Marbella & Costa Del Sol Post

Editor's note, I have spent most of Thursday trying to get these darn posts done. So you had all damn well better leave some feedback. I have been kicked out of three coffee shops, drank 5 espressos to buy time in said coffee shop and have now landed in that elusive beast of internet cool : Irish Sports Pub that offers free (but slow) internet. Needless to say this is going to get done tonight now that I have "settled in".

Editor's note part 2 : As I am already done with my first Guinness and only two pictures have been uploaded I might not get done with the post after all. That and now I have apparently befriended a 4 year old name William. Apparently he is visiting from Dublin and turns 5 around Christmas. He wants to use the laptop to use MS Paint. Needless to say, not the quickest work environment. Plus the internet is really slow.

We spent 7 day in the Costa del Sol. Basically Spain’s southern coast. We flew into Malaga and took a one hour cab ride to Marbella. We stayed up the coast from Marbella at the Don Carlos Golf resort for two nights for Paty’s company European sales kick off. The hotel was nice, but it was an 11 Euro cab ride to Marbella. The beaches were nice, not Cancun nice, but still nice. The entire trip it was about 77 degrees for a high and mid 60’s for a low. Great weather for October!

The first day we arrived late on Monday October 9th, yes our anniversary. Thanks to all of you who sent greetings! 7 years has brought quite a change for the Tobin’s. Heck, the last 7 months has brought quite a change, but that is another post. We hung out with a bunch of Paty’s co-workers at the hotel’s terrace bar, it was pretty nice. And we were proud to close down the bar at 4 AM.

I was planning on golfing the next two days, but the 4 AM thing with open bar pretty much nixed that idea. So I decided to walk on the beach to Marbella. How far can it be?

Yes, that is the view from out room, Marbella is off somewhere in the haze. View from our room towards beach and on site clay tennis center:

So the walk to Marbella took 2 hours and 15 minutes on soft sand to the edge of the town. Needless to say, the hangover was gone when I finally got there. But there really wasn’t anything going on in Marbella even the seagulls were having a slow day:

Pretty slow Tuesday at the beach:


Marbella proper:

On Wednesday I golfed. Here is the view from our room at 9:30 AM for my 10:45 tee time:

Luckily the haze lifted:

The Rio Real Marbella golf course. I played with Sami from Finland and shot a respectable 89.
My new friend Sami dropped me off at the hotel and Paty and I changed hotels as her conference was over and now it was time for HOLIDAY!
Our new hotel:


Nice place, except for the fact that it was way the heck outside of town in the other direction. The expedia website said it was 1 km from the beach, incorrect! It was 3 km to the beach. The website said 3 km from Puerto Banus, the place with the cars, incorrect! 6 km to Puerto Banus or 9 Euros in a cab. Needless to say we spent a lot on cabs these 5 days. New post for the holiday portion of the trip.

The Filthy Rich

Marbella is a nice place to visit. I think that the splendor has worn some over the years and now it is a little busier than is desireable and much more overbuilt to be attractive. But because of the Marina:

A little personal boat:

The rich still congregate here:








The only other places you can find these cars are in the Project Gotham Racing video game or Stephan Marbury's garage!


The excess is almost strange to watch it is so over the top at times. Along with the Ferrari's, Masserati's, Lambroughgini's and Bentley's you are apt to see a lot of Sugar Daddy's with their trophy wife or girlfriends.





Notice the great wicker seats on this one:

The Filthy Rich

Marbella is a nice place to visit. I think that the splendor has worn some over the years and now it is a little busier than is desireable and much more overbuilt to be attractive. But because of the Marina, the rich still congregate here:





This post still has more to go, I just wanted to get something in quickly.....

Why the Irish Drink

The Pint of nice fresh perfectly poured Guinness = 3.60 Euros
The little glass of diet coke = 2.40 Euros

Enough said.

Galway Weekend

Okay, so today we embarked on our first weekend day in Galway together. As an aside, Ireland is 8 hours ahead of the Pacific Time zone. So we caught up one hour from Brussels.

