Lazy day

Today we slept late and then puttered around until about 11. Yesterday, the Alhambra wore us out, and tomorrow we will visit the large city of Malaga, so today has been a day to recharge our batteries. When we did go out, we drove down the hill to visit the Marina del Este, which we can see from our terrace. It is quiet in late October, but I can imagine it's a pretty happening place in the summer. There are four restaurants, an art gallery, a dive shop and a small market, which oddly has a topiary duck tree standing guard out front. We didn't stop to eat, but dining dockside would be pleasant on a warm day.

Then we took a drive to our local town of La Herradura and went to the market for a few groceries to wind out the week. When I asked for a mango, the woman asked is is for "hoy o manana" ? She wanted to know if I planned to eat it today, or later and when I said today, she dug through her pile and chose one of perfect ripeness. She did the same thing with an avocado. I love the service I receive in these little mom and pop markets--people really care about their products.

After that, we walked into town to find an optical shop. I wasn't sure how to communicate my problem in Spanish, so I launched into an explaination in Italian to the optician, which he responded to perfectly, then I used an English word and he switched to English and we stayed there for the remainder of the conversation. People speak so many languages here--I'm jealous. Anyway, I broke my glasses a few days ago at the place where the frame meets the earpiece. I have been wearing them cock-eyed, balanced on one ear! The only way to repair them was to give me a new earpiece, which is black and the rest of the glasses are red. Who cares?? I can see and he only charged me 5€--even cleaned and tightened up all the screws.

Everything is incredibly cheap here. We went into a bakery last night and came away with a chocolate croissant, two cookies and a bag of raisin breadsticks for less than 2€. Our lunch bill today was 17€ and that included 4 glasses of wine! I can see why this is such a popular retirement destination for British, German and Scandanavian seniors--you can live well on practically nothing.