Benidorm. A beach side village with towers competing for views of the sea. Old people wandering in wheelchairs and motorized seats along the beach. Whale basking by a pool that sits literally yards from the ocean. What am I missing? Why would you subject yourself voluntarily to this? It’s beyond me. But it seems to be big business! Might need to figure out how to capitalize on it. (best seen full size)

I promised myself after restarting this site, that I would post daily. Turns out trips have a funny way of making this hard to do. Also the fact that I didn’t plan ahead. Lesson learned. 

First time to London, to actually see something, and turns out we saw a lot. At one point we took a 5 mile hike across a big part of it. Felt good, though I sit here now having returned with a scrambled head. I liked London…a lot. More than I expected. Living here in Spain and it’s monoculture of foods, and at times wines, London was a small large wake up call to something I knew about myself, but seem to have forgot, I like variety. London is pluralistic, in food, people, wines, beers, though maybe not weather.

During our all too brief visit we ate sushi, steak pies, fish and chips, some of the best steaks I’ve ever had, and a few real breakfasts, full of grease! I drank beers that had complex flavors, came in a pint glass and did not need to be chilled to death to mask their rancidness. I drank wines from Italy, Austra, Australia, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Madeira, England, Germany, Alsace, and more. I meant new people, many new friends. Had conversations that I’m still trying to figure out in my head, and stayed with a good friend, whose family makes a nice substitute when ours are so far away. 

This picture I’m going to title, “Dali and Big Ben meet under a Street Light”. It sums up the trip for me, I think.  I’m still trying to figure out what happened in London. It might be that I just miss the ability to communicate flawlessly in my native tongue. Though I think it was something much deeper. I’ll be trying to figure out here and over at Catavino, stay tuned.

I really liked London. I need to digest it a bit, then I might start to make sense. But first some beer and a dram of scotch…till soon r.