I arrived in Estapona at 9:45pm and my couchsurfing hosts Gina and Mario picked me up at the bus station.
In arranging my stay I had assumed that Mario was a boys name and had never paid attention if details otherwise had been mentioned so I was quite pleasantly surprised to find myself picked up by a very lovely lesbian couple. They were from Switzerland and Ireland I believe and very kind. We went back to their house, in a smaller town about 20 minutes outside of Estapona and enjoyed some wine and sweets before heading to bed.
In the morning Mario had left for work in Gibralter but Gina and I woke up late and enjoyed breakfast on the terrace. We went to the beach together and spent a very lazy day out on the sand soaking up the sun, reading and wading in the surf.
In the evening we went to the grocery store and I picked out the ingredients to make Indian curry from scratch. In my messages to Gina on Couch Surfing I had offered to make curry partially as a bribe in an effort to ensure I had a place to stay. It really only occurred to me when we arrived at the store that it had been over two months since the last time I made curry and I did not have Internet access to check recipes.
Arriving back at their place I completely faked my way through a curry and Mario arrived home just as I was finishing. She announced that it smelled fantastic. The food did live up to its scent and I can give all the credit to Anna and Evan for the fantastic culinary education I have received over the past two years.
After dinner we walked half an hour down the beach to a lovely little bar owned by a Spanish family to watch the World Cup game, Germany vs Spain. We sat at the back quietly, none of us spoke Spanish very well and the owners only spoke enough English to know we wanted beer. To arrive as three women with obvious norther European decent it was immediately assumed that our loyalty resided with the German team and our reception was... less than welcoming. However when Spain scored the goal our ecstatic cheering was met with grins and free beer and after that the whole bar relaxed and we all partied when Spain won the game.
In the evening we returned to the house and had a delicious dessert of Granada.
The next day I struck out on my own. I spent part of the day on the beach but also found a lovely little British pub where I ate lunch. As I sipped my coffee there two older men sat down at a table near mine with the cutest and most ill behaved puppy I have ever seen. I was caught sketching the puppy and they invited me over to talk.
They were both originally from England and had retired to the Spanish coast to enjoy the sunshine. The girlfriend of the man who owned the dog arrived soon after I sat down. We talked about Estapona and Spain and a little bit about technology and we engaged in a very nice conversation, for a while.
The gentleman with the dog and his girlfriend were very nice and his friend, though possessing of a terrible sense of humor was engaging with me and we seemed to be having a good time. As we went though the gentleman with the bad sense of humor became more and more aggravating. He kept redirecting the conversation towards himself. Though the rest of us were interested in talking about the dog he kept trying to talk more and more about himself, though everything he said was quite boring. The puppy was making an absolutely adorable nuisance of himself and was trying to go sniff the butt of a nearby dog. The woman asked, "why do dogs do that?"
Assuming that the question was no rhetorical I started to answer based on my reading. Bad Joke guy then turned to me and said, "you must be very boring at parties."
I said, "excuse me?"
He proceed to mock me. Joking about encyclopedias going to parties and then asking me other questions, the first two I started to answer honestly until I realized that his only goal was more mocking and then I just sneered at him and turned to conversation with the gentleman with the puppy.
It was of course at this time Bad Joke started hitting on me and asking if I had a boyfriend and if I considered myself "High Maintenance".
I think my answer was about as perfect as possible. Looking him straight in the eye I said, "Am I high maintenance? Mentally? Yes."
The woman laughed outright as Bad Joke stared at me blankly. I then smiled and excused myself. It was getting late and my host family was starting dinner.
Back at Mario and Gina's I was served a fantastic dinner of Vegetarian Plum dumplings that Gina made. They were fantastic and exotic and almost so sweet they could be a dessert.
We laughed and talked and then they told me the most amazing story about when they had been in South America they had actually been kidnapped and taken hostage while the thieves took everything they owned and how they were rescued by a police raid. What I found the most interesting about the story were the little details about the thieves. Mario said that they had been almost kind in some ways. Putting a jacked over Mario's shoulders when she started shivering. Making sure to give them back their passports, giving them the memory card from their camera so they wouldn't lose all the pictures, and telling them how they would leave them enough money for a bus ticket. It was interesting and very human. There was even a newspaper article about it that they showed me.
That night we went to bed somewhat early as we would all have to get up by 5:30 in the morning to leave for Gibralter as both Gina and Mario had work very early.
