Last stop!

I'm in Englang :) This is the very end of my trip before returning to Norway and I have been spending it in Yorkshire! Do you remember reading about a farm I stayed just outside York in October? Well, that/s where I'm at now. I have been here since the 5th and leaving tomorrow. I'm flying back on Friday to Oslo. There is no Internet on the farm so I can't keep an update now but I will write some when I'm back home to wrape things up :)

Sad but glad this girl is returning to Norway in less then 48 hours...

Yesterday was a good day!

Right next to the house where I'm staying there is a small lake. In this lake we recently found out that there are turtles! Yesterday we went to have a look and they were swimming around in that lake! Small and black water turtles about the size of a A5 paper or a bit less. Cute little bastards! (I think Tingeling would like this as a vacation place Alva;)


Afterward me and Alex went to a town called Ronda, which is 45 minutes from Marbella up in the mountains. This town has a bull fight museum that claims that THIS is where it all started, the only problem is that this is actually what Seville is saying too ..... I think there is a bit of a conflict between the two cites about this, but really I don't care because I don't even like this sport. Anyways, the other thing this town is famous for is a huge bridge that connects the two parts of the city. The city is located on both sides of a huge and steep valley and so it was amazing to see how they have manages to build a bridge like that. Almost impossible! This is the touristic website for anyone who is interested in having a look: http://www.turismoderonda.es/indexeng.htm

In the evening Alex took me to a traditional, almost a bit secret, Spanish restaurant to eat proper Spanish food. Here I tasted ox tail for the first time in my life. The only thing I could say to justify it's reputation is I hope is not my last time. It was very very good! I also had what I up until this point in my life can say is the best lamb I have tasted. Lamb shoulder cooked for something like 5 hours and god know what, amazing! For sure the best meal I have had in a while:)

A lot of bad English on this one but I'm speaking Norwegian frequently and it's confusing me :)

Life in Marbella

I'm enjoying lazy days on the south coast of Spain, that's for sure! A good lunch here, a couple of hours on the beach there, maybe a afternoon nap even:) Yesterday I tried golf for the first time in my life! Petrified I entered the field (or what ever it is called) where people stand in line and practice their shots. I quickly realized that I was the only girl and that made me start freaking out right away. But lets go back a bit first here. I, Gro, know nothing what so ever about golf and therefor had no idea what so ever how this goes down. To be honest I did not expect it to be more than just grab the club and try as best as you can to hit this thing (that being the ball!) For those of you reading this who have some previews understanding on this "game" you have already long time ago understood that I could not be further from the truth. It could not be further from the truth. First of all it should not be called a game but a sport. I was rather exhausted and tired in my back and arms. Secondly I was informed that people spend hours and hours finding to learn how to hold the club right. Thirdly people spend days and days to be able to hit the ball at all some times. Last but not least, people can spend years before they have there first good hit. Ah well! Lets not go further in to that. I decided that this is not something I will be frightened by and my goal for my first half and hour ever playing golf was to hit the ball and make it go strait.

It went like this:
????????????????????!??!!....
....................?..????.....!.?....
... .#)(/%..---::;_("/&%.......Yes!
............................................
........SHIT..........!?........!!.......
- break for 5 min -
...... Jepp! NO?... Okay...........
//&"¤)......(/&%.......................
DONE!

A couple of good ones and less bad ones then I had expected! The ball went the right way when I managed to hit it and I walked away happy in the end! All in all a good introduction to golf :)

Monkey!!!

Today I went to Gibraltar to look at the monkeys :) Me and Alex took his car and I got a Gib stamp in my passport as well!! They are absolutely not afraid of anything and they basically own the place. They can go anywhere and they have loads of food - what a life ! There is a saying that goes like this: "as long as the monkeys live on the rock, England will have Gibraltar", so lets see then how long it will be... If you ask me it might be about time for England to give back all the stuff that do not belong to them, but hey, lets not get in to that!

Afterwards we went to Tarifa to look at the beaches there, they are famous and the base for kite-surfers in Spain, maybe even Europe, I don't know ! Anyways! The beach turned out to be one of the most beautiful I have seen in my life. Opening up to the Atlantic, a view to Africa, , basically everything one need. I also saw something most strange!??! Black pigs..... I did not know that existed... Did you??

What a week!

