The Squooshy

I know—we can’t seem to stay put. This has been a very travel-y season. Normally, we take one big family trip per year. This year, the Türkiye trip with Brian Zahnd presented itself and I just… really needed to go. I thought of it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And these other fellas—Dave and Daniel—well, they insisted on going with me. 😆

Soooo. As I see it, when my kids complain that their inheritance is limited to a couple of handmade macrame owls from the 1970s—we will know whom to blame.

The Longest Travel Days

Generally, I am not a fan of travel day. Dave does it better than most—it is carefully crafted an entire year in advance with the best selected seats. But it still amounts to a day of forced proximity to a lot of humanity at their worst for extended periods of time. And there is always some form of bloating/gasiness involved. 😔

Plus. My husband gets and stays slightly tweaked until all the moving logistical parts…….stop moving. So. It’s a day (or two) for Paxil, patience, and airline Prosecco. 🥂 🍾

Falling in to Málaga

We made it off of the aircraft carousel 🎠 eventually, and said hello to Málaga. I cannot say that I knew what to expect from this city, per se. I’m not what you call an “informed traveler”—which is probably a huge annoyance to my travel-planner husband.

What I think people think:
Read a danged itinerary and do some Wikipedia look-ups, Rhonda. How hard can this be??

I mean. You can imagine how frustrating this might be. But. I hate research. I haaaaaate it. Plus, serendipity is my friend—I rather enjoy falling into things. It’s like opening a gift on Christmas. The fun is in the not-knowing and then in the discovering. So. Málaga was a pleasant surprise—buuuuuut so is everywhere I travel, basically. Málaga was a lovely resort-y kind of town with palm trees and ocean breezes.

La Manquita—Qué bonita!

We visited the Málaga Cathedral—which is actually a former mosque that was later re-consecrated and rebuilt as a Christian church. While we were not able to go inside, having missed the last tour of the day, the outside of the Cathedral certainly did not disappoint.

Apparently, this is one of those cathedrals with a cross-pollination of multiple architectural styles. If I were an architecture-y person I’d probably call it a “Renaissance cathedral with Gothic roots and Baroque embellishments”. But. I’m not. So, instead, I googled it, and borrowed the words of someone who is architecture-y (thanks, stranger). 😆Whatever educated words one uses to describe it, visually, the cathedral was stunning and unusual (at least to my untrained eye).

Also, because one of the two towers remains unfinished (even centuries after the construction period), the locals affectionately refer to the cathedral as La Manquita, or The One-Armed Lady. As such, she has become a visual reminder for many in the region of the “in progress” nature of spiritual transformation.

I, myself, have felt a recent call from God to “stop striving” and rest. To not try so hard and just “be”…for his yoke is easy and his burden is light (And for I keep messing it up when I try too hard and go too fast).

Because I am stubborn, he has had to relay this message to me about a thousand times from many, many, many different messengers. So, in Málaga, I loved seeing this beautiful lady standing here in all her glory…proud and incomplete resting as she is. The discovery of this fitting emblem made my heart so very happy—as did sitting and sipping a glass of sangria whilst contemplating and staring at the one-armed lady.

Shower me with your love

The original intention of hanging out in Málaga was to wait for the boys* whose flight was scheduled to land later that evening. Our plans were to meet up and caravan to the hotel together. But, given our long day of travel, our lack of general days-of-flying hygiene, and given what a thoughtful human my first-born son is, David recommended we not wait for them and go on to the hotel so that we could reduce some of Dave’s stress ❤️❤️.

*Yes. Yes I do realize that David is 24. He is no boy. But. This is probably how we will always refer to these two when referring to them as a unit.

So. Off we went to Cadiz for our first night’s stay. And. A shower. Thank God for showers.

Cadiz: No querer perderse nada—ni huevos

The next morning—now, finally, a party of five—we realized, simultaneously, that someone really should have learned Spanish for this trip—ignorant Americans. Actually, some of us are from California. So. That part of us thinks we already know Spanish (I kid. I kid—there is a little Spanglish in us).

We bumbled our way through breakfast—which went relatively smoothly, all things considered. The only casualty was that the middle-child 🙋🏻‍♀️ did not receive her breaky—at least not all of it. And she was sad. She pouted for quite some time. And, to ease her (my) pain, we visited another church.

This one—Iglesia Parroquial de la Inmaculada—had the Virgin Mary dressed in some extremely ornate clothing.

I did not quite understand the cultural significance of how Mary was dressed—it was and is my own ignorance. But, I have to say, I felt relieved that I did not have to wear what she had to wear. For even at 9 AM, I was already hot. And, be ye reminded (lest ye forget), that my feelings were still bruised from breakfast and the missing-eggs-gate. So, in some small way, I feel like mother Mary comforted me.

And. It was a lovely church.

Gibraltar: Get a piece of the Rock

Next, we were off to go see Gibraltar.

Gibraltar was fairly amazing. Monkeys. Big rock. Cranky travelers. Lord Nelson. What didn’t we have? Oh yes. We also had a death-defying cable car ride up the side of the mountain and an amazing view of the Mediterranean. Also, Africa—far off in the distance.

To be fair, we missed a turn on the walking leg of our hotel quest—because walking around in-person did not provide much directional relief over our in-car experience. We ended up circumnavigating basically the entirety of the town (with our giant suitcases). And, since the whole town is paved with brick and cobblestone… we made a lot of noise during our suitcase parade.

Also, there was that monkey who stole a bag of potato chips—and ate them as if he were holding court.

Tarifa has baggage

From Gibraltar, we drove to the peninsula of Tarifa which was even closer to Africa. Tarifa is one of those really cool fortress-cities that is super confusing to navigate on Google maps—because you can’t really drive anywhere. It is a pedestrian town that requires your foot power—only, the maps really do not say that expressly. So. We could see our hotel on the map but couldn’t actually get to it (by car). It was kind of like Venice minus the water. I did love, however, the castle walls and shops built into those castle walls.

But I think my fondest memory is the five of us participating in an impromptu and involuntary parade-of-tourists as we walked all through the town with our giant rolling suitcases. We made quite the ruckus. We made so much noise, in fact, that at one point, a shop owner came out to see just what was going on.

“Ah. It is just the Americans with their baggage.”

—aghast Tarifan shop owner

Unfortunately, Gibraltar was not the Apex of my crankiness—that honor goes to Tarifa. I was in no mood that evening to go out to dinner. But David, sweet David, claimed he had the cure for my mood—and dangit if he was not correct. This cure came in the form of a rooftop terrace.

Dave had found us this quirky little unmanned hotel that was super cute—yes, I said unmanned. The unmanned nature of it was odd but not too different from an Airbnb, really. After my crankiness died down a bit, the adorability factor of the hotel increased significantly.

For example: Our room had a small sitting area just as we walked in and then, immediately to the right, a spiral staircase led to a bed in a loft area. Totally Ghostbusters. Totes Adorbs.

Our room also had a set of French doors that led to the courtyard where a lovely ocean breeze was coming through. Mind you, so was the noise from the Spaniards drinking until literally 7 AM the next morning. But I didn’t mind so much—I was dead to the world that evening. I was more impressed with their longevity than anything else.

It was David and Daniel that won the game of hotel room roulette that night, however, with a similar room configuration but also with the addition of an entire full-size terrace and full set of patio furniture just outside a mini-door onto the roof. We had a bottle of wine and snacks and played cards and chilled on the rooftop terrace that night and enjoyed the breeze.

David was right. It was heaven. Heaven, in this case, also included birds who voided the contents of their intestines on your son and husband. Somehow that just added to the character of the evening.

I always suspected that God had a sense of humor. 😆