Good Times In Spain

We spent a great week with Kris and her dad Randy having brekkies together, climbing during the day and in the evening drinking beer and listening to Randy take the piss out of our accents and vice versa.  Randy is top bloke, and gave us hours of entertainment.  He is now an honorable member of "Team America" which comprises Kris and Phil (Mullet Haircut de Espania Boy from Spain Part One trip), Ed and Deb and now Randy.

Last Sunday to celebrate Ed's birthday, the four of us went to see a Flamenco Dancing and Dinner Show.  We had stumbled across the venue by accident on our last trip and saw the tale end of the show, and decided that we would definitely book in this time.  We expected it to be maybe 15 mins or so of dancing, but it turned out to be over an hour long.  It was absolutely fantastic to watch.  The dance troupe changed costumes for every dance, and showed a huge variety of Spanish Ballet, tapdancing and traditional flamenco.  We have uploaded some video clips and lots of photos on this blog for you to see.  Dinner was very good as well, considering we normally have pasta or spuds every night, it was quite the extravagance to eat out for once.  We stuffed ourselves having starters, mains, desserts and several large glasses of beer. Deb and Kris fluttered their eyelashes at the bar tenders and managed to score a few free shots of schnapps as well.   

We did an airport run to drop off Kris's dad, Randy to the airport on Tuesday.  After saying our goodbyes, we headed to the monster sport store called Decathlon to check out the climbing gear.  As it was Ed's birthday, he scored a new climbing pack, several cubes of chalk and a couple of pairs of socks.  He also got a great Northface shirt with camouflage print on it (which is Ed's new signature look) as well as a massive block of chocolate from Tania and Nick which he loved and shared very little of. 

Last night we decided to go out for dinner again because Ed had a craving for pizza.  We went to a place that Kris knew of up on the waterfront.  It was just a pizzeria but had great views and was very nice to eat out and not cook.  We were very impressed with ourselves as we were able to understand at least 90% of the menu items which were all written in Spanish.  We have picked up quite alot of Spanish words now and don't realise until times like this.

We have climbed quite a few days in a row now, mainly as Randy was only here for a week we wanted to cram it in for him.  After a few days of rest, Ed decided to find something hard for him to climb.  We went to a place called Bellus ("Bayus") and found him a limestone wall with very spaced pockets on it.  He threw himself at it for two days and eventually today, he climbed his first Grade 7C+ (Grade 28 Australian) which is his new personal best.  He has been trying to tick this grade for about 2-3 years now.  He always knew it would be possible providing he did two things, quit work and climb full time! 

We are all buggared now, so we are taking the next few days off to do abit of sightseeing as our bodies are starting to feel tired.  Not sure where or what we will see yet, we may end up just chilling out on the Mediteranean beaches since we haven't done that yet and the weather is good enough to do it.  Deb might even go for a swim if the water isn't too cold...Shock Horror!

As mentioned we have put another lot of photos up, they are in the Spain Part 2 folder.  There are also some videos for you (one especially for Uncle Big Mac!).