Jan. 19, Sat. An early wake up at 3:15 as Dani had to catch a cab to the airport for a 5:40 flight back through Paris, then Minni, to Grand Rapids. Getting back to napping after she left. This morning was cool, cloudy and rainy. The first “bad” weather so far. But it didn’t last long. We are moving again on Wed. morning so we started to do laundry. This didn’t go so well. We have done laundry here before so couldn’t figure out what was going wrong. After several attempts or trying to run different cycles and having the same thing happen in all of them, Bill got a hold of the landlord for his advice. Another try with no success. On to the internet. Gotta love that internet. Someone else had posted a similar problem and with using their advice, we got the problem solved five hours later. This may not seem like a big deal but there are not dryers here. You put your clothes on a rack and wait for them to dry. We had three loads to do and I am glad we didn’t wait until Mon. to start the process. Having not much drying going on overnight, I made a make shift dryer with a small heater and a privacy screen so speed things up a bit.
So, between the washing machine deal and all, we took a nice walk after dinner down to the beach. It was very quiet down there tonight. Kind of a nice change really.
Jan. 20, Sunday- our “normal routine”, went up to Bendalmedena for an English breakfast and did a little walking around before church. After church we hiked it back to the flat. About 2 1/2 hrs . You know the deal by now, stop and have a drink here and french fries and a drink there, along the way. Then it was time to eat something of substance, so we just happened to be near Posiden again. LOL Fresh hake tonight with no potatoes or peas. JUST FISH! Holy cow did they give us a huge slab.
fresh hake
Back to the flat to turn the laundry. HAHAHAHA. Still not dry yet. The super moon was AMAZING rising over the Mediterranian. As bright as it could possibly be. Very cool watching it progress. I am glad we got to see it.
check out the reflection on the ocean
Jan. 21. Monday- Sunrise on the pond:
clouds not mountains
Today was going to be our last morning walk on this section of the beach. Wed. morning we will be moving on down the line. We stopped in an ole Irish Pub named All the Blacks for a drink at noon .Sat a spell in the sun then moved on to another Irish joint for a double patty 1/2 burger to share. Pretty tasty.
Sunday’s sermon was about serving and the opportunities that come our way to serve. Bill and I had just had a conversation about how we miss serving others like we did in Panama. Well, wouldn’t you know that not more than 20 minutes later God gave us a small opportunity to serve. A lady in a wheel chair scooter was waiting outside a gated villa and was trying to call a taxi, but her cell phone wasn’t working properly. Bill handed her his phone and we waited to make sure she was able to make her call. When we left she tried to pay us! We just said blessings and peace. After walking a bit up the hill Bill asked if we shouldn’t have stayed with her until the taxi came. Guess we should have.
Jan. 22 Tues- Hearing about a fabulous street market that occurs on Sundays and Tues. SO, hopping the train we went up to Los Boliches to see what was what. Turns out that we had actually walked past the site a couple of times before but there wasn’t anything going on there on those days to know . Rows and rows of just about anything you can think of except tools. Hmmm….wonder why that is?
Jan 23 Wed. MOVING DAY THREE- Train to the bus. First bus trip. Bus was a first class touring coach. We made two stops along the way and the trip took an hour and a half along the ocean and through tunnels of mountains. How awesome to grab our first glimpse of the “ROCK”. Our new host, Michael, picked us up at the sea port station. A nice two story flat with the sleeping quarters and baths upstairs. After getting settled in we were off to check out the neighborhood and grab a few groceries. Had a drink and some tapas as well. This stay will be mostly bus riding to see the sights. Have to learn the routes. Now a word about our host. Michael is German, his female partner is Russian, his son born in England and they live in Spain. Wow what a mix.
no we didn’t eat them,,,yet 
yummy tapas
Jan. 24th Thurday- Time to see what this city has. Hiking to find the bus station and the post office. No big chore. Michael gave us great directions. It took about 25 minutes to find the bus station where we would be leaving from next week to our next destination. Also, from there to go to Gilbraltar. We found the main walking street and enjoyed a coffee and piece of “apple pie” on a cake crust with pecans on top. Not bad. Walking some more we stumbled upon a couple of churches. One was very small, only seating for about 40. But very cool. If you haven’t been able to tell by now, getting into churches and taking photos is “my thing” while traveling. I probably take more pics of that than anything else. We took some pics along the harbor then headed back to the flat for a sandwich and a rest. On our way a man was selling urchins, he let me try one. Not bad for uncooked eggs. Later we walked down the street to the marina, then up the hill for a little vino. Showers and rest up for Gilbraltar on Fri.
Alta Plaza 
church ceiling 
main market 
oh yes I DID 
Gilbraltar 
ships waiting their turn
Jan. 25th- Fri. Off to tackle the Rock. The Gilbraltar Rock that is. Having walked 20 minutes to the bus terminal we hopped a nice bus for the half hour ride to La Linea. That is the border town on one side of the airport. Gilbraltar is on the tother side. La Linea isn’t anything special. No nice restaurants along the water or fancy shops. That would be on the “other side”. To get to Gilbraltar you have to cross the airport runway. REALLY! They put the gates up after the planes go out and away you go. Bill took a picture of me “straddling” the line.
Our land lord had given us directions for a short cut up the rock so we sought that out. Heading in to the town square Casemark. Our directions from there were to seek out the statue with a rifle in his hands and turn left and head uphill. A narrow little stair case was there through a small opening., so up we headed. After a few turns and running into a dead end we asked an old gentleman for directions. We walked on until we didn’t know which way to turn, and asked for help again. This is where we ran into Graham from England. Former english navy he had landed there on duty. Was a Gilbratar policeman for years and is now retired. We talked and talked. I think he was needing that. We joked,etc. After 20 minutes he sent us on our way. It was a long steep walk for sure. Part way up there was an open air museum and some ruins.
Continuing on up from there we reached a spot where you had to decide if you were going to pay to go all the way to the top or not. NOT!!! Especially after the hike we already had to get to where we where. From here we could look over to the Moors Castle.
At this point we pass the old World War 2 tunnels. Not a must see for us, so more walking up hill.. We passed the lime kiln.
We decided to go just a little bit further to where we could see a look out. Good think we did as this is called the Middle Station and this is where the Monkeys hang out. While they are free range and are able to go anywhere they prefer to hang where the tourists stop for photo ops. Of course they do!
At this point all of the tour buses stop so everyone can see the monkeys. This is where we met Richard. He lives in Gilbraltar and knows the monkeys my name. Ruben the big male is 15 years old and the troop leader. There are roughly 300 monkeys that live on the rock, and the legend is Brittan will remain in rule there are long as the monkeys are there. We had a wonderful time hanging out. Ruben got a little amorous and mated with the female. Afterwards Ruben just laid there while the female picked off fleas. How typical. Bill had to wrangle me to get me moving down hill. I could have stayed up there all day. Below are pictures from the highest point that we made it to. In the distance we were able to see Africa!
Graham and told us about the place he thought had the best fish and chips and that is where we went. Roys English fish and chips. Oh My Goodness! So yummy and fresh. We definitely would recommend it. We even got to met Roy himself!
Now to walk our lunch off. Yes, this is the only way we aren’t getting fat down here. Walk, walk, walk. We found a couple of churchs to peek inside of.
on the floor 
IN the main square there was a glass blowing place with amazing items for sale. We also saw a huge casino ship. Man was that sucker huge! After a nice walk about we were ready to head back across the border and towards the bus station. We would still have a 25 minute walk back to the flat from the bus station on our end. We had a wonderful day and have crossed another item off the bucket list.
The Lauers Travel 