths, shoes, jewelery, and other non food items. It probably went on for about 5 or 6 blocks, and then on the street below was the food market. With all the fresh produce form the region. It was a really good market, and fun to walk through and hear all the people trying to sell things. We headed back to Lauril's for lunch and then in the afternoon we headed a bit north to just out side the town of Cuevas de Almanzora. Here we went to and archaeological site called Fuente Alamo. It dates from the Bronze Age and is from the Argaric culture. The site was build into the side of a hill. It would have had a small community of house that were terraced into the side of the hill and at the top was where the higher class people lived and the fortifications were. It was quite a trek up to the top of the hill, but worth it for the views at the top. It was so silent and peaceful. You could see for miles, and it was understandable why the location was picked. There would have been running water there (although now there was just a dry stream bed) and you could see for miles from the top of the hill. Some of the walls had been partially reconstructed and so you could see what the layout would have been. As well as the walls of the buildings there were sandstone graves where remains would have been places, there were all collected in one area just outside where the building were. What was also really neat about this location was the amount of marble that was just lying around on the ground. It seemed to be some of the main building martial for this area of Spain, with marble sidewalks in Garrucha. We headed back to Garrucha and then went out for the evening to Mojcar. Mojcar is the next town south along the coast from Garrucha and the old town is built onto a hill over looking the water. It actually reminded me a lot of the pictures that you see of the Greek islands, with the white houses perched onto the hillside. We had a wonderful dinner there in a restaurant that had an amazing view over the valley floor to the other towns, and then explored the town a little.
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> Saturday we met up with a few of Lauril's friends. There were 3 girls from the US who are over in Spain on the same program as Lauril is, as well a Spanish guy who lived in the same town as 2 of the girls. He drove one of the cars while we went in Lauril's. We headed off to Cabo de Gata, which is a national nature reserve. We went to the lighthouse first which is located at the farthest southeast point in Spain. The lighthouse is on a rocky headland at the point. We had our lunch just off to the side of the lighthouse although almost got blown away it was so windy. We then navigated an extremely narrow road on the side of a cliff, to go and see some Flamingos. The Flamingos were located in salt marshes. These had been created to extract salt from the Mediterranean. The flamingos were quite far away but my camera managed to get some pretty good pictures of them. You just have to know what you are looking at. We then headed off towards another small village within the nature reserve to go to the beach. The beach is called Playa Monsul. It was a pretty big beach, and there were a ton of people there enjoying the nice weather. I went swimming at this beach, and really enjoyed it. We then took the coast road back to Garrucha, where we went out for drinks and dinner, where I tried the local delicacy of deep fried squid. I didn't really like it but I can say I tried it.
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> Sunday we headed up into the mountains but first we went to another beach where we had a picnic lunch. The beach was also quite full and unlike the one that we had been to on Saturday there were a lot less waves, as it was in a protected cove. It was also full of people, enjoying the nice weather and the beach. We then headed towards Velez Blanco where there was a castle to see. The drive was very pretty as we drove over the hills and through some orange and olive groves. We didn't end up getting to the castle in time to see the inside as it closed at 2 and we didn't get there until nearly 4, but it was a nice castle to look at from eh outside, and then we went into the town to look around. The town was perched onto the side of a hill with the castle at the top with the village below. It was a really beautiful town, with quite a lot of greenery because there were natural springs in the hillside. There were 3 4 fountains that we visited where the water came straight out the hillside. We had a nice ice cream in a restaurant where one of the fountains was and then headed back to Garrucha. We had an early night as I my flight was at 12 the next day but Lauril couldn't get me to the airport because she and to work, I had to take the bus to Almeria. It was a 2 hour bus ride along really winding roads all the Almeria and then I took the taxi to the airport. I got back into Manchester to be greeted by although not hot weather, muggy weather. We are still having nice weather at the moment, and it isn't that great to be stuck in an office.
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> If you want to see pictures from this trip they are on my flicker page in the album named Spain.
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> http://www.flickr.com/photos/didotwite2001/

I've been meaning to write all about my marvelous week that followed Semana Santa but I've been consumed with job hunting for next year, tutoring, filing taxes and enjoying the sun. In short it was fabulous! Of course the best part was seeing my friends from the U.S. I met up with Robin and Erin in Madrid and although we were there for less than 24 hours we managed to stay in a fun hostel, go to Reina Sofia the big art museum with all the Picasso paintings, and pay too much for bad pasta.
We then road tripped down south to a town where another American friend lives and witnessed the tail end of the Semana Santa processions. As good holy week participants we even went to mass on Easter Sunday.It was really interesting,especially seeing the babies being baptized, but I don't think I'm ready to convert yet. After Huercal Overa we finally came home to Garrucha. Tuesday, my birthday, was wonderful! I took Robin and Erin to school to meet the kids who were surprisingly well behaved, then we went to the (real) Italian pizza place for lunch. After filling up we went cave exploring! The caves are covered in Gypsum and make for a neat trek. At one point we turned off our head lamps and everyone sang happy birthday, that was a first! Later we topped the evening off with tapas! I was completely overwhelmed by the birthday wishes and gifts I got from everyone both at home and here; for one day I really did feel extraordinarily special!!
Unfortunately, my friends were only about 9 days so we raced to Granada so they could see all its splendor. We stayed at another great hostel, ate more tapas, went to the Arab tea houses, and wondered around the city. I was so suprised at how fast the time went by and before I knew it I was seeing them off at the bus station. The ride home was lonley and I realized just how much I miss everyone!!!