Fun, food and football

Trip Start Jun 22, 2012

Trip End Jul 07, 2012

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Where I stayed

Melia Costa del Sol Torremolinos

Flag of Spain Torremolinos, Andalusia, Spain
Friday, June 22, 2012

This morning was a bit hectic and by the time we boarded the plane, around noon, I was already feeling a bit tired. It didn't help that I had been up since 4am. I couldn't sleep because my mind was so busy with nervous excitement, thinking about all the things I had forgotten to pack and work emails I still had to send. So I got out of bed and tried to write it all down, then finally went back to sleep for another hour before my alarm went off.

I managed to cross everything off my list and pack everything I wanted to before Wolfi and I headed for the airport. The line up for our easyjet flight was surprisingly civilized and we even took off close to our scheduled departure. We arrived in Malaga 2.5 hours later, only 5 minutes late. I had arranged a shuttle beforehand through our hotel, and we quickly found our friendly driver. He asked us, in his beautiful broken English, to wait just outside because there were two more passengers in our shuttle

Hotel view

. An hour later I went back inside to see what was going on. He said they were on a different flight and it could be another 20 minutes. I went back to report to Wolfi and we contemplated sitting and having a beer. By this time we had already had a Magnum ice cream but the beer advertisement at the cerveceria across from us was becoming very distracting. However, only a few minutes later our driver came out with his two other passengers.

We talked as we walked to our shuttle, which turned out to be a Mercedes sedan. I looked at the two friendly strangers and their very large suitcases, remembering our one large and one small suitcases, and wondered how the driver would fit us all in. The driver made a gallant effort but kept mumbling and shaking his head as he knocked on their hard cases. Finally, he threw up his hands and declared "it's impossible!". He called over his friend who took the four of us to his Peugeot hatchback.

The luggage got in without a problem and I took the middle back seat, snuggled between Wolfi and the lady from South Hampton. The driver was incredibly entertaining despite the fact that he only knew a handful of English words. Luckily a lot of Spanish words have the same Latin base as in English. He passionately explained how Mercedes were mucho money but useless

Overlooking the pool

. His cheap little Peugeot could fit any number of suitcases and passengers, no problemo. He dropped us off at our hotel with a single proclamation of "Good holiday!" and drove off. I am already loving the locals.

Our hotel is pretty awesome. From our balcony we, and everyone else, have a fantastic view over the hotel pool and the beach beyond.

We spent the afternoon walking along the beach-side promenade. We stopped for a snack and a beach bar where we enjoyed capirinhas and a ham sandwich and a lovely view. Then we looked for a place to watch football and ended up eating dinner at a nice English-run restaurant. We came back to the hotel to change into our Germany jersey then went down to the hotel bar to drink cocktails and watch the first half of the game. For the second half, we crossed the street to the beach side and found a bar with a large TV screen and a free table right beside it. We ordered a large beer. Large turned out to be an understatement. We celebrated the German win with our neighbouring table before calling it a night.

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