Adventure #9: Canary Islands

The Medtronic plant closes here the week of Christmas, and employees are required to take vacation - which was fine by us. We decided it was time for some sun, and booked a trip to Gran Canaria, one of the Canary Islands.

Gran Canaria is the third largest island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago located in the Atlantic Ocean 210 km from the northwest coast of Africa and belonging to Spain. The island is volcanic in origin and much closer to the equator; it was around 70 degrees each day the entire time we were there (lovely).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Canaria

We stayed in Playa del Ingles ("Englishmen's beach"), located on the southern tip of the island (the Costa Canaria), where all the other Northern European tourists stay to escape the winter cold. Christmas is the island's busiest week of the year, we were told. Lots of Germans, English, Irish and Scots there. Playa del Ingles was very touristy: lots of tacky souvenir shops, malls, arcades and restaurants that all served the exact same food and drink menus - only the restaurant logo in the corner was changed. But an open-air restaurant on a cliff with unobstructed views can serve whatever it wants, and people will come just for the scenery. We did, and the pizzas and banana splits were great. Playa del Ingles has a beautiful promenade that runs along the ocean called Paseo Costa Canaria. One of the most enjoyable parts of the trip was just walking along the paseo, looking out at the ocean, catching some rays and people watching. The beaches were very pretty - lots of beach umbrellas, windsurfers, kite surfers and parasailors, as well as people walking along the beach down to the sand dunes of Masopalomas.

Masopalomas, just west of PdI, has these amazing sand dunes - the only similarity to Africa we found on the island. It is truly a Spanish island - language, food, people, architecture, etc. After spending Sunday afternoon walking through the dunes, where we found it gets really windy around lunchtime (tradewinds), Damon decided it would be cool to walk the paseo down here on Christmas Eve morning and watched the sunrise. Spectacular!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maspalomas

We lounged by the pool some our first few days too, but it was usually partly cloudy and a little chilly for sunbathing without full sun. We also watched the sunset at Faro de Maspalomas, the site of the island's notable landmark lighthouse, built in 1886, long before the tourism boom. Another boardwalk starts here and runs up the west coast of the island - not sure how far it goes, possibly only to the next town. The camel rides were nearby, where we sadly learned that they simply put you in a double-metal chair (with another person) that hangs over the camel's hump and a guide leads a line of camels on a rope around in a contained pin - so we didn't opt for the 28 euro per person ride! There was also a cool statue here of a person riding a huge moray eel. And lots of nice shops and restaurants too.

A favorite memory of mine - not Damon's - would be the mercados, or street markets. The San Fernando mercado was held on Wednesday. There are great markets somewhere on the island almost every day of the week, but this was the closest one to PdI, located about 3-4 km northwest of our hotel. We walked there, and I bought a couple purses and some bling-bling jeans for Norah from the vendors in colorful tents pitched in a parking lot. We also found a cool gift for Ian.

The highlights of the trip were Thursday and Friday. We realized on Wednesday we needed a car to get out and explore the rest of the island. It took a half a day to find one (almost all were rented), and we finally coughed up 60 euros for a Leon Seat (whatever that is). It was a nice car, and we set out around 9 a.m. on our day-long road trip. Highlights included:

- Los Azulejos - a very cool rock formation in the southwest interior of the island where minerals and oxidization have left these beautiful shades of green and peach on the mountainsides. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuente_de_los_Azulejos

- Anden Verde - the coastal area on the west coast; beautiful drives along cliffs, the coastline, vegetable and fruit plantations, and tiny, charming towns. There were several vista points along the road where we stopped and took pictures; we could even see Tenerife, the next Canary Island west of Gran Canaria, which had a snowpeaked mountain called Teide, which is the highest point of Spain.

- Agaete - a little town on the west coast with beautiful whitewashed buildings and a botanical garden; we walked from here down to the boardwalk of Puerto de las Nieves.

Puerto de las Nieves - a sleepy little fishing village with a small port for ferries to Tenerife. Very quiet, charming - colorful buildings, small beach, surfers catching waves near the rocks. The manmade wall they've created to protect the city from surge during hurricanes was also impressive.

