After seventeen and a half hours in transit we finally arrived at our destination! We weren't entirely sure we'd even make it to the condo last night after discovering there was a taxi strike in Malaga, the capital city of Spain (bet you didn't know that!!). We assumed the situation might be the same in Marbella. Fortunately, the taxis were stacked outside the bus station entrance just waiting to switch their signs to 'occupied'.
The driver had no idea how to get us to our condo and after a few wrong turns within the giant complex that is the Royal Aloha Vacation Club, we located the security guard, got the keys, and were pointed in the general direction of our room.
Four turns of the key opened the front gate. Two and half more turns got us into the suite. It was freezing inside! No central heating combined with the 8 degrees Celsius temperature outside could have made for a chilly evening. Fortunately we were provided with a small room heater that we set to high before heading out to find food at 9:30 pm.
Down the street is a small Italian restaurant (which there seem to be a lot of here) so we went inside and ordered a pizza and a marsala pasta dish. It was surprisingly delicious, and if it weren't for the loud-mouthed, insulting, rotund Brit at the table beside us we might have actually enjoyed the meal even more. He gave us all kinds of travel advice and proclaimed that a young couple with such obvious deep pockets will have a great time. It must have been Jim's 5 o'clock shadow and my I've-been-traveling-for-twenty-hours-straight body odor that made us appear so blessed with mounds of money.
We paid the 33-Euro bill ($50), returned to our now room-temperature suite and crawled into the small double-bed to pass out.
At ten o'clock this morning we were awoken by a ringing telephone. John and Fatima, our hosts, wanted to give us our orientation to the club. John was very friendly and while we couldn't quite get passed his perfectly coiffed and, quite frankly creepy goatee, we smiled politely and listened to what he had to say. Aside from the usual information about restaurants, banks, bus stations and the like, he was most excited to show us where we could find the private outdoor pool - available for our pleasure. If the sun ever comes out, maybe we'll take a peek.
We also learned that there is no Wifi in our building so we'll need to head down to the Italian restaurant, or McDonald's, to use internet. As such, I may not be able to write in the blog daily, as I had hoped to do...at least while we're in Marbella.
After taking a stroll around the neighborhood and finding a (not 'the') grocery store, we returned home to make the worst pot of coffee we've ever had. Jim picked out a good one! I guess that's what you get when you can't read the language and you're too cheap to pay more than $5 for a bag of coffee. Jim drank most of the pot and said it did what he had hoped it would do...whatever that means :).
View from our balcony.
It's blustery here today, raining on and off, and we're ready to head to the beach!
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