I was very impressed with Malaga, Spain. We left the ship and saw taxis waiting. We caught a taxi tour with a very nice man named Tony. He drove Susan, Liz and I on a wonderful tour of the city. We drove to Castillo de Gibralfaro, a military garrison and coastal lookout post from 1487. It was very impressive and everything was uphill. Then we went to a house that Pablo Picasso was born in and it is now a small museum with some of his artwork on display plus family history and photos. Then we walked a little with Tony showing us the sights. We saw Teataro Cervantes and we walked around a plaza. We visited a Roman theater and we continued our walking tour of the old part of town. We entered a restaurant named Bodega Bar El Pimpi and there were pictures and autographs of famous people who have visited the restaurant. Antonio Banderas has been there many times and I learned that Malaga is the city he was born in. Be still my heart. As we left the restaurant we saw our other four friends entering and they were having lunch at that restaurant. It was a good day and we were exhausted when we arrived back at the ship. It has been very warm everywhere so we were happy to settle in and rest before Happy Hour and dinner.

Monday, Sept 5th
Today we are at sea all day. We can see the coastline of Spain and many cargo ships. We met for breakfast and out the windows we could see dophins playfully jumping. After breakfast I attended a Windows 10 workshop and almost understood what the teacher showed us. Then I went upstairs to the computer room and signed up for computer minutes. I was finally able to get on my blog but was unable to post pictures. Tonight I went to guest services and a nice young man spent about an hour helping me upload my pictures. Tomorrow we dock in Cadiz, Spain. It is suppose to be very hot so we may not do a lot of sight-seeing.

Tuesday, Sept. 6th
We went on a Hop On Hop Off bus tour around the city of Cadiz, Spain. The tour lasted about an hour and then we walked around the narrow streets looking in shops. Susan and I visited a cathedral and then we met up for lunch. Three of our group went back to the ship and Liz, Lola, Susan and I had lunch in a tapas bar. Lola went back to the ship and Liz, Susan and I got back on the Hop On Hop Off bus again and got off to visit a church which was closed. Why didn’t they tell us that? We found a wonderful park to walk through. We came back to the ship and had dinner in the buffet. Then we saw a special performance of the traditional Spanish dancing art form, Flamenco. We enjoyed the performance.

Wednesday, Sept. 7th
We arrived at Gibraltar early in the morning. We walked out of the ship and found a friendly guy named Albert with a taxi and he took us on a wonderful tour. We went all the way to the top of the rock. We saw monkeys, the Tunnel of Siege and walked through caves. We were dropped off in the center of the town and had a great lunch at Hacienda Patagonica Tapas and Grill Bar. Then we walked all the way back to the ship.

Today we got up and caught the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus and rode to Placa de Catalunya filled with fountains, statues and pigeons. We strolled along the center of the city on Las Ramblas. We had already seen Gaudi’s magnificent Sayrada Familia cathedral. The cathedral is a spectacular monument to spirituality and we toured the interior in awe. We continued our stroll down the busy street Las Ramblas filled with tourists, souvenir shops and restaurants. We had reservations at a restaurant called Senyor Parellada and had a leisurely lunch. Then we strolled to visit another church, bought some wine to take on the ship and then went back to the church to find the nearest bus stop. We finally asked a nice girl where we could catch our bus and she said to follow her and she would take us to the bus stop. We arrived back at our apartment and relaxed drinking wine and snaking until bed time.
Sunday morning we got up and packed for our departure on the Oosterdam. Our van arrived and we loaded up all the luggage and off we went to our next adventure.
We arrived at the ship and after waiting in line we finally got the keys to our room.

Our first adventure in Barcelona was realizing our luggage didn’t arrive with us.  I was so upset because a young girl at LAX talked me into giving up my carry on which had my medicine and my jewelry in it because the plane was so full there wouldn’t be room in the overhead for my suitcase.  I was nice and let her talk me into it.  She said not to worry as it would arrive when I did.  Well it didn’t.  We finally  got it yesterday.  They delivered our suitcases to the rental office of the apartment because they said I never answered my cell phone.  I carried it in my hands for two days waiting for the call so what happened?

Today I will have my camera and will take pictures.