(Many of these photos were taken by Robin)
Me at the British Museum:
Robin at a yarn store in London:
A nightly ritual in Nerja: Robin eats ice cream at the Balcon:
Moon over Nerja:
The legend, Ayo:
Celebrating Robin's birthday month:
Nighttime in Nerja:
Lovebirds:
Must be time for a final post from Spain, although we don't leave here until Saturday. But there's a pre-written, post-dated Music Friday tomorrow, and we'll be travelling on the weekend, so I likely won't have a chance to write again until we get home.
I re-read past travel blog posts, which reminded me that we always do the same thing, and thus there's not much new I can say. I seem to watch a TV show or two on these trips, most famously when we watched the Sopranos finale on "borrowed" wi-fi and thought the wi-fi had gone out at the end (of course, most of the world had similarly panicked thoughts about the cable going out or whatever). This is the trip where I watched Squid Game, partly because Netflix is the only streamer I can access properly from here. (I've only seen six episodes as I type this, with Ep. 6 being the best, partly because of the setup of the first five episodes.)
I've taken a few pictures, and my wife has taken a few more, but I'm writing this on my Kindle and the photos are on other devices, so maybe I'll post a couple next week.
The main thing I've noticed on this trip is my attempts to speak Spanish, although looking back on those older travel posts, I see I always think about this at some point. I feel more comfortable than ever, although even there, I have written on previous trips about my improvements. I guess the main thing now is that comfort level ... I hardly ever think about it, I just talk. A couple of instances suffice as explanation. Last week, the door bell rang, which was odd, so I answered the door and a man I didn't know was standing there. He said the name of someone ... it wasn't Steven or Robin ... and then, puzzled, asked if I was Spanish. I answered that I was American but that I spoke Spanish. Turned out he had the wrong apartment, but the thing that stuck with me afterwards was the way I said I spoke Spanish as if I actually did speak it. Then last night at dinner, we did what we often do, with my wife ordering from the English-language part of the menu and me ordering from the Spanish part (she got Iberian pork, I got solomillo de ternera con pimienta verde). The waiters here are all at least bilingual, since it's a tourist town with lots of Brits, and they assumed after Robin ordered that I was going to also order in English. When I asked for the solomillo, the server said, "Oh, you speak Spanish!", and I answered "yes". Again, it was the casual way my answer came out, as if it is perfectly natural at this point that speak Spanish. (I should note that my grammar still sucks, and I often struggle to come up with a particular word, but mostly I've got flow.)
Tonight, our landlords are taking us to dinner, and tomorrow is open, although I imagine we'll spend time packing. Still, I might milk one more post before we leave. Until then, ta luego.
On Sunday, we went to dinner with a friend my wife had made in a Nerja group on Facebook. It was a nice evening with an energetic companion. We spoke mostly in English, but it was interesting that occasionally she and I would lapse into Spanish, or perhaps more accurately, Andalusian (I'll get to that in a bit).
I was fascinated by her perspective, as a native not only of Andalusia but of Nerja itself ... she was born here in 1975. As we ate ice cream on the Balcon de Europa, as we have done so many times over the last 20+ years, she offered her memories of being on the Balcon when she was a kid. It reminded me of when we once visited Stonehenge with friends who had grown up nearby ... to them, it was mostly just a place to play on as a kid (which apparently you could do back in the day). Our new friend loved Nerja, and in some ways her Nerja was an even more romantic place than for us tourists.
Throughout the evening, she related to the town differently, obviously. Walking past one restaurant, she said she waited tables there for her first job ... it had a different name, then. I asked her if she watched Verano Azul when she was young, and she replied yes as if the answer was obvious. Verano Azul was a Spanish television series, a teen drama shot in Nerja and shown in 1981-2.
She also reflected on the impact of Franco on Spain. One thing I hadn't thought of specifically is that, as she remembered it, Franco hated Andalusia and its people. He had tried to force the country into a unified Spain, forcing Castilian Spanish to be the only accepted legal language, and fighting against the regional cultures that lent diversity to the country. Andalusia was the hardest-hit area during Franco's reign of terror. Our friend said Andalusians felt separated from the country, which thought of them as gypsies at best, a culture that didn't even speak "proper" Castilian Spanish.
All of this added the local perspective to the tourist's view we have experienced in our seven visits to Nerja. It was not just a fun evening, but an instructive one.
