Friends, tapas and time

One of our first adventures in Nerja was attending the annual end-of-year bash of the American International Club of Nerja (AICN ) held at the Hotel Rural Alamazara in Frigiliana. We joined about 50, mostly British and a handful of Americans, enjoying a scrumptious dinner, dancing to live music and bidding on silent auction items to raise money for a local Spanish charity. (I’ll post later about the sculpture I bid on and won… just love it!)

Weeks before we headed to Spain, we stumbled upon a link to the AICN website and after a bit of email exchange managed to wrangle an invitation to attend their event. What a fun time! We soon realized we had a lot in common with many of the members; the use of “gypsy” in my blog title is no accident. We ultimately made a few new friends with whom we re-connected for lunch today in Nerja (photo). Jean, from New Hampshire, who has lived here for nearly a decade and Herb & Trish, from Omaha and Scotland, who’ve been here half that time are all three intimately familiar with the pros and cons of living here, the paperwork and bureaucracy involved and, of course, all there is to enjoy in Andalucia. We can’t help asking them a million questions!

The Restaurant El Puente where this photo was taken, serves tapas and dinner both inside, and on their terrace outdoors. Since it was again a lovely, sunny day, we ate outdoors staying over 4 hours chatting, eating tapas and drinking Spanish wine with our new friends. We spent only $14.00 for the 2 of us and so enjoyed the Spanish tradition of waiters never interrupting table conversation to whisk plates away, turn our table over or hurry us in any way… it’s just so darn civilized! There was no rush for us to leave, no check to figure out. You just tell the cashier what you had to eat and drink and they tally it up, you pay and you’re on your way. Love that.

Tonight, more tapas at Mo’s Gastrotapas… a wonderful place worthy of a blog post of its own. Tomorrow, Almunecar for market day and lunch by the sea with Americans!