In arranging my stay I had assumed that Mario was a boys name and had never paid attention if details otherwise had been mentioned so I was quite pleasantly surprised to find myself picked up by a very lovely lesbian couple. They were from Switzerland and Ireland I believe and very kind. We went back to their house, in a smaller town about 20 minutes outside of Estapona and enjoyed some wine and sweets before heading to bed.
In the morning Mario had left for work in Gibralter but Gina and I woke up late and enjoyed breakfast on the terrace. We went to the beach together and spent a very lazy day out on the sand soaking up the sun, reading and wading in the surf.
In the evening we went to the grocery store and I picked out the ingredients to make Indian curry from scratch. In my messages to Gina on Couch Surfing I had offered to make curry partially as a bribe in an effort to ensure I had a place to stay. It really only occurred to me when we arrived at the store that it had been over two months since the last time I made curry and I did not have Internet access to check recipes.
Arriving back at their place I completely faked my way through a curry and Mario arrived home just as I was finishing. She announced that it smelled fantastic. The food did live up to its scent and I can give all the credit to Anna and Evan for the fantastic culinary education I have received over the past two years.
After dinner we walked half an hour down the beach to a lovely little bar owned by a Spanish family to watch the World Cup game, Germany vs Spain. We sat at the back quietly, none of us spoke Spanish very well and the owners only spoke enough English to know we wanted beer. To arrive as three women with obvious norther European decent it was immediately assumed that our loyalty resided with the German team and our reception was... less than welcoming. However when Spain scored the goal our ecstatic cheering was met with grins and free beer and after that the whole bar relaxed and we all partied when Spain won the game.
In the evening we returned to the house and had a delicious dessert of Granada.
The next day I struck out on my own. I spent part of the day on the beach but also found a lovely little British pub where I ate lunch. As I sipped my coffee there two older men sat down at a table near mine with the cutest and most ill behaved puppy I have ever seen. I was caught sketching the puppy and they invited me over to talk.
They were both originally from England and had retired to the Spanish coast to enjoy the sunshine. The girlfriend of the man who owned the dog arrived soon after I sat down. We talked about Estapona and Spain and a little bit about technology and we engaged in a very nice conversation, for a while.
The gentleman with the dog and his girlfriend were very nice and his friend, though possessing of a terrible sense of humor was engaging with me and we seemed to be having a good time. As we went though the gentleman with the bad sense of humor became more and more aggravating. He kept redirecting the conversation towards himself. Though the rest of us were interested in talking about the dog he kept trying to talk more and more about himself, though everything he said was quite boring. The puppy was making an absolutely adorable nuisance of himself and was trying to go sniff the butt of a nearby dog. The woman asked, "why do dogs do that?"
Assuming that the question was no rhetorical I started to answer based on my reading. Bad Joke guy then turned to me and said, "you must be very boring at parties."
I said, "excuse me?"
He proceed to mock me. Joking about encyclopedias going to parties and then asking me other questions, the first two I started to answer honestly until I realized that his only goal was more mocking and then I just sneered at him and turned to conversation with the gentleman with the puppy.
It was of course at this time Bad Joke started hitting on me and asking if I had a boyfriend and if I considered myself "High Maintenance".
I think my answer was about as perfect as possible. Looking him straight in the eye I said, "Am I high maintenance? Mentally? Yes."
The woman laughed outright as Bad Joke stared at me blankly. I then smiled and excused myself. It was getting late and my host family was starting dinner.
Back at Mario and Gina's I was served a fantastic dinner of Vegetarian Plum dumplings that Gina made. They were fantastic and exotic and almost so sweet they could be a dessert.
We laughed and talked and then they told me the most amazing story about when they had been in South America they had actually been kidnapped and taken hostage while the thieves took everything they owned and how they were rescued by a police raid. What I found the most interesting about the story were the little details about the thieves. Mario said that they had been almost kind in some ways. Putting a jacked over Mario's shoulders when she started shivering. Making sure to give them back their passports, giving them the memory card from their camera so they wouldn't lose all the pictures, and telling them how they would leave them enough money for a bus ticket. It was interesting and very human. There was even a newspaper article about it that they showed me.
That night we went to bed somewhat early as we would all have to get up by 5:30 in the morning to leave for Gibralter as both Gina and Mario had work very early.
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