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Wells and I are excited to share with you that we will be returning to the states this coming Monday. We have accomplished what we wanted to do here by resetting our lives, prioritizing our marriage, honoring a simple lifestyle, and really calming down. We have learned that everything we really, really love to do is free. Not to be cheesy but our lives are complete with our dogs, playing cards, going to the beach, hiking, working out, talking, and just flat out being together. We have not watched TV in three months. We have not bought a stitch of clothing or any other real material items for that matter and we have been the happiest we have EVER been.

We LOVE Nerja and pretty much all of Spain for that matter and we have spent the last few days trying to figure out where our next extended stay will be. Possibly Argentina? Paris? Who knows!

Wells will be arriving with the dogs midday on Monday and I arrive late Monday evening. I am going to KY to be with my family for about 4-5 days so I won’t really be around till the end of the month.

We are actually pumped but it is really bittersweet.

Wells has rented car to get himself and the dogs to Madrid and we have spent the day practicing driving it because Wells has never driven a stick. We fondly refer to it as the “Speed Skate.” All I have to say about that is – YIKES!

This may not be the end of my blogging…who knows. Our life in Atlanta might be too boring to broadcast. Thank you for reading and most of all thank you for caring. Love, Wells and Kate

Easter in Spain is insane. It lasts one week and is called Semana Santa. No matter how big or small the town is – there WILL be a week long of Easter parades. Sevilla has the biggest culmination of Easter Parades, called processions. They are most of which are televised on giant flat screen TV’s in the plazas  – they are THAT big. Wells and I took a day trip to Sevilla to check out the action.

During this week in Seville there are many processions (more than 50 altogether or 7-8 a day) that commemorate the Catholic traditions surrounding the death of Jesus Christ and the sorrow experienced at that time, especially by his mother Mary. Each procession is comprised of one or 2 ‘pasos’ (floats) and between 400 and 2,600 ‘Nazarenos’ and ‘penitantes.’ The followers of the different virgins who wear pointed hats like the KKK but in fact have NOTHING to do with them but it is still quite difficult to look at these costumes and not think of the KKK. Totally nuts. Anyway, they wear these hoods to remain anonymous because they are supposed to be doing penance for their sins.

The following pictures are of Ash Wednesday in Nerja. I will have several other posts with pictures from Semana Santa, including Sevilla. You might encounter Easter-Picture-Overload and if you do, still be sure to check out the Sevilla pictures so you can see the chairs to get the true ’severity’ of it all.

The Semana Santa procession traditions are SO Pagan that you almost forget that it is a Christian ceremony. Until a giant Jesus crosses your path, that is. The pasos are carried by about 30 men and are walked through town is a severe swaying motion to make it more somber. The best word to describe the whole thing is SEVERE. Just check out these pictures if you don’t believe me.

On a less severe note I wanted to die Easter eggs. PAAS egg die is not around these parts of the world but I figured out how to make organic egg die so that was not a problem. The problem was that I could not find white eggs anywhere so no colored eggs for us this year.

Procession Jesus Cautivo & Holy Virgin Ma Stma. de los Desamparados – Nerja kicks off Semana Santa with a parade from Iglesia El Salvador at the Balcon. Here, Kate and I had been waiting about 20 minutes for ?The Main Event.?
We showed up to the Balcon de Europa around nine excited to see what was going on. The dusky blue sky and yellow street lights gave the event a very cool lighting backdrop.	There was a pretty big crowd of mostly non Spanish onlookers. Later we figured out that all of the locals who were not in the parade were in bars watching the FC Barcelona football match.		We had a few minutes to goof off waiting the show to start.
Yes, that is me in the same brown jacket that I wear in all of our pictures. I don’t have that many choices here so lay off!	The moon was almost full.	OK, finally under way! Believe it or not, this is not Alabama in 1968. It is hard to believe that something so deeply religious for Spanish Catholics has such an evil reputation in the U.S.
	Seriously, if you didn’t know what was going on, this could be a pretty scarry sight.	Kate is pimping her cute new pink Euro-scarf.	Hey Honey!
Finally, The Man, The Myth, The Legend made an appearance. The crowd wooped it up.	The traffic jam was to severe not even for God himself could get the tourists out of the way and J.C. was stalled out for a good 10 minutes.	Considering the size of Nerja, there were actually a ton of participants in the parade. Forgetting all of the Klan’s Men and children carrying crosses, they had to convince a heck of a lot of teenage boys that it would be cool to carry Jesus around all night. That certainly must have been a miracle.	Finally, Jesus is on the march.
I left this shot in to show the rest of the crow at the opposite end of the Balcon square. Kate is a big fan of Geraniums on the white arched wall in the background.	Jesus’ ride had quite a posse of cherubs.	Since I was raised Presbyterian, I’m used to seeing Jesus depicted with half a doze adoring children a couple of baby lambs and a big smile on his face. This is no Easter Bunny celebration!	A protestant just doesn’t know what to make of all this Catholic idolatry.
I should look up the symbolism of the different waves, but a group of blue hats streamd out of the church next.	The parade was an impressive show of religious conviction. Unfortunately the pace of the parade didn’t match the participant’s entheusiam and about this time Kate and I decide to have a look around for a new tapas joint.	I couldn’t resist taking this picture of Kate becuase the scene so accurately sums up the Spanish tapas bar experience. Hams hanging in the background, tapas in the cold case with queso rounds on top, vino tinto de la casa and boogerie olives on the bar. This little place had some killer mushrooms. Two tapas, olives, a glass of wine, and a coke for three Euros. Awesome.

