Kate's Visit

I was very excited for Kate to arrive on Sunday and even though we went out on Saturday night til pretty late, I woke up at 830 on Sunday and couldn't get back to sleep. I was planning to leave to meet her at 1030, so I spent two hours trying to kill time and ended up leaving early. The last thing I wanted was to get held up somehow and have her come out of the terminal all alone and find no one there...

Well that is exactly what happened. That morning, I checked the British Airways website and it said her flight was arriving at Terminal 2. I was at Terminal 2 about 5 minutes before she was to land, so I'm thinking everything is alright... Turns out the terminal had been switched, and about 30 minutes later I'm getting nervous and wondering what is going on. I finally ask someone and sure enough, it had been switched, so I sprint to the other terminal, and there she is all alone, trying to call my Spanish number with her credit card. Smart girl. I felt so bad, but it only went uphill from there.

We spent a night in Malaga at this cool little hotel, then headed to my house here in Nueva Andalucia for a night. She got to experience what goes on here at the house, and we went to the bars where I usually go, and it was a lot of fun. The next day we checked in to our hotel on the beach in Torremolinos. It was a nice apartment with a tiny kitchen, but it was big enough for the two of us. She's pretty small. Jajaja (that's how to say 'hahaha' in Spanish - the J makes the H sound for those of you who skipped your foreign language classes in high school). So we went on all kinds of journeys into different towns and areas and had a few picnics. One day we took a chairlift up to the top of a mountain. It was really cool, because the view is amazing, I'll throw up some pictures of that. And we had a little picnic up there. I was eating an orange and threw the peels on the ground and some crazy Spanish lady told me that I was "RUINING THE PARADISE!" I tried to explain to her that it was an orange peel and that it would fertilize the soil and help more pretty flowers grow, but she wasn't having any of that. I got over that whole situation pretty quickly. We got to go to the beach and lay out by the pool in the sun one day. The weather stayed pretty good for us, but it wasn't terribly hot, so no swimming in the Mediterranean for us.

On Thursday we drove down to Tarifa and took a ferry to Tangier, Morocco, Africa. Place was pretty cool. While they were checking my passport, two guys had already started harassing Kate and telling her they'd bring us on a tour for 40 Euro and that we could "Rock the Casbah" if we went with them. We warded them off initially, but finally ended up paying a guy 20 to bring us on a walking tour of the city. In hindsight, it was a real good move, because he showed us some really cool areas that I never would have found on my own and we avoided being harassed by all the street vendors over there. It was a really cool place to see, but I'm in no hurry to go back.

That night, we drove to Cadiz, which is on the Atlantic Coast. There we met up with one of my teammates, Axe, and stayed with him and his girlfriend at her apartment. The next day we explored the city and then drove home the long way through Ronda. It was amazing - great views and scenery. The road went right through the mountains too, so it was fun driving the winding roads, knowing that a slip-up would send us over the edge of the cliff.

Unfortunately we didn't get to stop for too long in Ronda. Ronda is the town where bullfighting was actually created and is home to the original 18th century bullring. We drove around for a minute, but couldn't quite find it, and had to be on our way back to the hotel to get ready. We had plans to go to one of my teammates house for an authentic Spanish dinner and were already running a bit behind schedule.

Luckily for us, everyone in Spain is late, and being an hour tardy is like being 20 minutes early. My teammate, Oscar, is only 25, but is married and has spent some time in Jacksonville. He had another player over and a few other friends. He made paella, a popular Spanish rice dish with lots of seafood thrown in. We had gambas, carne secreto, jamon curado, y ensalata Ruso (shrimp, secret meat, cured ham, and Russian Salad). The shrimp are a little different than what you get back in the states, mainly because they're still in full shell, heads intact. Kate really enjoyed ripping their heads off and peeling them out of the shell. And the secret meat was delicious (I have learned the secret, but cannot divulge). We told Kate that it was rabbit after she had already enjoyed a few pieces, and she was not happy with me. A few years back I had tricked her into eating 'conejo' at a Spanish restaurant in Cambridge and I had promised that if I was going to give her rabbit again, I would tell her. Anyways, the meal was delicious and it was a lot of fun to hang out with everyone. It was a mix of Spanish and English conversations and a few things were lost in translation, but it was a great time.

