KDs Adventures: We arrived

We have arrived in Spain, actually we've been here for a few days now. We are intentionally mixing seeing the sights with taking some time off. Unfortunately, we are a bit sad that we don't have anyone to visit while we are here. We definitely like the visiting and hanging out with friends when we travel and we were both a bit disappointed when we realized we would be missing that in Spain. Although, the weather is gorgeous and we are still enjoying ourselves.

We landed in Malaga after another uneventful flight. Picking up the car from the rental place was a bit of an adventure. I didn't download the itinerary before we left and so we ended up trying out each of the rental counters looking for our rental :-) ... Thankfully I did get the map on how to get to Nerja (the town we were booked to stay at for a week). We wanted to stop off to see if we could buy a sim card for our iPad (for maps) and to grab something to eat. There was a shopping mall right off the main freeway. Convenient eh? ... not so much. It was one of those I can see it but I can't get there challenges. After 45 min of driving around Malaga we finally managed to get there. Fortunately the man at the mobile phone store spoke perfect English and was able to help us out. It made all the driving worth it! Having the internet for maps as we drive is fantastic.

Driving in Spain is pretty straight forward. We got to Nerja without incident. It is a wonderful little town (thanks Peter for the suggestion). The guidebook says it has the perfect balance between tourists and locals - we didn't realize how true this was until we left and headed to Granada, but we will say it is definitely true. The place we are staying is interesting. The easiest way to explain it is as the Europe/Spain version of an "all inclusive". We (thankfully) didn't get the all inclusive package, but instead just got breakfast. Breakfast is nice enough, but the one (and ONLY) dinner we had here left quite a bit to be desired. The room is really big. It has a kitchenette and a lounge area separate from the bedroom so it has worked out really nice. And a balcony with a view of the ocean! The weather is beautiful, but it is INCREDIBLY windy. It is still warm so we don't mind too much, but it does prevent too many beach activities.

We spent the first day here relaxing and walking along the beach in the AM. We headed into town for lunch and had some delicious tapas at a wonderful little place. After a nice walk we headed home for a short rest before we headed back to town to watch England play Montenegro at a nice little pub. First half was good, second half was a bit of a snoozer and resulted in an England tie (Mark was not happy).

Some pics...