Sexi Christmas 2
Here I want to continue a bit of this-and-that about Almunecar while also showing some photos from the pre-Christmas days.
This is a photo of the old Arab watchtower I mentioned last time. It is on a hill near our house -- a good destination for a walk, with (not surprisingly) excellent views over the sea. Another remnant of this area's multicultural history: some of the road signs around Malaga are in Spanish and Arabic. I love this. Can you imagine the Fox News headlines if any road signs in the US were partly in Arabic?
I also wanted to add a photo of part of the old Roman aqueduct. My appreciation for Roman engineering has only increased seeing it all over Europe during our travels.
This last photo also shows an important common feature of our landscape: all around Almunecar up and down the coast for miles and miles, many hills are terraced for farming. My understanding is that this terracing started during the Arab times, and I can barely imagine the number of person-hours required to accomplish it all.
I also meant to add these other images of the mosaic beautification project mentioned before. The first is of a sculpture to honor Phoenician fisherman. Very Sexi. Not surprisingly, fishing was an important part of life here, but Sexi's rise was due largely to its fish curing operation.
This second image (below) is of one of the key landmarks in our part of town, which sits in the middle of a small traffic circle. It is affectionately called Señor Pulpo (Mr. Octopus).
I love him. I love him so much that I suggested our band (I have joined a band) name itself Señor Pulpo, but the rest of the band disagreed.
This is the band:
So whether or not I should care about their opinion is still up for grabs. ;)
That guy on the left is Joe, of course. The others are Carly, Maria, and Jim (nice fenders, Jim), three great people we are lucky to count as friends. (To Joe's credit, he suggested the name #pulpofiction, which I loved, but it also didn't win over the band.) Right now we are practicing a number of Irish tunes in hopes of playing a gig on St. Patrick's Day, but we have also worked up versions of Listen to the Music, Redemption Song, Ooh La La, Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Ain't No Sunshine, and a few other songs that I wouldn't be embarrassed to play out. We are, I can confidently say, the best band of our kind in Almunecar. Or at least in El Capricho, the hillside neighborhood where we practice, at the home of Jim and Maria. We try to practice every Wednesday and some Sundays, and the views over the town from their balcony are amazing.
These friends also invited us for Thanksgiving:
One of the great joys of living abroad is meeting fascinating people doing interesting things. And this group (which includes a couple others not in the band) fit that bill, but they are also just fun to be around.
Switching gears a bit, a popular path for people is along the paseo near the beach. We walk it regularly, sometimes to get to the other side of town. But sometimes just for fun. There is always something to see. One day I was walking with the kids to their swim class and we saw dolphins jumping the water. I believe it was the very next day, after the kids had roller bladed to the Velilla (the next beach over), that we saw para-gliders swoop down from overhead to land on the beach.
Also, the colors never get old. This was from the way out to Velilla.
And this was from the way back into the center of Almunecar.
I'll continue tomorrow -- with actual Christmas photos! But let me end with this... As I was looking through pictures for this post I came across one of Abby from Malaga Airport when we had just landed. Can't believe we're already over 6 months done!
I also wanted to add a photo of part of the old Roman aqueduct. My appreciation for Roman engineering has only increased seeing it all over Europe during our travels.
This last photo also shows an important common feature of our landscape: all around Almunecar up and down the coast for miles and miles, many hills are terraced for farming. My understanding is that this terracing started during the Arab times, and I can barely imagine the number of person-hours required to accomplish it all.
I also meant to add these other images of the mosaic beautification project mentioned before. The first is of a sculpture to honor Phoenician fisherman. Very Sexi. Not surprisingly, fishing was an important part of life here, but Sexi's rise was due largely to its fish curing operation.
This second image (below) is of one of the key landmarks in our part of town, which sits in the middle of a small traffic circle. It is affectionately called Señor Pulpo (Mr. Octopus).
I love him. I love him so much that I suggested our band (I have joined a band) name itself Señor Pulpo, but the rest of the band disagreed.
This is the band:
So whether or not I should care about their opinion is still up for grabs. ;)
That guy on the left is Joe, of course. The others are Carly, Maria, and Jim (nice fenders, Jim), three great people we are lucky to count as friends. (To Joe's credit, he suggested the name #pulpofiction, which I loved, but it also didn't win over the band.) Right now we are practicing a number of Irish tunes in hopes of playing a gig on St. Patrick's Day, but we have also worked up versions of Listen to the Music, Redemption Song, Ooh La La, Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Ain't No Sunshine, and a few other songs that I wouldn't be embarrassed to play out. We are, I can confidently say, the best band of our kind in Almunecar. Or at least in El Capricho, the hillside neighborhood where we practice, at the home of Jim and Maria. We try to practice every Wednesday and some Sundays, and the views over the town from their balcony are amazing.
These friends also invited us for Thanksgiving:
One of the great joys of living abroad is meeting fascinating people doing interesting things. And this group (which includes a couple others not in the band) fit that bill, but they are also just fun to be around.
Switching gears a bit, a popular path for people is along the paseo near the beach. We walk it regularly, sometimes to get to the other side of town. But sometimes just for fun. There is always something to see. One day I was walking with the kids to their swim class and we saw dolphins jumping the water. I believe it was the very next day, after the kids had roller bladed to the Velilla (the next beach over), that we saw para-gliders swoop down from overhead to land on the beach.
Also, the colors never get old. This was from the way out to Velilla.
And this was from the way back into the center of Almunecar.
I'll continue tomorrow -- with actual Christmas photos! But let me end with this... As I was looking through pictures for this post I came across one of Abby from Malaga Airport when we had just landed. Can't believe we're already over 6 months done!
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