As I'm writing this I'm laying in a sofa in the shadow, it's warm and sunny so life is not to bad. I'm in this moment located in a pent-house apartment in Marbella surrounded by golf courses and huge villas, Julio Eglesias living right down in the valley. He! What a strange world we live in. Aleksander, which is one of the other people from the course lives here, working in Marbella. He offered me to come until I know what to do next. Since I have absolutely no plan what so ever I sad yes thank you and here I am. Internet, a proper shower and a little taste of what this coast is best know for, Costa del Sol.


Let's move on to the serious stuff now, SAILING! What a week!! I have spent the last 6 days on the boat and really learned so much. The weather has been sunny and warm and a fairly amount of wind as well. I have tried to make out the route we did to make it all very explainable. We went from Gibraltar to Estepona to Sotogrande to Gibraltar a cross to Ciuta and back to Gibraltar. The places has been different and fun to see, not that I went off the boat that much.

It was me and two others attending the course, one doing coastal skipper course (Konrad) and one competent crew (Aleksander) like me. The skipper turned out to be a old military guy who also had spent a great deal of time on submarines. Because of that he had a wide range of experience and know basically everything there is to know. What can be better than that when you have about a thousand questions you want to ask!?

The first day we spent "getting use to the boat" and we had a slow sail upwards to Estepona. The wind was perfect and I came to understand the basic operating of the sails. The weather as well was not bad at all and so I started working on my tan for the summer :) Of course it's not like there is something to do every second after you have rigged the sails and the wind is on the right side - so I have had some time to tan all week! But Chris has also been good at testing us, showing us knots and made stuff happened for us to learn as much as possible.

Second day we practiced tacking for some time and also had "man over board" training more times then I can count for. Going in to Sotogrande I got to see yet another heavy tourist invasion of the sea front and also quite posh, as I have discovered is mostly the cost line here. Third day back to Gib there was not really much wind and so we were on motor for most of the time. Not much work but yet another great day. Heading back in to Gib we passed Europa point and to see the ship that crashed into the rocks due to hard sea. Huge container ship smashed against the shore in strong sea a couple of years back. No body died amazingly enough. They are still cleaning up and trying to remove the wreck piece by piece.

Day number four was very exciting! I suddenly found my self on the way to Africa, fair enough on Spanish territory but still Africa. Strong wind and tide against the wind made a bumpy ride to the other side, perfect for a sailing school! I was steering for about half an hour when it was at it's most rough - and that I must say was heavy for my arms :) Keeping course when it is force 6 was not for kids:) As the sea calmed down a bit and we were closing up on Ciuta and lucky enough to get company by dolphins for ten minutes or so. They came up and jumped in the front of the boat and we were surrounded, what a day!! Arriving in Ciuta I was excited to take my first step of the boat to the new continent, and after all the work was done off to have a beer at a bar. Since I had forgot to put of sunscreen that day and it had been hard work I past and stuck to cola, for a while that is. After dinner me and Aleksander headed off to the casino where I had some drinks and learned how to play Black Jack properly! That was a really fun night. (Don't worry dad, no money spent!). Last day, Friday, me and Aleksander had to fill the dingy (small rubber boat) and take it for a small paddle around in the bay to show Chris we could master it. After lunch we set course for Europa again, but had a strong tide coming in so it took a while. When we reached the other side we practiced anchoring in a bay. Here we stayed for some hours, swimming, eating and sleeping while waiting for it to get dark. Friday evening we had three hours of night sailing to get an idea of how different it is to be out at night. We spent three hours talking about light signals and on a constant look out while going in and out of harbors. Around 11 we headed back in to Gib as a competent crew with a not to nervous coastal skipper at our side. Chris (the real skipper) was mainly watching us and just checking if we could figure it out our self.

Today I was very tired waking up, I tend to sleep like a baby on a boat, basically it was a slow morning. We had breakfast and then Chris came over to sign us off. A proper cleaning of the boat took about an hour. Scrubbing the deck and washing, whith ALL the windows closed (Not like yesterday when I was in charge of the washing. Enough about that....! Ehe:)

So, the sailing week is over and it has been a fantastic week. I now have "Basic Navigation and Safety" as well as "Competent Crew" and is even more eager to sail more! Chris sad that he thinks I have enough knowledge to move to Day Skipper if I want to, if I can only collect some more miles. Time will show!