Alicante from the air.
Fireworks over the city building & plaza with the castle on the mountain behind.
Unique flower planters...old shoes!
NK in a tree that has survived the modernization of Alicante from a fortress city on the shores on the Mediterranean to a bustling Spanish city.
People crowding into the main plaza below our veranda.
So spectacular. If you can be anywhere on New Year's Eve 2010, be in room 209 at the Mediterraneana Plaza in Alicante. Definitely a room with a view.
We toasted with champagne and kissed on the veranda above the masses at midnight as NK took video of the madness.
A street party.
In the lower right corner is the drum group ala Stomp.
NK the videographer.
Our crazy clown.
Ole!
The mad elf.
Blueman.
NK holding up the city of Alicante.
JH enjoying the vista on a cliff above the sea.
The rooftop patio at our hotel.
The plaza before the midnight masses.
JH standing next to ruins of an ancient fortress.
The Blue Moon.
A Jesus statue erected on the site of a Moorish Fortress. Remember the crusades?
An ancient walled city.
Relaxing along the seawall.
Long and winding roads through the Andalusian countryside.
NK skipping rocks into the sea.
Our hotel pool early in the morning.
Sunrise over the Mediterranean.
The Woman of Mojacar.
Stairs everywhere in the Mojacar Pueblo.
NK and I enjoying a restaurant terrace in Andalusia.
The fields are terraced everywhere in this region for groves of olives, oranges, lemons, bananas and root vegetables...and lettuce varieties. Also, there are many wine vineyards. We enjoyed some of the local table wine and brought some back to Norway.
Mojacar from the seaside.
The beach in front of our hotel.
Peaking into a mountaintop church.
NK enjoying lunch with a view.
Exploring caverns.
Orange orchards. The juice was magnificent.
A new year. 2010. Wow.
We read today that Betelgeuse might burn out in the next few years. What the heck? Betelgeuse has to be the star with the best name, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse. It is not my favorite like say Mizar or Alcor, but still. Burning out???
We spent New Years eve at a KA-RAY-ZEE celebration in Alicante Spain. We had a room overlooking the central plaza with a veranda to lookout at the Castle Santa Barbara. What we did't know is that all the people in Alicante go to the central plaza for a party which STARTS at midnight and then goes for hours of dancing and conga lines with loud music and thousands of hip wiggling Spaniards. It was a blast. We had the best room in the city...by accident. A group kind of like stomp set up below our veranda with their drums and played a concert which lasted about an hour. NK loved it.
December 31 was also a Blue Moon day. The second full moon in one month. We saw a beautiful corona around the moon as we walked along the beach front in Alicante.
We drove down the coast (Costa Blance) of Spain to a resort outside of Mojacar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojacar with a lovely beach front area with the mountains on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. Beind the hotel perched on the mountain was the Mojacar Pueblo where several hundred pepole still live. The town is whitewashed and cobbled together as it was when the African Moors established it. Described as being a mini-Casbah, it has winding roads and staircases leading up and up and up. It was so incredible. The sites and places I have been, this ranks in the top five. Sitting in a courtyard sipping drinks and snacking on local breads while enjoying the view for hundreds of miles. Amazing.
We enjoyed exploring all the ruins along the southeast coast of Spain. Old castles and fortresses from the Moors, Romans and Greeks. We enjoyed the food, the fresh orange juice from the orchards and the pleasant people. We celebrated our 14th anniversary in Spain. On the day of our anniversary JH had a touch of food poisoning, so NK took me out on a big date. He carefully selected a restaurant...that he liked...KFC. Yep, we ate chicken. NK was so proud and he at the restaurant he leaned across the table and asked me if there was anyone other than his daddy for me to celebrate my "honeymoon" with, was I glad it was him. Of course I was glad, even though we sat holding hands across the table at KFC. It was a perfect moment with my son. He is a great stand-in for his dad.
It was difficult to return to Norway the land of lots of snow, freezing temperatures and darkness. Since December 21 the days are getting longer...a tiny bit each day, but at least it is going in the right direction. It didn't take as long as we thought it would to dig our car out at the airport, but we had a long trip home in the bowing snow on snow and ice packed roads. But, alas, it was wonderful to be in my own bed.
