Antequera and the flight to England.

First off, I'm going to link to the photos. I've put them in a set, so they should be easier to access. Plus there are 8 of them. Sorry about the quality, I will steal some better quality ones from Cam at some point.
http://www.flickr.com/gp/55572237@N00/84w28K

Well, the train from Madrid was nice and quick, and got me to Antequera Santa-Ana train station only 10 minutes late. This wasn't a problem as I was being picked up at Antequera train station. Eventually the mis-communication was sorted out and I got picked up. I did have an interesting chat with a guy from Greece who was in the area for a conference on social change. I could have gone there instead, him and his driver both assumed I was some other guy. Given I didn't know where that was and I didn't want to leave the other guy stranded, I did the right thing and went back to Antequera with Tom and Amanda.

First off, it is an old town. Which means narrow, cobble-stoned streets. And driving in Spain, as previously detailed, isn't a fun experience unless you're used to it. There are also lots and lots of scooters. Which is good because of the narrow streets, because this way you can get past the two cars parked next to each other so the drivers can have a chat. Which is apparently quite normal. Also, zebra crossings are not designed for cars to stop while pedestrians cross the road. They are places where pedestrians wait for no more cars to come before crossing. This one took me a while. And cars do not stop for pedestrians. If you step out in the road, and there is a car coming, you damn well get out of the way.

But then we got to the highlight of the trip. The food. It was incredible. We had a late lunch at some little bar, got some large tapas with lots of meat. I can no longer remember what we had, but everything was the best of that type I've ever eaten. Then we had Churros, which is donuts dunked in hot chocolate. These aren't the normal donuts you'd see in Australia, more like a pretzel that is a donut is how I'd describe it. Or like the thin donuts you can get from MovieWorld. They were really hot, and really good, and made me regret the fact I'd eaten so much for lunch. It was around this time that the Jet Lag hit like a locomotive, and it was all I could do to stay awake. Yet stay awake I did, which was good. We headed back up the very steep hill to our place so AJ could have a siesta. VJ, Cam and I went for a walk around the castle, which you can see from the link above. Very impressive. We sat at some outlook thingy and watched the sun go down. Very picturesque, and a very very nice temperature. I would have loved to stay in Antequera for longer, even if it was just for the food.

And then, at 9pm we headed out for an early dinner. I am not being sarcastic, due to the siesta everything shuts in the afternoon and then re-opens late. We went to the bull-ring (which wasn't in use) and had another incredibly good meal. Veal skewers if I remember right. Which also had capsicum and onion, and ham. Everything has ham in it in Antequera. Which is a good thing :) After all the earlier eating, I was the only one who managed to get all the way through the HUGE meal. It was divine.

If you like eating, you have to go to southern Spain. I need to go again.

And that was it for my trip in Spain. Due to my grand final being put back a week, I didn't have the full week I would have liked, so I missed out on the Alhambra palace and a whole bunch of other places that the other 4 got to go to. Once I've learnt some basic Spanish I will go back, but the lack of any ability to speak or understand Spanish was a big set-back in being able to enjoy the trip.

So from Antequera, it was to Malaga and then England. I said my goodbye's to Tom and AJ (because I won't be seeing them again soon) at the bus station. We (VJ, Cam and I) caught the bus from Antequera (very cheap) and got to Malaga in about an hour. Then it was another bus from the bus station to the Airport. It looks like the main road in Malaga is being done up with a tram line or something, because the middle of the road is completely blocked off for roadworks of some sort. And the airport is also being upgraded. I didn't like Malaga, very dirty, old town. And not old in a good way. I did quite like Malaga airport though, it's designed to get a lot of people in and out quickly, and it does that well. Unfortunately, before I got to say goodbye to VJ and Cam I got stuck on the wrong side of the x-ray machines as they couldn't get their tickets yet. It's surprisingly hard to get back to the waiting area, but I managed it. Said my teary goodbyes to my room-mates of the last 4 months, and went to find my flight. As EasyJet don't allocate tickets, it was an interesting experience once more with queues. I find the British still don't really respect your place in the line, but they're much less obvious about it. The Spanish blatantly pushed in, while the British just slowly slowly edged their way in front. Sneaky. Once again it was a bus from the Terminal to the plane (thanks to all the work they're doing) but I got on pretty much last, and got a seat right at the back with leg room. So I was happy. Not so happy with the 13 degrees temperature at Luton. But that's a minor detail.

Once in at Luton, more queueing for a bus to the train station, train station to Farringdon, to Marylebone to Banbury. I like the trains, I don't like the cost. They're pretty expensive, but they are generally pretty good. Busy at all the times I've caught them, but you can eat and drink on them, and the conductors regularly check tickets.

Anyway, that's enough updates for a bit. I'll finish up with one large post, probably tomorrow. Or the day after. There's not much left to tell really. It's cold, but there hasn't been much wind so it's bearable. The North-Western accent's pretty good, they have a tendency to say 'hiya' instead of 'hi', the people I'm working with are nice, I'm still trying to learn all there is to do on a Mac (as I have to use a Mac mini at work, woe is me!) and the job is turning out to be a nice blend of the familiar and the challenging. I just need to find a quicker walk to work, as the way I went this morning took 50 minutes. After a look at the map I've found what looks to be the quicker way along the 'trans-pennine trail'. I was thinking about going to one end of that one weekend just to see what's there. Apparently Cornwall. So that's out of the picture. Hopefully I'll get a computer I can use at home soon, and a digital camera so I can start taking better pictures then what I have been taking from my mobile.

Stay warm all!