Well, it’s official. My mom and dad finally agreed, after me being here for almost 2 years, to come visit me in Spain. Ya, ya. I get it, I really do. I'm a drifter, I haven't lived in the same place for more than 6 months since college. They never thought I’d actually commit to being here this long, and certainly not as far in advance as they could book an international plane ticket. But here I am. And here they came.
They only agreed to come for a week, and although this seemed like a cruel tease, I tried to cram as much sight seeing as I possibly could into one week. I got access to the big red company van for the day and started our trip by picking them up (and on time, I might add) from Málaga. I was ready to get things started and ready to use my new visitors as an excuse to see some parts of Spain that I hadn't seen before. Mostly, the more expensive areas south of Málaga on the Costa del Sol. First Stop: Puerto Banús.
Puerto Banús is a gorgeous little seaside marina and town located on the South side of Marbella and created in the style of Monte Carlo to be a hot spot for yacht stoppers and the rich and famous. It's streets are lined with high end fashion designer boutique shops like Cartier, Armani and Versace and the marina here is chocked full of 50-100ft yachts with tinted windows and weather stations. I had always heard wonderful things about Puerto Banús (especially the nightlife) but at a solid 1.5 hour away from me, and no one willing to spend $15/cocktail, I found myself never having the opportunity to go. Enter the Rick and Terr and I finally have my opportunity. We pulled into a parking garage and finally found a spot. I maneuvered the giant Red VW van in between a Mercedes S class and a Maserati (an impressive event) and we headed up to walk around town.
The thought at this point was to take the two to a restaurant which wouldn't initially freak them out; they'd just gotten off of a long plane ride and I thought (mistakenly) let's go to the American restaurant! Wrong. My chicken fingers with Ranch were excellent. But they ordered hamburgers and pizza which turned out to not be so great. Probably because frozen chicken fingers taste great, but frozen hamburgers, not so much.
Unfortunately, after our 2 hour drive back to San Ambrosio, inclusive of a trip to the GIANT Carrefour in Los Barrios, we pulled up to Luis for dinner only to find out they were closed. So off we went to Miguel's, whose food is definitely not my favorite, and we had another so-so meal. The only difference between our mediocre meal in Puerto Banus and our mediocre meal in San Ambrosio is that the one in San Ambrosio literally included almost twice as much food, definitely twice as much drink, free shots of honey rum at the end (he left the bottle on the table for us) and cost us less than a third of what the meal cost a bit up the coast.
But, there were no Ferraris at Miguel's, so I guess it's all relative.