The Snow in Spain,

We collected my step-son at madrid airport when he came over for the christmas holidays, it was monday 1 day later than scheduled as they has changed the time of tyhe flight on sunday and he missed the flight, they were a useless airline, pissing everyone off and they have since gone bankrupt, pissing me off as I now have to find a replacement flight and recover the money hopefully from VISA, anyway, travelling back home on Monday 1 day late and it had been a cold cold night so I did see a little bit of snow around but it had all melted by the time we left the hotel the next morning. But as we travelled along the highway back to Malaga the snow got deeper and deeper and I was seeing snow ploughs and the signposts said put on your snow chains, which i would think are not even available in shops here as this country is a desert. So i was a little worried, the traffic got slower and slower and it eventually stopped, after 30 minuted i decided to pull off and find a hotel for the night, after lunch, we pulled over and got into a service stations with a cafe and the snow was about 12 inches deep, the kids were playing solidly for an hour in it until they were soaking wet, they had to change when they got into the car, we ate at the cafe and maybe 2 hours later all the trucks suddenly left so I realised the roads had just cleared, we set off and arrived 5 hours later, total time was 9 hours 4 hours longer than normal.

Showing the snow and stopped traffic

Zac's Visit Part 2

The most important part of Zac's visit was our trip to the Alhambra. This place is high on world heritage sites as it is the finest example of arab palaces to survive, I am not quite sure why it survived in spain as this country is full of falling down ruins but probably due to the quality of the building work, it is quite exquisite as it was abandoned for hundreds of years. The site is enormous as it contained an entire town, including mosque which is now a church, all converted when the arabs left. Even my last lawyer in Costa Rica was named Matamoros, literally killer of moors(the arabs from north africa who inhabited spain). So we entered into the walled palace area near the mosque and some buildings that had been converted into hotels, The King Carlos who was the ruling monarch attempted to build a palace that was the equal of the Arab palace but he ran out of money as he was running amok in Europe defending the Catholic cause, it was a roofless ruin until the EU provided regional development money to pay for it to be converted into a museum, it does have spectacular walls

The Mosque and hotel area




The Carlos V palace that was a roofless ruin




The circular courtyard, huge and impressive




The Theme for the palace was these guys knew how to build a palace that had running water all year round in this semi desert country. Every state room courtyard had a pool or fountain or pond with fountain, just everywhere there was water, it is just so impressive, almost awesome, but as you all know this word is saved for Alien Invasions only.

One of the long pools with fountains in the courtyard




Another courtyard with a fountain, no electric either




The poolside for sunbathing must have been fantastic




The gardens must have been impressive to support so many courtiers and guards, the area that I thought was the Hareem is also full of water features and gardens

Hareem water features




View from Hareem




Wonderful architecture and Views




We ate some fantastic food afterwards and took a slow drive home, it is only 80 Km away from my house, what a fantatic day and I dropped Zac off at the airport the next day, I was sad that he left early but glad he could get a flight home to see his ill mum.

The Return of Internet, Zac's Visit part 1

I now have my internet returned to me, just in time for my return to work.

I have a huge amount to Blog, I have had a visit of my erstwhile work and blogging Colleague, Zac(Slyght), unfortunately his trip was cut short by his mothers heart attack but fortunately she is making a recovery. I have been supervising the third floor building work and I have travelled to Madrid and got stuck in the snow storm that swept across the country. We have been to the Alhambra, the greatest surviving ancient arab Palace in the world, quite spectacular.

To start off with Zac he arrived at Malaga airport on time and he looked no different to the last time I saw him in Turkmenistan 6 years previously.




He was staying in my bed while Jenny and Me slept in the bunks meant for kids, the weather was still pretty good and i had a few things for him to see and visit, first was the local 8 sided square in the local town of Archidona, it is unique in spain so i believe.

It was undergoing some restoration, paid for my the EU regional development funding




we then went to the Picasso Musuem in Malaga, the musuem is built in an old lords townhouse, really fantastic but the art of Picasso is just a joke, the best modern era con job with modern art.

Some Modern Art in Malaga near the port




The local Cathedral




We all joked at how awful and meaningless it all was. Zac was given a tasting of tyhe local Tapas, the small snacks that you get with the beer in the local bar/cafes, this food is quite typical in spain and as far as my experience not found anywhere else, some is fantastic and some is different. The next trip we did was to Ronda, a famous ancient fortress town that has the most amazing bridge,




The bridge leads you into a really nicely kept town, it seems it was pretty run down up to the entry into the EU but they then go billions of regional development money as they were poor cousins of Europe, so now everywhere is tarted up and looking really nice, apart from the millions of ugly apartments they built over the last 30 years also.

Lost my Internet, I am feeling like a Castaway

My internet provider has gone away and i am stuck without anything, borrowing a few minutes at my neighbours, I have been around with an old buddy from the USA, we went to Ronda and The Alhambra and some other mountains and local towns, we ate interesting stuff and drank some beer, unfortunately his mother became unwell and he had to fly home early, I hope she gets better soon,

The weather has turned cooler and the roof terrace is coming along and I am being offered jobs in Qatar, we will see how it all comes along,

I hope the internet comes back soon, I am like a dog with his bone stolen

later Folks