Saturday we kind of just vegged out and enjoyed the sun. We ended up back in Puerto Banus, and hung out with a few guys on the team at a bar. We couldn't stay out too late because we had an early flight to London the next morning. We got to London Sunday evening and took the Tube (their metro or T) towards our hotel. We ended up going to the IMAX at Waterloo station and trying to get tickets for 'Alice in Wonderland' in 3D, but it was sold out until April, so we settled on an 'Avatar' in 3D at 11:30. With time to kill, we ended up finding the most amazing pizza place in the world. I had the Canberra "Fire & Stone’s tomato sauce, roast chicken breast, garlic & rosemary roast potatoes, mozzarella & marinated mushrooms topped with sour cream & sweet chilli sauce." and it was life-changing. We went to the movie after that, and it was very cool.

The next day we walked around London saw the Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace and some other sights, but were a little bummed all day knowing that we were separating. She went through security around 7, and I headed back to the city to kill some time before my bus left later that night.

I was headed to Paris, on an overnight bus. I showed up at the station about 10 minutes before the scheduled departure. I don't have a lot of experience on buses, and this would be perfectly fine for the ones I had taken in Spain. It wasn't until I showed up that I realized my computer print-out said to arrive no later than 1 hour before departure. I laughed it off, that is until I see the bus pulling away and after chasing it down, the driver refused to let me onboard. Back inside at the counter, I was lucky enough to get a spot on the next bus, an hour later. Haha, real smooth.

It was a crummy ride, but I made it into Paris around 7am. I had a train leaving at 11pm, so I bought a map and a little guidebook and ventured around the city. It was really cool. I walked some 8 miles I later figured out, but it was fun to see all of the cool buildings and layout of the city. It really is like nothing I had ever seen before. I'm going to have to get down to DC this summer, because I'm sure that will be interesting as well. Of course when I get to the Louvre, I find out that it's closed on Tuesdays, perfect, and then to top it off, some jerk tries to hustle me on the way out. He tells me that he's just starting his caricature business and wants to use me as a model to draw. I tell him I'm all set, recognizing the scam, but he promises I won't have to buy it, just 5 minutes to help him out. I'm alone, just hanging and it's a beautiful day outside, so why not do him a favor? After 5 minutes, he shows me this crummy picture of a guy that's supposed to look like me and I said "Nice, you can hang it to show people." This upset him quite a bit and urged that I give him "A reasonable amount of money, what you feel it's worth." and showed me that he usually charges 25 Euro for drawings. I told him I had nothing and would give him nothing, to which he responded by cursing out all Americans for being cheap assholes. I laughed and walked on.

After that little fiasco, I climbed up the Arc de Triomphe and that was cool because it's basically in the middle of a rotary of 12 intersecting streets, including the Champs de Elysee. All of I could think of was that song "Champs de Elysee" that we listened to a hundred times in Spanish class senior year. It was pretty funny. From there I headed to the Eiffel Tower. You've got another thing coming if you think I'm going to Paris and not going to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

However, upon arrival, I found a line longer than most Six Flags roller coaster lines to get to the top. A few minutes later, I noticed that you could also take the stairs up for half the price and there was no line! A free workout and I didn't have to wait? I started yelling to all the people in line that they were lazy idiots and proceeded to run up the stairs as fast as I could. About halfway I stopped, exhausted and out of breath, and walked for a little bit. Apparently the stairs only go to the second level, and then you have to take the elevator from there. So I got in line, I mean, I had made it this far, and eventually rode the elevator to the top. The view was incredible. I could see where I had arrived on the bus, and then all the places that I had walked to, and then to the train station that I would need to go to later on. It was awesome.

After that, I went to the Statue of Liberty; yes, there is a second one, National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets was not completely full of it. I ended up in the college area where I found some cheap food and beer before I had to get to the station. It was Tuesday night at 11pm and I didn't arrive to the Marbella bus station until 11:45pm Wednesday night. I did have a few connections, including 3 hours in Madrid to hang out, but it was a long day.

AJ actually met me at the bus station in a cab, and we headed to an Irish bar, to celebrate St. Patty's day the right way. It had been a long trip, and it was finally over, and it was time to start getting ready for the game against Granada on Saturday.