Friday night we went to the Galway United v Shamrock Rovers football match. I would put the score right here, but all I can tell you is that Galway was up 1-0 at half time. The teams were a curious mix of young guys and some aged veterans. I can’t help thinking that at age 22 I could have played for either team. If not me, then I for sure know about six guys that would have been stars. They did play really hard and very physical, but the team ball control wasn’t quite the Premiership. I don’t think that Reading FC is going to be looking for some lads in Galway. But the stadium was really cool, very small 2500 seats on one side of the pitch and then a walkway all the way around the other 3 sides of the field that people stood about 6 feet from the touch line and watched. Not a bad seat in the house. I would have liked to have stayed for the duration as the atmosphere was great! What the fans lacked in numbers they made up for in enthusiasm. Plus I heard an usher say that he thought this might have been a record attendance for Terryland Park. But predictably my other half was ‘cold’. Here are a few pictures:



Today is a Euro 2008 qualifier day. That means that there is no club football across Europe, but every country is playing meaningful qualifying matches for the 2008 European championships. Ireland plays at Cyprus today and then home to the hated Czech Republic on Wednesday. Thus my Ireland jersey is coming in handy as I fit right in. Pub bound for the evening as a result!
This picture was taken on Quay street as we were exploring our best option to watch the Ireland match. Quay Street (pronounced Key Street) is the main walking only road with all the restaurants, pubs, clubs and shops that all European towns seem to be blessed with.
P.S. to Match day. Ireland LOST to Cyprus 5-2. It has been called, justifiably so, the biggest disappointment in the history of Irish football. They were really bad, I mean Cyprus? SERIOUSLY?
Not much else going on, still no internet. Again I am at the coffee shop while writing this. Paty is typing out an e-mail on the Livestrong computer. So I am compiling this wonderful story on MS Word on her computer as she does not have wireless access.

All weekend they have been really worried about flooding, this is the river about 10 meters from our front door:

Luckily the weather behaved all weekend as if there was a lot of wind and rain to go with the inordinately high tides, then we would have been paddling to the pub in a little row boat.
Picture from Eyre square, in the center of Galway city. Notice the orange coat. That is pretty much all I wear here as if can be sunny and beautiful and then five minutes later be raining extremely hard. So if you are in Galway and see some dude cruising around town while most people should be at work in an orange coat, odds are it is me.



Monday we leave for Spain, we fly into Malaga and are spending 7 nights in Marbella. I am bringing the golf clubs as we are staying the first two nights at the Don Carlos Golf Resort. I plan on golfing at least Tuesday and Wednesday while Paty is at her conference. Then we switch to a less expensive hotel, Barcello Marbella Golf Resort, Wednesday night as we are footing the bill for the next five nights. Very apropos that both hotels are on golf courses! Apparently the Costa Del Sol is known as a golf destination.

Running in Ireland

Today I went on a run, who are we kidding a jog that was barely faster than a crawl. I almost got passed by a lady with her walker. Luckily I kicked a rock at her wheels and she got held up.

But courtesy of a friend of mine(ours depending on who is reading), Keri Baker, I found a great place to run. I left my apartment and promptly ran to Salthill. This is a town 3 km up the coast from Galway. It also boasts the largest seaside promenade in Europe. At least that is what the tourist sign I stopped to read said. So the advantage of running on this promenade are two fold:
One - I don't have to dodge any cars driving on the wrong side of the road, only old ladies with walkers.
Two - Since it is a seaside promenade by definition it is FLAT!

This is a huge divergence from my occasional foray into the running world at my house in West Seattle. I can't avoid hills there. Here even though the name of the town is Salthill, there are no hills! Awesome. Next I might try to even go a little farther as I don't think my 36:30 run actually took me more than 4 miles, if that.

Although in my defense, I think I ran through four different climate changes in a short time frame. Sunny, light rain, sideways rain and huge rainbows were all to be had. Welcome to Ireland Chris, get used to it kid!

Still no internet in the house, I am again at the coffee shop across the street. I will take some pics over the weekend as Paty and I are spending it in Galway with no plans except to see Galway United tonight take on the Shamrock Rovers. Galway is #1 in the table and Shamrock is #2, but Shamrock has two games in hand. Should be a good match. Tonight is an 'all seater' match. Meaning you have to buy your ticket in advance. This is normally not the case as not a lot of people go to these games I guess. 2500 seat stadium, so we will probably have good seats! Kick off at 7:45, should be warm! Paty is pumped up about the outing as you can imagine....

Galway At Last

This is probably going to be a shorter post as we still do not have internet at the apartment(okay, still might be a little tough we have only been there for 18 and a half hours).