- Roque Nublo - means the "Rock Clouded" in Spanish; a monolith vertical rock that is 80 m tall. It is one of the most famous landmarks in the island of Gran Canaria. The elevation is 1,813 m ranking it second on the island and one of the tallest in the archipelago. It's located in the mountainous interior of the island, called the Cumbre. We arrived here after circling the entire island by car, then driving straight north of Playa del Ingles about one hour into the mountains. Stunning views, and lots of curvy, windy roads, which Damon enjoyed driving along. We hiked into Roque Nublo and watched the sunset. Maspalomas and the ocean were visible through the fog. It was about 40 degrees at Roque Nublo and still 70 degrees at the beach! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_Nublo

Our last day on the island, Friday, was fantastic. We took the city bus to Puerto de Mogan, a fishing village known as "Little Venice" due to its network of tiny bridges in town. Brightly colored Bouganveilla - oranges, pinks, purples - covered overhead arches and doorways on whitewashed Spanish-style buildings with tile roofs. Fisherman brought in the daily catches, local boys challenged tourists to "throw money in the water" so they could dive in and catch the coins before they hit bottom. The largely popular mercado is held here every Friday, which I visited while Damon snapped lots of great photographs. We walked along the town lagoon - a beach we wish we had discovered earlier in the week, as it was peaceful with very little wind - then had lunch on the boardwalk before catching a ferry boat that took us on a leisurely tour along the southwest coast before ending in Arguineguin, a working port town where we took the bus back to Playa del Ingles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_de_Mog%C3%A1n

We enjoyed a few authentic Spanish tapas meals, one on Sunday and another on Christmas evening. Tapas Tango and Capaco are run by the same family and were lots of fun - great atmosphere, live music, food, wine. http://www.tapasbarcapacotango.com/ We also had an amusing Christmas Eve dinner at a place called ROMA, that alleged it was Italian, but was really a mix of international dishes - and everyone there was eating steak and potatoes! How sad; we had pizza and pasta while listening to some guy named Lorenzo who was up on a stage in front of the dining room with an electric keyboard and microphone. He looked like a bus driver and sang a song called, "The Pizza Song," which was sadly in our heads all week! It was a really funny night. We found an amazing Italian restaurant later in the week called Il Duomo di Milano farther inland from the beach. Many of the guests were Italian, so we were in the right place. :) Our last meal was at sunset on the Paseo Costa Canaria, savoring pizzas, Spanish wine, great views and fun memories from the week.

We went out to a few clubs on Friday night, but couldn't find a place where anyone was dancing, so we vowed to go dancing in Galway some night soon when we returned home.

Discovering Galway - week one

During the house-hunting frenzy, we were able to find some time on Thursday and Friday to see the sites and explore most of Galway. We been lucky and had beautiful weather the entire first week - no rain, partly cloudy skies, sea breezes, 70 degrees.

On Thursday afternoon, Damon took me down to the docks where the Corrib River, which runs through the city, meets the sea at Ballyknow Quay. This is where Damon took the beautiful pictures of the swans back in September 2004, the first time he visited Galway for work. The swans were still there with hundreds of seagulls and pigeons and a few ducks. We watched parents and children feed the swans and pigeons pieces of bread, took some pictures and walked along the beginning of the promenade, which starts in a green-meadowed park (South Park/Claddagh) along the sea by city centre. There are walking and bike paths along the "prom," as the locals call it.

We also enjoyed a few meals down in city centre since arriving in Galway - one at Gemelle's on Quay Street, where Damon had a delicious pork dish with sauteed mushrooms and mashed potatoes and I had a lemon-parmesan risotto with vegetables - and another at Mustard, just off Quay Street, a place known for its gourmet pizzas. We had a pizza with serrano ham, rocket (that's what they call lettuce here), local goat cheese, roasted peppers and herbs. It was quite good, and we'll definitely go back. We also had a nice meal at The Thai Garden, recommended to us as the best Thai restaurant in Galway, located right on the docks. The portions were very large and responsibly priced (around 16 Euro for an entree with rice). We'll definitely go back there too.

On Friday morning, we walked from city centre all the way down the prom to Salthill, our new neighborhood, which took about 30 minutes. We checked out the gym, Leisureland http://www.leisureland.ie/, and then looked into several of the shops in Salthill. We made friends with the owner of our local wine shop, who tasted us on a Cotes du Rhone and only carries wines from Italy, France and Spain - and only from tiny producers. We stopped at Da Roberto's, an Italian restaurant recommended to us by our agent. We had two salads and shared a pizza with pepperonis, mushrooms and peppers - the tomatoes on the salad weren't too favorful, but we are spoiled in California - but we'd definitely come back. The pizza price of 13 Euro was reasonable, and the restaurant is maybe a half-mile from our apartment. There were pictures on the walls of Lucca, the walled village in western Tuscany we visited two years ago on our honeymoon. Our waitress was Australian - the third Aussie waitress we've had - she was very sweet and next time we'll find out what the Lucca connection is; perhaps the owners are from Lucca? And I also need to find out what the connection is between Australia and Ireland - is it just that Aussies come here during their winter due to their countries past ties with the U.K.?

