The minute I ported on in Tarifa, Spain I felt my checking account starting to drain.  I get weak in the knees for all things European…particularly the shopping, food and wine….and now I am here for an entire month! Dios Mio!!  Any budget I tried to assemble prior to this trip might as well be shredded right now….I know myself well enough to anticipate a few major purchases in the next few weeks.  Problem is that my financial situation is much different these days :(….I guess we will see how that changes my shopping habits…just another challenge on this 2 month adventure :).

This morning in Chaouen I stopped by the school to say good-bye to Taher.  He pointed out to me the friendship trees that we planted in the school’s courtyard 2 1/2 years ago when I chaperoned a group of 16 girl students from Issaquah on a friendship exchange to Chefchaouen.  All three olive trees planted were thriving!!!  They were just twigs when we planted them!  This is Taher and I next to one. If you wish to know what are planting zones for specific trees, you can check it out from here!

After the photo, Taher took me to the bus station and got me on my 10:45am bus to Tangier.

Plaza Alta in Algeciras, Spain.

I am soooooo happy to be in Spain…I decided to spend the night in Algeciras because a bus to Sevilla would have got me in at midnight.  Instead of more travel time, I spent the evening walking the streets of this pretty port town.  Oh, the shops had me drooling….shoes, leather purses, jewelry, fall collections all so beautifully displayed in the store windows.

You may be able to see the little boy with the stick (broom) in the picture…he and his friend were trying with all their might to get their soccer ball out of the tree limbs.  Apparently one of them did an out of bounds kick prior to my arrival in the plaza :)…the man walking towards him in the picture was finally able to help the boys dislodge the ball.  When it fell from the tree, the boys were SO excited.  They took their ball and started running yelling, “GOOOOOLLLLLL”.  It was quite funny and cute.

Plaza Alta was decorated with all this beautiful hand painted tile.

My mission on my walk was to find a supermercado to buy dinner.  I wanted cheese, serrano ham, fruit and a bottle of wine. This mercado, Super Sol, made that dream come true. Interesting difference in buying fruit in Spain is that you have to weigh it and price it out before check-out!  I learned this when I went to go pay for all the items and the cashier sent me back to weigh and get the price of my apple, orange and pear.  Definitely makes the cashier’s life easier…but I am not sure it is the best customer experience :).

More of my night walk in Plaza Alta.

I have only passed through this town in previous travels so it was nice to spend an evening walking its cobblestone streets. Isn’t that little frog spitting water so cute!

The spoils of my shopping trip :)! 

The wine I bought cost 1 Euro…seriously!  It was pretty good too. The most expensive thing I bought was the serrano ham at 2.5 Euro.  It is good to eat pork again :).

I ate dinner while watching a horrible Spanish game show….the objective was to win money by truthfully answering incriminating questions about your behaviors or thoughts in front of family, spouses and friends. For example, Angel, a gay man from Madrid, had to answer a question in front of his partner asking if he has ever had sex with another man while on the phone with his partner of 4 years.  He answered, “Si”…which was “verdad” per the lie dectector.  So although he damages his relationship with Nacho (his partner), it somehow is okay because he won 5000 Euro.  Incredibly Nacho was still smiling at the end of it all…Angel’s mom was another story.

I am finishing this post in the morning now before I take my bus to Sevilla.  It is 8:09am and still dark outside…I keep checking the clock to make sure I haven’t gotten up at 4am accidentally :)…but it is indeed 8am. Crazy!  Okay, I need to concentrate on peeling my orange and egg…it is a light breakfast this morning.  I have to save room for tapas in Sevilla :).

Buenas Dias!