What? Well, that’s how they said it where Jean and I recently spent a little more than a week. The translation in my native Southern English would be something like, “Hey! How y’all doing? Everything’s good here!” However you say it, everything was good…really good! We saw and strolled the beach, visited castles, rode a high-speed train and ended up in the capital city.
As I’m writing what you are now reading, I’m sipping coffee while I look out from a ninth-floor balcony of the Occidental Fuengirola high-rise hotel. Was it good coffee? No, it was instant, but who cares when you’re staring out over a beach and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea? I’ll have approximately 378 cups of good cappuccino before I leave this country, but for today, bad coffee is bueno.
Although I can’t actually see it, straight across the Mediterranean is Morocco. A few miles to my west, the Strait of Gibraltar connects the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and separates Europe from Africa. I’m in the Costa del Sol region of Southern Spain. They speak Southern here…southern Spanish.
A couple of white seagulls glide by me at eye level…high eye level. As I watched the birds, I caught a glimpse in the distance of what appeared to be a fortress on a hill. Spain’s flag flew above one of its towers. I learned it was Sohail Castle, a fortress first constructed by the Moors in the 10th century. It was overtaken by Catholic Monarchs in the 15th century. Eventually, it was decommissioned as a fortress. It now serves as a venue for social events and concerts.
Today, we begin a planned tour with a travel group of seasoned adults – also known as recycled teenagers. Our group is comprised of travelers from Alabama, as well as Michigan, Connecticut, West Virginia and two young ladies from Florida. We Alabamians flew over together on an all-night flight directly from Atlanta to Madrid, and then down to Malaga. That evening, we met with our tour guide and the other group members for introductions, instructions and tapas. We would have tapas many more time before we left, as well as fresh bread, bread and more bread. The bread is great by itself, but when you drag it through their amazing olive oil and balsamic vinegar…wow! We call that “sopping” in Alabama.
I knew some of the Alabamians, and I thought I recognized one of the Floridians. I do have relatives in Florida, but I didn’t think she was any of my kin. They were two young ladies; both much younger than the rest of our group. As it turned out, we had never met, but I had indeed seen one of them before. A regular routine at my house is to watch “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune.” Back in January, a young lady won the prize puzzle on “Wheel of Fortune.” Her trip was a Collette vacation to Spain. I remember thinking she could be part of our tour group, and sure enough, here she was. She and her traveling partner fit right in and kept right up with our more “seasoned” group. We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know both of them. We picked her brain about what it was like to be on the show, and getting to meet Ryan and Vanna. She was born in Peru and spent her childhood there, so she was quite helpful with our language barriers.
Since I had not actually slept since the night before last, I was ready to hit the hay before we hit the road the next day. Spain, look out, here we come!
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com.
