Busy Weekend with Amber, Kate, and Daniel

Here is a story from Amber, Kate, and Daniel. There is also an online album of their photos from the weekend.

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This past weekend we decided to take a complicated trip involving a total of six buses and one train ride to two small towns in Spain. Our first destination was Nerja, a small town with one of the best climates in Spain and all of Europe.

Nerja was definitely one of the most beautiful places we have seen yet with its white washed buildings perched precariously on the mountains that jutted straight out into the ocean. We visited the “Balcony of Europe”, swam in the Mediterranean, toured some caves, visited an endangered species of burrows, and ate the best paella ever. Paella is a typical dish of Spain that consists of rice with vegetables and pretty much whatever else is available. Ours was a wonderful mix of fresh shrimp, clams, mussels, squid, steak and chicken along with some sweet peppers, peas, tomatoes and who knows what else. We would all go back to Nerja just for the paella and the view of the ocean from our restaurant that was built underneath the balcony of Europe and had a panoramic view of the ocean and surrounding mountains.

On Sunday we made our way to Ronda by taking a bus through the mountains. It was definitely a good thing we had Dramamine or else there would have been some sick Americans on that bus with all of the winding and climbing on the extremely skinny and slightly terrifying roads. In Ronda we visited the oldest bull fighting ring in Spain (Plaza de toros de Ronda), the Puente Nuevo bridge, along with some exploring and hiking. Ronda was very picturesque and beautiful especially with the mountains in the background. We saw a Spanish version of Elvis Presley who was really into walking around with his 1990’s style boom box and taking up a pose to mimic Elvis’s leg twitching dance.