Fun with friends in Spain

First, a word or two about the accommodations, and the participants. There were five couples involved. Lars Helge & Tove Brunborg, and Chuck & Barb stayed in Brunborg's small but comfortable three-story villa in the small village of Itrabo. Across the small alley/street, Rasmus & Kari, Per & Ingunn, and Mardon & Marie stayed in the somewhat larger three-story villa of Bjoergulf Haukelig. (Bjoergulf was unable to attend the Almond Festival, but joined us on the last day.)

On the first evening, after all participants had arrived, there was an opening ceremony on the top floor of the Haukelig villa. Lars Helge officiously welcomed the participants to the First Annual International Almond Festival, and presented each participant with a) a medallion fashioned from a cross-section of an almond tree, appropriately inscribed with the occasion and the person's name, and b) a large woven mat, suitable for reclining upon during harvesting breaks or beach visits. Lars Helge also distributed a 10-day schedule containing proposed times and locations for harvesting, sightseeing, shopping, beachifying, etc. The schedule also assigned a different set of two couples to be in charge of shopping for and preparing the evening meal for each night of the festival. Breakfasts were to be handled separately, as the residents of each villa saw fit. Lunches would be taken in restaurants, with Lars Helge picking up the tab and splitting up the bill among the five couples at the end of the festival. Dinner followed the opening remarks, and then, as is usually (always?) the case with a ceremonial dinner presided over by Lars Helge, there were singing and speech making. Chuck gave a brief speech about almonds -- an assignment he had received earlier in the summer from Lars Helge on the occasion of his and Tove's visit to Tusen Takk II in the Chesapeake, on the pretext that since America produces 80% of the world's commercial almonds, an American must be an expert.

In the opening ceremony, Lars Helge emphasized that the schedule was only a tentative suggestion, and that we should feel free to improvise and/or abstain as much as we pleased, so long as we got the almonds picked. :-) As it turned out, the schedule turned out to be mostly accurate. Item #1 for each day was to meet outside of the villas for a brisk one-to-one-and-a-half-hour walk along the primitive roads and paths that switch back and forth across the mountain sides immediately adjacent to Itrabo. Almost everyone participated almost every day, but only Lars Helge and Barb made it everyday. Chuck and Rasmus on most days went off on their own, jogging. They would return first and have their showers finished by the time the rest arrived, bearing fresh bread that had been purchased still warm from the oven of the bakery on the edge of the village. We don't know what the Haukelig villa ate, but suspect they too enjoyed smoerbroed -- make-it-yourself open-faced sandwiches featuring sliced ham, sliced cheese, sliced tomato, sliced hard-boiled egg, sliced sweet red pepper, liver pate and fruit preserves. Not all on one sandwich, of course. :-) And orange juice and coffee or tea to drink. So, the lunches -- all taken in restaurants -- were pure Spanish, but the breakfasts were pure Norwegian. We loved them, and miss the smoerbroed made with fresh bread.

In the middle of the week we went for a longer morning hike, taking two cars up to a high village and then walking for three hours back to Itrabo. Billed as the "Almond March", we passed along spectacular visas of the terraced slopes that characterize this part of the world. We had our frokost (breakfast) on the trail that day.

Mardon & Marie, and Barb & I took one of the three rented cars to Granada -- Mardon driving; as a Norwegian he is a good bit more experienced than we are at driving on narrow winding mountain roads. We visited the famous Alhambra ruins, and then had a late lunch in adjoining downtown Granada. The shops were elegant, as were the side-walk restaurants. Lars Helge and Tove stayed home, and the other two couples also took a car to Granada, but their goal was to drive half-way up and then walk the rest of the way up to the top of the highest mountain in Spain: Mulhacen. Ingunn sported a blushing red sunburn for several days thereafter.

We all took several other side trips. One, to several villages in the Sierra Nevada, one to the coastal city of Almunecar, and one up the mountain village of Guajar Alto. On each of these trips, we had a late lunch. The quality ranged from very good to spectacular. We also went to the nearby coastal village of Salobrena, where we tended to do our shopping, beach bumming, and lunch eating.

Of course, there was also a closing banquet, during which additional speeches were given, songs were sung, and Bjoergulf was presented with the "Golden Almond Award" along with tokens of appreciation for having provided lodging for three of the couples and dining facilities for five.

The next morning we and Mardon & Marie departed for Malaga -- after the requisite hike (or run) and breakfast, of course. We turned in our car at the airport, took a cab and checked into a hotel in downtown Malaga, and ventured off to see the Picasso museum and the historic Alcazaba ruins. The museum was a real treat. The ruins were spectacular, but not nearly so impressive as Alhambra in Granada. In any case, we ran out of time and had to terminate our explorations; so we repaired to a sidewalk cafe for drinks and tapas before retiring to our room to get some important rest before the 25-hour flight and 4-hour drive back to our boat.