Kathy’s Return and Paella in Spain

This post has two principal subjects.

First, Kathy has returned from an extended stay in Romania (yay!), where she slipped off to directly from Madrid as we (the Parkland College troupe) returned to the States. Kathy was a Fulbright Scholar at University of Bucharest in 2000, has maintained relationships with colleagues there, and took the opportunity to return this summer. So, Cooper, Henry, and I are very happy to have her back in ‘da house! Here’s our mommy seeking shade in the Charles V palace in the Alhambra.

Second, is somewhat of a response to Jan’s Travel with Parkland post, where she talks about having paella at this place down the beach from our hotel in Nerja. I want to get the complete story out about this place – and, frankly, I don’t know what the name of it is. So, for now, I’m calling it The-Place-With-No-Name or TPWNN. Like Jan says, it is situated about a mile (west) down the beach from where we were staying, the Hotel Perla Marina. But, to get there, if one did not want to walk a much longer distance to a bridge, one is forced to ford a nicely-flowing stream as it dumps into the Mediterranean. Now, if you don’t want to ruin good shoes or sandals, you’ve got to go barefoot. And, the stones underfoot, while smoothly rounded by eons of flowing water, are hard and uneven and, for those with tender feet, a challenging little trek.

Ah, but the rewards of dinner at TPWNN are well worth the pain and suffering. Jan offered a photo of mine on her post and I will reproduce it here with a couple more. Note the large shrimps, still with tails and heads. Lennie showed us how to peel off the heads and suck out the insides, yummm. What you cannot see very easily are the calamari, the chicken, and other little delicacies hidden in the rice. And, that plateful only cost about 6 euro!

In the next photo, Tym and Michael dig in and in the background, one can see the ocean right outside the fenced area marking off TPWNN property boundary.

That’s Lennie hard at work and, if you look closely at the table behind her, well that’s Jan in the yellow baseball cap working on her plateful.

And, here are some photos of the paella in the large pan that Jan talked about. We were told this will serve about 200 folks and is their medium-sized pan. On weekends, they get out the big-pan to serve 300-350!!

After all that, all one can do is sit back, relax, finish your beer, and take the beach-walk back home.