spain glorious spain...almost
So I'm back from Spain. Between 9 pm Friday evening and 5:30 am Monday, I slept a total of 33 hours. I think I'm mostly recovered from the jet lag, which always seems worse coming back rather than going. But Spain was great, as always.
We flew from x to x and then into Madrid. From Madrid we took a flight to Alicante, which is on the Costa Blanca. Once in Alicante, we were met by Angus, a jolly ole soul originally from the Isle of Man. He drove us to Quesada, where we planned on staying at a friend's vacation home for five days. Please note the 'planned' in the previous sentence. Quesada (and, oddly, we stayed in a villa almost idential to the one in the link - weird), it turns out, is really in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere. Quesada was our chosen destination for its proximity to the Sea, for its idyllic ambiance, for the fact that our friends who own the home were letting us stay there for free.
However, Quesada is...nowhere. Seriously nowhere. There are no trains close by. There are no buses (well, we know there's a bus because there are bus stops and posted schedules, but truth be told, we never actually saw a bus. And everyone we asked about the bus...well, they'd never seen it either). We ended up staying two nights. Sure, they were 2 really well rested nights, but not Spain. Sure, Quesada is in Spain, but how is it not Spain? So glad you asked. To wit: there are almost no native Spanish speakers in Quesada. Most of the homes seem to be occupied by English, German, or Scandinavian families who don't speak English. There's a smattering of 'Irish' and English 'pubs' and at one restaurant in Quesada proper, when we ordered cafe con leche, we were served...Nescafe with powered milk. No kidding. I could not make this up.
After enduring quaint, English-speaking Quesada without a car for 48 hours, it was time to make some serious decisions. So we called our friends in Alicante, who we'd planned on seeing in a few days.
Where are you? they asked.
Quesada, we said. But we're stuck. Help us.
Call us in an hour, they said. We hung up the payphone and, heads hung low, our visited the 'English' pub for a cerveza, eyes on the clock. In an hour we called back, our joie de vivre slowly beginning to slip away from us.
We can't find this place you say you are, our friends said. Are you sure you know where you are?
Trust us, we cried, we know, realizing that if our actual Spanish friends who live on the actual Costa Blanca can't find us, we were likely doomed (note that in the map provided above under the Costa Blanca link, Quesada is nowhere to be seen. Creepy. It's as if the English/German/Scandinavians in Quesada have made it vanish to the human eye - you only find it if you've made solid plans to stay there).
How do we get out of here? we implored. The idea of any more time in Quesada was, by turns, making us queasy, agitated, and longing for the amber waves of home.
Three enterprising Spanish friends and an hour later, we were back in Angus's car, driving to the nearest railroad station. 40 minutes after that, we were checking into a hotel in Alicante, just round the corner from our friends' apartment. A mere 2 hours after that, we sat outside a cafe, eating tapas, surrounded by Spaniards, imbibing vino tinto, and relaxing, as we were finally somewhere really in Spain. Next ~ the adventures of Inga & company in fabulous Alicante, my new favorite city.
We flew from x to x and then into Madrid. From Madrid we took a flight to Alicante, which is on the Costa Blanca. Once in Alicante, we were met by Angus, a jolly ole soul originally from the Isle of Man. He drove us to Quesada, where we planned on staying at a friend's vacation home for five days. Please note the 'planned' in the previous sentence. Quesada (and, oddly, we stayed in a villa almost idential to the one in the link - weird), it turns out, is really in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere. Quesada was our chosen destination for its proximity to the Sea, for its idyllic ambiance, for the fact that our friends who own the home were letting us stay there for free.
However, Quesada is...nowhere. Seriously nowhere. There are no trains close by. There are no buses (well, we know there's a bus because there are bus stops and posted schedules, but truth be told, we never actually saw a bus. And everyone we asked about the bus...well, they'd never seen it either). We ended up staying two nights. Sure, they were 2 really well rested nights, but not Spain. Sure, Quesada is in Spain, but how is it not Spain? So glad you asked. To wit: there are almost no native Spanish speakers in Quesada. Most of the homes seem to be occupied by English, German, or Scandinavian families who don't speak English. There's a smattering of 'Irish' and English 'pubs' and at one restaurant in Quesada proper, when we ordered cafe con leche, we were served...Nescafe with powered milk. No kidding. I could not make this up.
After enduring quaint, English-speaking Quesada without a car for 48 hours, it was time to make some serious decisions. So we called our friends in Alicante, who we'd planned on seeing in a few days.
Where are you? they asked.
Quesada, we said. But we're stuck. Help us.
Call us in an hour, they said. We hung up the payphone and, heads hung low, our visited the 'English' pub for a cerveza, eyes on the clock. In an hour we called back, our joie de vivre slowly beginning to slip away from us.
We can't find this place you say you are, our friends said. Are you sure you know where you are?
Trust us, we cried, we know, realizing that if our actual Spanish friends who live on the actual Costa Blanca can't find us, we were likely doomed (note that in the map provided above under the Costa Blanca link, Quesada is nowhere to be seen. Creepy. It's as if the English/German/Scandinavians in Quesada have made it vanish to the human eye - you only find it if you've made solid plans to stay there).
How do we get out of here? we implored. The idea of any more time in Quesada was, by turns, making us queasy, agitated, and longing for the amber waves of home.
Three enterprising Spanish friends and an hour later, we were back in Angus's car, driving to the nearest railroad station. 40 minutes after that, we were checking into a hotel in Alicante, just round the corner from our friends' apartment. A mere 2 hours after that, we sat outside a cafe, eating tapas, surrounded by Spaniards, imbibing vino tinto, and relaxing, as we were finally somewhere really in Spain. Next ~ the adventures of Inga & company in fabulous Alicante, my new favorite city.
posted by lynda at 4:54 PM
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