On Saturday we were going to go the Aran Islands http://www.arandirect.com/, off the coast of Galway - but we made the decision too late and missed the first ferry. It was a glorious day - sunny skies - perfect for a visit to the islands. It is supposed to rain on Sunday, so we may have missed our opportunity to visit the Arans for another week or so. I hope the weather holds. Instead we visited the big farmers' market down by St. Nicholas's Cathedral near city centre. My observations at the market:

- The broccoli florets are smaller than those in the U.S.
- The cauliflower are about the same size
- Carrots here are much bigger
- Cherry tomatoes have the best flavor here (the big tomatoes are bland)
- The strawberries are smaller
- The cheese selections are amazing!
- The oysters are bigger here (sadly, I like the small ones)
- Hummus is big here (many types sold at the farmers' market)
- Pestos are big here (many types sold at the farmers' market!)

My next adventure will be to the grocery store next week. Should be fun.

Our arrival into Galway, Ireland

Greetings from the Emerald Isle! We look forward to sharing all of our experiences of living and traveling abroad with you while Damon is on a one-year assignment with his company, Medtronic, here in Galway, Ireland.

After barely making our connecting flight at Chicago O'Hare - they had to re-open the computer terminal to check us in 45 minutes before departure - we settled into a comfortable seven-hour flight aboard Aer Lingus, the main airline of Ireland, replete with a bright, green clover on the tail wing. Once we arrived (the morning of Monday, September 10) into Shannon International Airport, about 1 hour, 45 minutes south of our new home town of Galway, the friendly customs agent took our passports and Damon's work VISA for about 30 minutes, so she could get us set up in the system. Before suggesting that we go collect our bags while waiting for her to finish this computer work, she asked, "What part of California are you from?" I told her that we lived near Napa Valley, and she said with a thick Irish accent, "Well, heavens, my dear. Why would you want to spend one year here on this rainy island?" Then she proceeded to say that it wasn't that bad, and that Galway was a beautiful city.



Damon and I stood at the baggage carousel and made bets on whether or not our luggage made the mere 45-minute connection. We both thought it was unlikely we'd have a toothbrush or our contact lenses cases that night. Shockingly, ever single bag made it - and all in good order. Because Damon is always thinking ahead, he gave fair warning to the car service on our baggage quantity - eight plus carry-ons. We learned that they would be sending a mini-van in lieu of a "saloon car" then. (One of the many new terms we are learning; it's what they call a sedan.) We were greeted by a driver that Medtronic had arranged, a nice fellow who recently returned from his first vacation to the United States - they went to Disneyland in Southern California, as well as San Diego and Las Vegas. We chatted about San Diego and Las Vegas most of the drive up to Galway (two of our favorite cities). His mini-van was almost too big. :)



My first observations while driving through the countryside of Shannon and Ennis leading up to Galway:



- There were more bushes amidst the green pastures than I expected

- The cows are more stout/stocky than ours (big hooves, thick legs)

- There are sheep everywhere (the stories we read are true)

- Most country land is divided by squatty, old, stacked-stone walls (very charming)

- Cars are bigger here than in Italy (still a little smaller than most cars we drive in the U.S. - you rarely see SUVs - but we still haven't seen a SmartCar here; just Toyota Yarises)

- There will always be heavy traffic if you go anywhere between 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. (when school and work days begin)

- School kids have it great here (they start at 9 a.m., out at 2:15 p.m.)

- The architecture reminds me a lot of the countryside just outside of London (although the Irish probably won't like to hear me say that) - stucco houses, tudor-style rooflines, bright-colored doors, very few garages

- Driving on the left-hand side of the road seems weird, and the fact that the driver of the car is in the passenger side is even stranger (I guess we'll get used to it)



We'll be staying at the Radisson Hotel in Galway until we find an aparment. Apartment-hunting begins tomorrow. http://www.radissonhotelgalway.com/