But I wanted to post some pictures of the apartment and area that I took yesterday.
These first three are from our balcony, yes balcony. If you notice, and it is hard to miss, there is a pub directly across the street. And what is that next to it you ask? That is a Ladbroke's. Basically a sports betting place, the largest in the UK and Ireland. Then next to that is what they call an 'off license shop'. I was curious what that meant. And basically it is a store that stays open later then the grocery stores and sells all sorts of beer and wine. So what it boils down to is that if I am in the mood for a Guinness, I pop across the road and on the way I can make a bet on the Seahawks and afterwards I can pick up a six pack or some wine until midnight. You can probably guess how I feel about the location Paty chose. I think it is going to work out.




These pictures are of our apartment. It is brand new, I had to take all the stickers off the fridge, unwrap the oven racks, get all the packing out of the dishwasher, etc... So Brand Brand new. Hardwood floors in the living areas. Marble tile in the entryway and bathrooms. Two bedrooms and two baths, plus the aforementioned balcony. From the Balcony to the left is the start of Galway bay. We are across the street from the water; a small river runs below our balcony as you can see. For those of you familiar with Galway, we are located across the river from the start of Quay Street.




As Paty was not feeling good, and as of this writing still is not. I had to venture out alone last night. I know what you are all thinking, what type of person would leave his sick wife at home alone on their first night in their new home?

In a word, me.

I admit, I am selfish. But in my defense, we had been in Ireland for six hours as we flew in to Dublin, rented a car and drove across the country to Galway. In all that time, I kept hearing this little voice in the back of my head extolling me to partake of the national drink and I resisted. Once we got settled and I brought up all the bags, of which there were many as you can see. I could not resist the pull of the Guinness.

Sue me.

By the way, if first impressions are any indication. I love this place. Small enough to not be enveloped by the hustle and bustle like Brussels. But large enough to have events going on that can keep one busy. After day 1, staying longer is definitely winning. I forgot to mention, but on my outing last night I found out about the local soccer team and have tickets for Friday night!

Beautiful Day in Brussels

We spent Saturday walking around Brussels. When I say walking around, I mean we walked through almost the whole city. Took a few pictures, it was beautiful weather.

As you can see, the time in Europe has really agreed with Paty:

Now we are back to being 'El Gordo y la Flaca'

Nice big church (correction from Paty, this is a Cathedral NOT church), I think I have the same picture from the same spot about 45 posts ago. But being as it is now fall instead of spring, the light is different. And the chuch (Cathedral) is still beautiful:

This is a character from the Tin Tin cominc series. He was feature in Tin Tin Goes to the Moon. They take their comics very seriously in Belgium. All Brussels has statues or the two kings Leopold and the comic heroes from Tin Tin.

Next post, Galway!

The Problem with low cost airlines

One of the wonderful inventions in the world is the low cost airline. They fly all over Europe. It seems like you can get from anywhere to anywhere for about 100 Euros or less. So with the great exchnge rate currently about $250 roundtrip at the max.
The problem is, like so many other US airlines, they are now trying to make money. One way to do that is to charge for baggage. Here is the policy:
Free Baggage Allowance:
* A maximum of 2 Bags per passenger.
* Premier Class: A maximum of 30kgs (66lbs) in total weight.
* Economy Class: A maximum of 20kgs (44lbs) in total weight.
Now, for those of you that did not see what I brought over, it was 3 large bags weighing 30 kgs, 25 kgs and 20 kgs respectively. Plus my golf clubs.
The root of the problem and this is only my stuff:

So that is about 75 kgs of bags. With an allowance of 20 kgs, I am 55 kgs over. What can they charge for that you say?
Baggage exceeding your free allowance will incur charges:

* Bags in excess of the free baggage allowance will be charged excess baggage at €8 or equivalent per kilogram.
Thus, I am going to owe about 440 Euros. Like almost 600 dollars just to move my bags courtesy of:

Paty has almost the same amount of luggage, which would put our total bill at over $1,000 just to move.
This is not going to happen.
So the new plan to combat this problem is we are each going to bring one large bag and leave the rest in Brussels at Paty's office. Then after our Spain trip, I am planning on driving from Galway to Brussels and back to pick up the rest of the luggage. Crazy that it is cheaper to drive about 1500 miles round trip than check the baggage. Thank you Aer Lingus!
At least I will be able to see the English countryside from the left side of the road...