Our fun beach game.

We call it BOOBS. We look around the beach to spot BOOBS. I know what you are thinking…

There are usually several BOOBS to choose from and they are NOT the type of BOOBS that you are picturing in your head right now. They are usually in the ballpark of 60+ years old, at or below the bellybutton, of the tube-sock variety (got to give credit for this visual to Nikki), or are the size of volleyballs with the inflated rest of the body to go with them. This game is so fun to play with men because THEY ALWAYS LOOK when you tell them there is a BOOB sighting. And when Wells sees them, the site of the BOOBS is so incredibly heinous that it (and I will quote) “burns my eyes.” On the off-chance that you see a fantastic set of BOOBS that we both agree are ‘bueno’ they generally seem to be accompanied by something that makes them as equally as hideous as the 60+ tube sock BOOBS. For example, we saw an amazing set of BOOBS yesterday – the kind I would not be afraid to discuss with a surgeon. And then we saw the BOOBS’ owner’s 4 year old son playing on the beach right next to her. This grossed us out so much that we took her fantastic set of BOOBS and placed them highest on the offending list. Feel free to borrow our BOOB game but you will have to be in Europe or on Fire Island to play. And no, I have not gone topless for fear people will confuse me with a boy. Sorry guys, no pictures to go with this post!

Queso is the Spanish word for cheese. But in America, Queso acts more like a proper noun and means “delicious white cheese from Nuevo Laredo melted and eaten by dipping even more delicious chips into into it.” Look up the word ‘Queso’ in Webster’s and that will be the definition that you read. (I realize that Atlantans feel extremely passionate about their Queso and the mad-shout-out for Nuevo Laredo is considered fighting words to some.)

WARNING! Mexican Queso DOES NOT translate into Spanish Queso. This is a tragedy.

There is clear racial tension in Spain towards Mexicans. As a stereotype, Spanish people flat out don’t like Mexicans so they don’t embrace their Queso the way we do. I don’t understand this because I am of the opinion that there should be American amnesty towards all Mexicans hopping the border into the US because Mexicans brought us Queso. And thank god they did!

Wells was going to die a dramatic death if he didn’t get a burrito and Queso so we ventured off to the lone Mexican Restaurant in Nerja, El Cielito Lindo. We had an underwhelming meal and Wells didn’t even order the burrito after all. But the most uncanny thing about the whole meal was that is was outrageously expensive! We could NOT believe it but the Mexican Restaurant was one of our more expensive meals in Nerja.

To battle our cravings, last night I made homemade beef fajitas with red and green peppers and onions; homemade guacamole; homemade pico de gallo; and homemade whole wheat tortillas. Did I mention homemade?

It is a good thing that you type with your hands and your hands are connected to your arms and NOT your legs. Why, you ask? Because my legs are so sore that I could probably not even strike a computer key with them. Again, why, you ask? Because we climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro yesterday. Ok, ok, maybe not Mt. Kilimanjaro but we did climb the Navachica Mountain, the HIGHEST in the region. Did I mention the HIGHEST?!? It was 1800 meters and the entire hike took 9.5 hours. I consider myself in decent physical shape (at the moment… it comes and goes) but this hike kicked my ass. Pardon the French but it really did.

We went with an organized group and if we hadn’t gone with this group we would likely be 1) dead 2) still on the mountain 3) in Portugal. There were about 25 of us in total and our Welsh-turned-Spanish friends Steve and Ruth and their 8 year old son James went with us. I don’t know how James did it but he was a trooper and was first to the summit.

The last hike went on to Pinarillo was 5 hours and a real workout for me. Most people gradually move up in their athletic endeavors…but oh no! Not us! We just jumped right into doubting the workout and climbed Navachica. But as much as I want to complain about it I hate to admit that I loved every moment of it and would do it again tomorrow with a smile.

The views were amazing and we passed through what felt like three different forests because the topography changed so much during the ascent. There was even snow at the top!

