Life on Mars

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OOOooooooooook.

Spent the weekend in the province of Malaga, in a town called Torrox Costa. Tourist mania, but fun and a beautiful place. The majority of the first two days entailed numerous IKEA visits, and being the resident Swede, assembling all of the furniture for the apartment. The first trip made to IKEA was to purchase a couch and six dining room chairs, which clearly would not fit in the car with Ramon padre and myself. SO the most obvious thing to do was to rent a van, which Ramon would drive, and I would drive their standard shift car 45 minutes back to the apartment. AH! I was tweaking a little bit but pulled through divinely, if I may say so myself, and drove like a pro(bst) all the way home.

On Sunday I went to a neighbouring town called Nerja, even MORE tourist central, for my day off. It was really wonderful and I took a lot of pictures, did some shopping, and best of all - went to the beach!! Whilst on the beach I met a couple of guys who currently live in caves in Granada... so cool. They were super nice and very interesting to talk to. I was situated on the top of a boulder as I am not one who likes to be around people while I am tanning myself and had an old man in a turquoise speedo and a newspaper hat looking out for me. He was great. He picked up trash from the sea and applauded when I did the same. Insta friends. Anyway, he was very attentive when these two guys came up to chat and kept making eye contact to make sure all was well. It was. One of the guys was from Gambia and unfortunately (totally defying the promise I made to him) I forgot his name the instant he said it, however, his friends name is Peter and he is from Belgium. Gambia caveman was very nice and only really spoke French and Spanish so we tried to carry on a conversation like that for a while, but it was difficult so I went swimming and he read his Spanish-English book. When I came back we had a really nice time, he was still reading his book and I began reading Palm Sunday and now and again he would look up and ask me the translation of a word. Really nice. Anyway, before I left for more wandering, he asked for my e-mail address, so I guess I will be receiving an e-mail (he says in Spanish) in the near future. As he was leaving he leaned down and said, 'Bye baby' gave me a kiss on each cheek and was off. It was really nice. I love nice people. I saw him and Peter later on and was my typical awkward self. Woo.

When I went to meet the family later after the mass they attended, the kids came out of the church clinging to Nuria (mother) and looking frightened. When I asked them why they said that there had been a homeless man in the church who had been refused the Eucharist and started ranting and swearing in the church. They thought it was really frightening. I was really impressed later however, with Ramon (dad) when he very rationally explained the situation to them, imploring them not to judge this man who was clearly in need and to accept the fact that people have very different lives than them. He went more into detail than I feel like doing now, but it was really great, I was very impressed.

Anyway, other than that... things are calm. I am having serious problems uploading my photos, but I will try and try again until it works.

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