After spending our first month in Spain bouncing between two different cities and four different apartments, our family was in no mood to travel once we finally settled town in our own place in Fuengirola. We enjoyed settling into a weekly routine in our new city and only took a couple small day trips to nearby Mijas Pueblo.
As the calendar turned to December, we were ready for a weekend adventure. One of Becky's old friends from a study abroad program in college lives in Granada, which is one of the most visited cities in Spain and is only a couple of hours from Fuengirola. The city also is home to the impressive Alhambra, one of the most visited tourist attractions in Europe, and in the shadows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. All of those factors combined to make Granada the perfect place for our first side trip in Spain.
Fortunately, I had gained some experience driving to the food bank in Malaga as part of my weekly volunteer activities for a local charity. Otherwise, I don't know if I would have had the confidence to rent a car when I could not find bus tickets for the holiday weekend celebrating the Spanish constitution. The holiday weekend also meant that I would not be volunteering at Ark Christian School on Friday, so we were able to leave Fuengirola on Thursday morning. It was an easy drive in our cozy, little Fiat Panda and we made it to Granada with no issues. However, finding a spot to park was another story. We drove around for twenty minutes before finding a spot, which turned out to be pretty good according to our hosts. At times, they have had to search for an hour and a half for a spot!
It was my first time meeting Leah and her husband, Kevin, but they quickly felt like old friends. The girls had a great time playing with their three children, including another four-year old named Lydia. That first evening, we walked into the center of Granada to see the Christmas lights, which are a huge thing in Spain. Individual houses and apartments don't seem to have lights, but each city and town has large light displays in the center and on every major street. In addition to the lights, there were many vendors and I spent have the night hovering over Lydia and Evelyn to make sure they didn't break anything.
Christmas lights in Granada centro
We eventually made it to a quiet cafe near a playground, away from the busy center. The kids were able to play while the adults enjoyed a round of drinks and tapas. One thing that is unique to Granada is that tapas are free with the purchase of a drink.
The next day, we enjoyed a lazy morning before finally heading off for the Alhambra around noon. Unfortunately, we had been unable to purchase tickets to go inside the Palacios Nazaries, which have the most intricate Islamic architecture, but we were able to get tickets for the gardens and the Alcazaba sections. Walking into the Alhambra was like walking into a sunny, fall day. Colorful trees filled the grounds and the air was filled with the smells of autumn. Lydia and Evelyn enjoyed playing off the beaten path before we were corrected by an employee. With youngsters in tow, it was a little difficult to appreciate all of the architectural details, but it was an impressive site nonetheless.
Walking into fall in the Alhambra
One of many buildings and gardens inside the Alhambra
From the Alhambra, we walked over to the Albayzin, which is the old Islamic quarter of the city. I enjoyed some delicious beef shawarma at a Moroccan restaurant before we met up with Leah, Kevin and family at a nearby tea house. The tea house is owned by some of their friends and has several nooks and crannies for enjoying a variety of teas and Middle Eastern sweets. When we were finished at the tea house, we navigated through the Albayzin's narrow winding passageways to get a spectacular nighttime view of the Alhambra.
The view of the Albayzin from the Alhambra
Winding through the Albayzin at night
The next day, we left our hosts' home fairly early to go to Sierra Nevada, which is a ski-resort town up in the mountains. We were able to borrow snow pants and a sled and had instructions for finding a good spot to take a few runs. Our Fiat Panda slowly chugged up the steep, winding roads as the snowy peaks came into view. As we neared town, a long line of cars parked along the side of the road and everyone with sleds was walking towards the resort. We followed the pack and ended up wandering around in the ski resort area trying to find a place to sled for free. There were scores of other people unsuccessfully doing the same thing. It was still pretty early in the season and apparently there is usually more snow and more places to sled. I was able to spot one location which had enough snow, just off the perimeter of the resort. We snaked our way up to the spot and saw that it was much steeper than I had anticipated. I didn't feel comfortable letting the girls go down by themselves, but took a few runs with Evelyn. There was also a run that went diagonally across the hill and we let the girls go down this run together as we waited at the bottom to catch them. The girls were a little disappointed that we didn't get to do more sledding, but I was satisfied with the adventure of trying to find any runs at all.
We enjoyed a nice lunch in a mountain cafe before coasting down the mountain to drop off the sled and snow gear in Granada. We drove home satisfied with our first trip away from Fuengirola and looking forward to the next adventure.
I am about to take off on a year-long sabbatical adventure with my family as we live in Spain for the 2019 – 2020 school year. When I announced my sabbatical at the end of the school year, students and parents asked how they could follow my experiences. This blog is the answer to that question. I will try to share stories, pictures and videos from my sabbatical. The blog is geared towards the school community (hence using Mr. Kuk in the title), but it will also be a good place for family and friends to keep up on our adventure. In this post, I want to give an overview of my plans for the year. What is a sabbatical? The word “sabbatical” is derived from the Biblical concept of a Sabbath. In a tradition that is still observed by some people, the Israelites were commanded to reserve one day for rest and worship after six days of work. This concept applied not only to the days of the week, but also to years, as the Israelites were also ...
When we arrived in Spain on September 26th, we had four weeks to find an apartment for the next nine months. Our plane landed in Madrid, but the next day we boarded a bus to Málaga, a port city along the Mediterranean coast. From Málaga, we took a much shorter bus ride to the nearby town of Fuengirola for our first full week in Spain. Málaga province along the Costa del Sol. Málaga city and Fuengirola are on the map. Over the next four weeks, we would be alternating weeks at AirBnb apartments in Málaga and Fuengirola to determine where we wanted to settle for the rest of our year in Spain. When we originally began to plan our year abroad, we had thought that we would live in Málaga, which is the largest city in the province and is a similar size to Baltimore. However, I had arranged to volunteer at a school one day per week in Fuengirola, which is forty minutes from Málaga by commuter train. I had also made contact with the director of a ...
We have been living in Spain for almost six months now, but until a few weeks ago we hadn't yet traveled to some of the most notable cities in the country. Luckily, we were able to enjoy this journey a few weeks before the coronavirus chaos really hit the country. We had a break in the girl's school schedule and my volunteer responsibilities thanks to Semana Blanca, which is an annual week-off in late February. I am very envious of the Spanish school calendar: a week off in late October, two and a half weeks of at Christmas, a week off in late February, a week off at Easter, and a few other random holidays sprinkled in here and there. Becky and the girls actually started the journey without me as I finished up my last day of volunteer duties. They met up with our good friends, the Loftus family, in Madrid. If you are interested in reading more about their experiences in the capital, check out Becky's blog at akukskitchen.com. A few days later, I took a bus up to Madrid an...
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