Spanish For Starters

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Song playing here or in my head: The Sugarbabes Album, you can blame easyinternetcafe.com in London for that.

Wow, my first real entry on Travelblog, now the fun begins!

As mentioned in my first blog, I started off in Spain, in the coastal resort of Mojacar Playa. In the Almeria region of southern Spain.

Getting to Stanstead was by far the hardest part. Not being a car owner any more forced me to use the Great British transport system. First thing to do was get a Taxi from home to the coach station. I had the quietest, most non talkative driver ever. A first for a British Taxi driver. The Milton Keynes Coachway is not the most glamorous way to arrive in my home town. Good job I was leaving then. The National Express took me to the Airport via everywhere in the Home Counties. At £13.85, you can't really complain. Well you can, but complaining is not done in Britain.

As airports go, Stanstead is poor. A mess of shops, cafes and overpriced "pubs". I had 2 hours to kill, so I read the paper and lost myself with my ipod for a while. Almeria airport was better, cleaner and much smaller. Collected my hire car (a Nissan Micra, yay) and off to Mojacar, it only took a hour until I was drinking with my parents, and checking out the apartment. Very big and air con throughout, this helped for the first few nights.

Mojacar Playa is basically a part of England transplanted on the edge of Spain, there are a few of these scattered down the Mediterranean coast but I didn't think this place was going to be like it too. There were more British cars on the road than Spanish. That’s because every middle aged couple wants to live on the costas, I can't blame them, good weather, healthy lifestyles and away from the kids.

The sea was not as tranquil as you would normally expect the Mediterranean to be in July. As I found out on my first attempt to go in. As soon as I got in I got attacked by a wave that would have made the Beach Boys write a song about it. and ended up with a graze down the side of my face after scraping it on the sea bed. You can see the video here at: http://www.aquafaceplant.ou.ch/salty.mpg.

After some sunbathing and good food for a few days I needed some me time. So I hopped into my hire car and drove to Granada. To check out the Alhambra Palace and actually visit Spain whilst I am there.

I arrived nice and early and got in before most of the western world attempted to. It was superb, a bit like the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul and Kew gardens rolled into one. Once I explored the whole place, which takes a good 3 hours, even for someone who rushes around like me. I walked back to my car. Becoming very annoyed by a French (maybe?) kid talking very loudly and cutting me up whilst walking along, I decided to take my own action and give the little git a kick in the ankle. He yelped and looked at his brother for help, but didn't get it. He probably had been dying to do that all day!!

That's all for now, my next entry will be from the capital city of the world. London, for the first test of the ashes. See you then!

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Photos

In The Deep End
The apartment swimming pool had seen better days.

Come On You Gunners!!
The Arsenal back four line up for another offside trap. Expect a lot of photos of cannons from now on.

Alone
No annoying tourists were in the way of this shot.

Not Alone
Plenty of annoying tourists were in the way of this shot.