Sleep for Steve; she was no so good. It’s like there was caffeine in our vegan carrot cake or something. Plus the bed has one of those mattresses that registers every tiny move your partner makes at about 4.2 on the Richter. But Tarifa has no patience for the underslept and we have a bus to catch. Our room has an espresso maker… named Maria! Get it? Is this blog on? Seriously, though, we slam some espresso and split. The walk to the bus station is about twenty-minutes past parts of the city we haven’t seen yet, which is great. We pass a little park that features a fair with rides. We consider taking our baggage on the Ferris wheel since they seem to enjoy carousels so much, but… the bus. At the station we grab ... read more

For the second time this trip, which means the second time in probably years, we wake up after 12:00. No hangover! But we will be needing coffee and all the other things the rest of the city stopped needing hours ago. We douse our bodies and shave our tongues and filter into the throbbing midday streets. Breakfast today suffers from our lack of Español because we think the waiter is bringing as a familiar ovo-vegan-friendly potato and egg thing but what we get is a mash of egg and various humiliations of pork. Since we expect meat will be a dietary necessity in Morocco, we decide to dip our carne-stuffed feet into fleshy food waters. We don’t find ourselves enjoying it and our stomachs double take up at us instantly to see what demon has hijacked ... read more

We wake up in Granada. Today we have our appointment to visit the Alhambra, which is this big Moorish must-see-in-Southern-Spain deal. It’s the structure behind us in yesterday’s selfie. Our hotel feeds us a meager repast… in the present… to hold us for the future. Then we ready-up and head out. The walk up to the Alhambra is truly lovely. Once we clear the gate at the top of the narrow Euro-lane, we are surrounded by beautiful trees wearing fall colors and probably a little confusion, given it’s winter. The walls of the fortress/palace/gardens rise beside us. We emerge at the visiting site, it’s theme park time. It’s not overwhelmingly crowded, but (and we expect to hit this little observation a few more times), the Spanish are really shitty pedestrians! They just don’t tune in to ... read more

WT-fuckity-F?! CLOSE TO TWELVE HOURS OF SLEEP?! Whoa! So, it looks like jetlag got the last laugh after all. Nicely played, jetlag, if that is your real name. We awaken, stretch like kewpie dolls and peel our battered and fried bones off the floor level not-quite-a-Temperpedic-actually-better-then-a-Temperpedic mattress and celebrate the half-a-day. Coffee percolates in a Spanish percolator and we tame the ambitiously hot shower. Today there will be lunch and culture, hopefully not on the same plate. Venturing out, we see to it we are properly bundled. The temps are crispy, but our walking distances are ideal; we will be getting warm just in time to need to. Since it’s already 2-ish (two demerits for anyone whose mind quipped, “Funny, you don’t look 2:ish”), we will breakfast/lunch before we hit our first museum. A little about ... read more