Resting my feet in Almuñecar

It's been a full week since finishing the camino. It's hard to accept that there are no more yellow arrows to follow until I pick up and do another one.
November 13th was my birthday and even though I've had over a month of it, all I wanted to do was walk. I traveled 31km, walking from one beautiful Spanish seaside town to another beautiful Spanish seaside town. While walking to my left there were many moments of fields, tall trees and water, to my right there were fields, tall trees and mountains. It drizzled off and on but that's what ponchos are for. I saw a pasture with a white donkey and a black sheep. I had to take off my shoes and socks at one point to walk through knee high water. I collected shells on the beach. It felt like an adventure. I'm happy to say I walked all the way to 'the end of the world' and then some.
I did miss family and friends by the end of the day, so it was nice to come back to a fb wall full of messages, and emails. Who would have thought I could miss Toronto so much! I've really come to love that city and all the wonderful people in it. Its been weird to see a non-cosmopolitan culture and having every restaurant and bar have very similar menus. I've learned the many differences between a Big city, a small city, a small town and a hamlet. Upon reaching Madrid I was very eager to eat Indian and Thai food. Both were easy enough to find and delicious but I still missed my cosmopolitan big safe city, Toronto.
Its been great being able to relax with family in Madrid and Granada and to be putting my feet down for a little while in Almuñecar. I used to call Almuñecar a small town but after seeing how small towns can actually get I am realizing it's a small city. I've found a few health food stores and bring home things that make my grandmother think I'm crazy. Oatmeal and green tea for breakfast has replaced hot chocolate, white toast and cookies. Spinach pasta for dinner is just loco and that I eat it at 7pm and not 10, tonto.

I have three goals while in Spain, learn how to cook from my grandmother, read and write in Spanish, write. So far I'm standing over Abuela's shoulder while she cooks until she shoos me away and reading Harry Potter in Spanish; highlighting all the words I don't know and then making new sentences for those words.

I love being so close to the beach, and even if they fuss a lot I'm glad to be close to my grandmother and aunt. I feel like I'm taking advantage of a very special opportunity. This is the first time I have enough Spanish to really understand my Abuela and the first time I've seen her retired and willing to say more than refranes, sayings.