Wells has added great captions to our pictures attached below. It was one of many really, really wonderful Nerja days.

We planned on making the Navachica hike two weeks ago but Kate and I had to cancel last second becuase my leg was busted up with shin splints. Fortunately for us, weather canceled the hike for everyone else and we got to try the whole thing again today.
The day started out cold with a serious hazy fog hanging over the entire cost. After about an hour we hiked up above what had not burned off. You can just make out the leftover fog behind the tree in the center.		Navachica is the hightest peak in the area at 1800 Meters. Almost the entire approach runs up this dried river bed. A few years ago massive rains filled the entire bed with rocks. I’m not talking about one section, I’m talking about 3 hours of gully washed rock slide debris. It must have been a hell of a rain storm.
The lower appraoch was really spectacular becuase of the size of the surrounding mountain/cliff walls framing the freequent views back to the sea. Every kilometer brought an amazing new vista.
The camera could not capture all of the light range in this picture, but the overexposed background is actually a fabulous steep mountain face drenched in the morning sunlight. Not to mention it was towering above us and since we were on our way to the hightest point around, we had to go even higher.	Did I mention the river of rocks? It was not bad on the way up but on the 8th hour on the way down, we were ready for some stable ground.
Steve, Ruth, and James were super fun on the hike. The Brits and the Yanks made a great team.	Our first rest stop about 2 hours into the climb.
	It doesn’t look like it in the pictures, but the sky was as blue as it could be. A heat haze hung low over the entire coast all day but by the time we reach the top we could still see Nerja and the Mediterranean.
	With about an hour to the top we were finally out of the river bed and the views really opened up. Over my righ ear, you can just make out the forest service road at the base of the hike.		The last half hour was all above the tree line. In this picture we are about two minutes from cresting the ridge…
…opening up an amzaing view of the Sierra Nevada. And wow, the wind really started whipping around up here.	A few minutes and couple of false peaks later and…	Finally! We made it to the top. 8:50AM – 1:30 – All up hill.	The geography on the opposite side of the ridge is completely different. The Granada planes appear dead flat and are covered with olive orchards that create perfectly symetrical black polka dot patterns. You can just make out a beautiful lake in the bottom right.
James made sure he was the first out of our entire hiking group to the top. The youngest and the first, as he pointed out. Good job James! We all had lunch huddled against a low rise rock wall to try and keep out of the wind. A serano and Havarti baguette with fresh alvocado. Delicious!		Flowers were in bloom all over the hike, not to mention the endless expanses of lavander blanketing the sides of the trail.
	I think the hike down afforded the best views of the day. The steep rocky slopes are amazing and completely diffrent from our Appalachian hikes. A few hours later and we were back to the car by 6:20. A fantastic nine and a half hour day with amazing scenery, and no accidents, pop outs, or blisters. This is one that won’t soon be forgotten.

We spent St. Patrick’s Day at Irish Annie’s on the ‘other side’ of town, which is a whopping 4 minute walk from ‘our side’ of town. We had visions of Irish, British, and Spanish people bellowing folk tunes arm and arm, spilling beers and fighting over the check. But oddly enough it twas a most calm evening. Everyone was seated (inside and outside) and listing to three maybe-not-Irish men signing and playing the mandolin. They were even sitting down. It was lively but certainly NOT rowdy.

I had on green earrings.
	Wells’ ridiculous 5 day beard shave off.		St. Patrick’s Day at Irish Annie’s in Nerja, Spain, 2009. Not nearly as rowdy as we thought.
		The Balcon on a windy night.	That shadow is Wells trying to click his heels toghter like an Irish Leprechaun.
	These ar the common Nerja sidewalks and I love them.

We spent Saturday picnicking on the beach with our friends Ruth, Steve, and their three kids Emily (15), Harriet (13), and James (8). Wells and I play tennis with Ruth and Steve (both in their early 40’s). They are from Whales and moved to Nerja four years ago. They sold their thriving Bed and Breakfast in Whales at the perfect time and relocated to Nerja for the sole reason of having a simple, but quality lifestyle. Steve does not work much and they get to hang out with their kids all of the time. Their outlook on life is compelling and refreshing. All of the kids share one bedroom and absolutely love it. They go to Spanish school, have Spanish and English friends, and speak three languages.

It was a gorgeous day and James instantly became Wells’ best friend. Wells handed the camera to him and James took over 200 pictures. Here are just a few.

If you are wondering how I uploaded these pictures in a nifty slideshow pattern you can thank Wells. I was having a wheel barrel full of problems getting our pictures to properly upload into my blog with all of the existing applications out there. So what did Wells do? He just wrote some code and uploaded a button for me to push on my computer. Unbelievable! Just click on the big picture and then you can easily click through the rest.