This year, we are staying at one of the apartments run by Frans and Nuttee, who we first met when we stayed at their Casa Charlotte some years back. It's hard to imagine better hosts. Frans is Belgian, Nuttee is Thai, and they are lovebirds (they call each other "My Darling"). Nuttee came by today so we could finally pay her ... one example of their hospitality is that we rented the place months ago, and have been here more than a week, now, but we didn't have to pay in advance ("we'll get to it"). She had scheduled a cleaning crew to come today, but someone's kid was sick, so Nuttee decided since she was already coming to get the rent, she'd do the cleaning herself (we're low maintenence and all that was really needed was fresh sheets, although she "Hoovered" the floors anyway). We were running some laundry, and left for a quick stop at the grocery store ... when we returned, she was still there, hanging our clothes on the line.
Part of going on holiday is "getting away from it all", and when you go halfway around the world, you certainly don't expect to see anyone you know. This made it all the more charming when we were having dinner (and sitting outside as we usually do if the restaurant has tables on the street) and Frans and Nuttee walked by. OK, Nerja is a small town, but it was still happily unexpected.
Here is a brief video of our apartment:
Garbage:
We've been here for about a week, and our garbage is filling a lot of bags. But I'm not sure what to do with them. So we asked our host/landlord, and she said to just dump the bags in one of the many public bins you find on almost every street. When in Nerja, do as the locals do.
Baseball:
Well, the Giants lost. I woke up during the first inning, listened on the MLB app. Didn't go back to sleep ... made it to the 9th inning. Then, the Lord had mercy (if I believed in the Lord): I fell asleep for about five minutes during the bottom of the 9th, and so was spared the awful conclusion. I awoke to Jon Miller saying the season was over.
Porn:
Our apartment comes with satellite TV. Not much to watch, but sometimes you just feel like checking it out. I turn it on and start channel surfing, pausing for a soccer match or the BBC news. There is a channel that pops up ... no adults-only warnings or anything ... it's pure porn. Hardcore, not the kind of softcore porn you get if you pay extra money in hotels, but actual porn. I've noticed a couple of things. One, it's hard to say from 30 seconds here or there ... small sample size and all ... but it seems like every video features enormous cocks entering female assholes. Also, there doesn't seem to be any plot, not even of the Pizza Delivery Guy genre. It's possible a narrative is there but I'm missing it because I don't watch long enough to see if a plot is involved. But this isn't Behind the Green Door. The titles are like Ass Attack Vol. 14, and that's what you get. At least once, I'd like to see a pizza guy as I surf past the channel.
Books:
I load my Kindle with lots of books when I travel. One year I remember reading a biography of Lyndon Johnson, and there are always plenty of Philip K. Dick books when I get in the mood. This time, I'm reading Stevie Van Zandt's memoirs, Unrequited Infatuations. He's done a lot of stuff, and he (and/or his editor) makes most of it interesting, not just the expected Bruce and Sopranos material. Not sure what I'll read once I finish. I've got Barney Hoskyns' God Is In the Radio, Richard Neer's FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio, and my friend Charlie Bertsch's new book, Listening for the Future: Popular Music for Europe, which would be next on my list except the Kindle formatting is a disaster so I'll wait until I get home and can fix it. One thing is clear: for whatever reason, I have music books on my mind.
Last night, we ate at a Chinese restaurant. The food was quite delicious. Authentic? What does that mean, anyway? The woman in charge looked Chinese, as did the man we decided was her husband. But she spoke Spanish like a native. (At one point, she complimented me on my own Spanish, saying I didn't have an accent, which I thought was odd since I do have an Andalusian accent. But after I overheard an English customer say "Gracias" with, well, an English accent, I decided she meant I spoke like a native. Which I do, if the native has terrible grammar.)
It was fascinating hearing her speak Spanish. She had the like-a-native accent, but the tone of her voice was, for lack of a better term, "Chinese". If you didn't know Spanish or Chinese, you would assume she was speaking Chinese, because that's what it sounded like. But the accent was Spanish, as were her words.
Meanwhile, the Feria is over. What goes up must come down:
The Feria is still very loud. We can take it ... we're veterans, albeit old ones. Nothing can stop us from going out to eat.
These posts will get very repetitious, if they aren't already.
Robin went to a yarn store on our last day in London. Then it was finally off to Nerja.
Our apartment is lovely. There is a feria in Nerja the next four days, so it is very loud outside. A ferris wheel goes around just outside our balcony. We don't care, we're in Nerja!
Did a quick shop once we arrived:
Wednesday evening we had dinner with friends, which was nice. Today we went to the British Museum, where we saw the Rosetta Stone:
For context, here is Sly's sister Rose Stone of the Family Stone:
