Travelgal on the move

So many places, so little time: isn’t that always the case? Travelling to me covers many facets of movement: aeroplanes, ships, books, movies, conversation an exotic meal, searching through brochures or postcards . . . it’s mostly to change the reality of the moment. I can travel back through time (my time), I can travel forward in time but it all starts with a few seeds being sown.

I want to share my thoughts, travels, experiences, opinions, ideas and maybe even a few crackpot theories about travel with you. So, please come along for the ride . . .join me on the journey  . . . let’s go places together.

My latest travel crush is Spain. I visited last year – didn’t cover the entire country but I discovered an amazing region called ‘Extremadura’ which translates to hard and strong.

More about that visit later.

But – my first visit to Spain was in 1983. I had no idea about the country and went there on a whim after suffering through a freezing London winter. Two Kiwi friends and I landed in a state of light-headedness (drunk) off the plane and were transported to the very unlovely Torremolinos on our day the Costa del Sol.

What a hideous place – even to my cloudy eyes, the half finished high rise blocks of crappy flats, dirty streets and wild dogs roaming ‘our ‘neighbourhood. offended my hippie sensibility.

But the drinks were big and cheap! I discovered the art of picture menus. Blackboard menus outside cheek by jowl restaurants with coloured pictures of: steak and eggs, eggs and baked beans, eggs and chips or eggs, chips and sausages – that was the beginning of the Empire strikes back at Spain! The English had well and truly invaded. The entire coast was a nasty canteen with bars selling English food and beer. Not a Spanish dish in sight – no foreign muck for these tourists.

My memories of that six-day trip included being robbed by a bag-snatcher, sitting in a police station and listening to someone get beaten up, having a brawl with a disco operator (not my fault), drinking buckets of sangria, very cheap gin that I would probably classify as rocket fuel these days, the best Indonesian meal outside of Java (go figure!) and having my first ever swim in the cold Mediterranean Sea.

So Spain decades later was totally different for me – but that trip down memory lane is still as vivid as ever.