Before leaving Alicante, we decided to go for a road trip down south to see a bit more of Spain. With the the car packed, the tunes pumping and the sun shining, we headed for Albuñuelas, just outside Granada. After a pretty uneventful journey, we found ourselves in the coolest little Spanish village. It was just like we’d imagined Spain to be, white-washed buildings nestled up the side of a valley, with steep and narrow cobbled roads heading off every which way. The surrounding slopes were covered with olives, almonds and oranges and the view down the valley was fantastic.
We had no worries filling our days with activities while down there. Went for an 18km trek in the hills surrounding our village. Spent a day out at Almuñécar, on the coast, enjoying the sun and taking in the sights. Then from the warmth of the coast, to the snow of Sierra Nevada, where falling of sleds and snow fights were the order of the day. Also had a day wandering around Granada, which is a really nice old city and not just because you get free tapas with your drinks!
The most well known highlight of the trip was Alhambra, the famous palace in Granada. Ancient and impressive, it easily filled in our activity for that day. The grounds contain several fascinating buildings and the surrounding gardens make for a great place to stroll through afterwards...
And Fran also managed to hand squeeze eight litres of orange juice! It also cost us nothing, since we just nicked a few bagfuls of oranges from the masses of trees around the place...
Christmas / Navidad
We spent a good part of December with at least four or more people in the Alicante appartment, which was good times, unfortuately though it emptied out a bit towards the end until somehow it was back to just the two of us. While we're fairly used to each others company by now, Christmas just isnt a two player game, so we packed in Alicante and headed up to Barcelona to hang with Fran, Elen and a nice young Australian guy who turned up somewhere along the way... For an Xmas away from home we did pretty well, we all managed to buy presents, make Xmas crackers and as we had hired an appartment with an oven, Marcus proceded to whip up an amazing Christmas dinner! We even made it down to Church in the morning, but couldnt quite follow what was going on, something about this guy called "Hey Zeus"??? Then we went to the zoo on Boxing Day.
New Years / Años Nueva
We were contemplating staying in Barcalona for New Years, but had the offer to go up to Pamplona to meet some dutch friends. So we did. Pamplona is famous for the running-of-the-bulls, but outside of that there isnt much to see as a tourist. It was a nice city however, lots of "old world charm" as they like to say, and the people there were noticably much more polite than other Spaniards we've met. We spent New Years in a small village nearby called Tafalla with only 11,000 people, staying now with friends of friends who made us feel very welcome.
Now the drill for New Years Eve for the last few years in NZ has consisted of champagne for breakfast, eating and drinking for a good part of the day/night, making it to midnight then partying on for a few more hours. It's a bit different in Spain however. Nothing much happened unitl around 9pm when we sat down for an awesome dinner of Spainsh meats followed by Stam-pot (basically pimped out mashed potatoes) made by the dutch contingent. The Spainsh family we were with also put some wine on the table that was older than I was! The tradition in Spain is to eat 12 grapes with the 12 chimes of the clock at midnight - this brings you good luck for the next year, and having completed this I feel confident that absolutely nothing can possibly go wrong for me in 2008. Nothing.
We rolled down to the bars at 1am, which were pretty quiet... beacause we were early! By 1:30am the place was packed and going off. For a tiny town we managed to crawl through six or so bars (and there were plenty we missed), all packed to the gills with young people. Madness. For those of you from NZ reading this, imagine trying to do that in a town the size of Oamaru, I just cant see it happening. Im not sure what time we got home, but we got out of bed mid-afternoon so...
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