Continued Sunny Skies

This Sunday in Spain dawned clear and cool and I drove Johannes up to the cave art exhibit at 9:00 and then returned home for a shower, an hour and a half of work, and some little maintenance jobs pertaining to the house and my person. Then I headed over to the Sunday morning outdoor market close to our house. One of the wonderful features about this and most outdoor markets here in Spain is the offering of rotisserie-grilled chickens. They give a captivating aroma to the market grounds throughout the morning, and people line up to purchase one or two before leaving the market. I think that most people in Spain must have grilled chicken for Sunday dinner--you can even buy thin French fried potatoes to go with the chicken.

View from the Rojales Cave

I stocked up on raisins and almonds for our breakfast cereal, and tomatoes and bananas for our lunchtime salads, and then on my way out I bought one of those chickens. I had previously packed some cherry tomatoes, sliced carrots, and cucumbers into a cooler, and I drove straight to the caves for a little picnic. It was a peaceful fall morning. Four Norwegians were looking at paintings as I arrived, and two Spaniards arrived before the Norwegians left, and we had interesting conversations with both groups. So it was after 2:00 before we were able to enjoy our little repast, and we sat in peaceful solitude broken only by the strains of Chopin from the CD player and cock-a-doodle-do from a neighboring rooster. Later we packed up and made our way down through Benihofar--and the Wheel of Tapas was still going on, so we stopped at an English bar and had a tapa of Spanish tortilla (my favorite) and a tidbit of serrano ham and tomato.  This particular bar was in a part of the village which we had not explored before, and right down the strip from Route 66, allegedly an American restaurant. Unfortunately they were not open until later, so we will have to return some time in the future to see whether there really is an American connection there.

We wanted to make a reservation for dinner later on in the week at a restaurant in town, and when we stopped  we were greeted by an English friend who had brought a Spanish lady friend out to see "how the English live." For those of us who have been married to the same person for eons, it is amusing and inspiring to see others of our age (or almost) who have never been married but who have not given up trying to meet someone, and particularly when they are living in a foreign country. We had a lively two-language conversation with this chap and his new compañera and hope to see her again. She spoke good English, but I was able to communicate with her mostly in Spanish, and that is gratifying indeed.