A visit to Carbón's former shelter in Spain

[Emily_Babbelhund]

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Hopefully Spain will bring some good surprises before you leave!

Definitely! Last weekend Carbon and I had a mega-tourist adventure with Seville on Saturday and Ronda and Zahara de las Sierras on Sunday. Reminded me how beautiful Andalusian cities are. This weekend we'll hit my favourite beach down south with cows and Roman ruins. If dogs aren't allowed there, I seriously will cry, but in that case I'll put Carbon's service dog vest on and go to the Roman museum, then go walk around Tarifa and maybe visit the castle.

And on another positive note, I used to cry every time leaving here, but frankly I'm already ready to drive out. We've got one great stop planned for the drive back to Germany that I'm really looking forward to.

PLUS I have taken the time to give a lot of thought to how I want next year's travel to look like and just life in general. This time in Spain has been very educational about what I want to do (@kateincornwall ).

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

Maybe just picking up on the weird Spanish vibes this year? Tomorrow is another day

More like weird "Emily" vibes. The place actually looked very good - they have very few dogs compared to 4 years ago and they all looked healthy and happy, playing in the central courtyard. Yes, the bum rushed the fence in waves where Carbon were sitting in a separate area, but you could tell it was a game and after a few minutes of barking, they'd just go back to playing.

But yeah, I still did NOT want to be there after the first 10 minutes of realising that I was just going to sit there in a cage by myself with Carbon because no one was coming. I used to get stuck there in that cage area a lot when I volunteered. At least this time Carbon was on MY side of the fence.

On a more serious note, it all really messed with my head. I made a couple stupid driving mistakes (nothing dangerous) on the way home and later yesterday evening on our walk, I jumped about a mile in the air at a few loud noises and having people too close really bothered me, all signs that my mental stuff was acting up.

So a quiet day today working, then I'm going to pack tomorrow and tourist on the weekend. Maybe "quiet touristing"!

 

[Beanwood]

@Emily_Babbelhund definitely a quiet touristing day with Carbon today....

 

[Granca]

Just catching up on this, Emily. I‘m sorry it didn’t work out better and you didn’t see Concha, but try not to dwell on it. Enjoy your ‘quiet touristing’ over the weekend.

 

[Atemas]

Take it gently @Emily_Babbelhund - maybe something is telling you that you are trying to do too much.

Whenever I see the word Ronda or see photos, I am reminded of an incident that happened some years ago. We travelled to Ronda from Estepona with my daughter and son in law and after walking around we had lunch there. We ordered pizzas and when they came the order was all wrong. I think I had a bit of sunstroke as I got really angry (completely out of character) and so the incident was labelled ‘Alison’s Pizza Rage’. My family never fail to remind me of it on a regular basis

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

I think I had a bit of sunstroke as I got really angry (completely out of character) and so the incident was labelled ‘Alison’s Pizza Rage’.

Oh my gosh, I had something similar happen when I took my father and his partner Donna to Siena in Italy. Also Pizza Rage! We went to this touristy restaurant right on the main square and they took FOREVER with our orders. All the other people around us, who had arrived after us, got their orders and we just sat there. I hate stopping for food anyway (massive waste of touristy time!), I particularly hate tourist pizza in Italy (don't ask) and plus Brogan was very old at that point and it was already a long day for him, so I worried about him too. I asked the waitress twice very politely where our food was and got "it's coming, it's coming" both times. The third time, I went into the restaurant, absolutely ranted at the owner, then stomped off to go to the cathedral with Brogan, leaving my father and Donna to wait for their pizzas. Complete meltdown!

As it turned out, that got Dad's and Donna's pizzas to them pronto, they enjoyed their lunch, and I had a cool-down walk around Siena with Brogan which I dearly needed. I hadn't ordered anything but a drink that I'd finished a long time before stomping off, so no Italian pizza went to waste either.

But yeah, travel can make you nuts sometimes!

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

Take it gently @Emily_Babbelhund - maybe something is telling you that you are trying to do too much.

And yes, you are right about this. I'm trying to mash activities that I used to do over 5 months into a couple of weekends. Plus work is a bear lately with me finishing around 11pm every night after a break to walk Carbon in the evening. Like I said, I will try for a big more quiet rate of tourism this weekend, plus I'm putting my "out of office" sign out for work colleagues starting tomorrow at noon.

 

[HAH]

Just catching up, and daaamn, I admire you for doing stuff. It feels like this Spaneesh trip may be more about transitions so far; sometimes it takes going back to old haunts/experiences to really hit home how much things have changed. We're supposed to evolve, so it feels like this might have been a helpful reminder, if not necessarily a comfortable one. Hopefully the next phase of your trip will be about fun, new discoveries and chillaxing on dog friendly beaches

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

sometimes it takes going back to old haunts/experiences to really hit home how much things have changed. We're supposed to evolve, so it feels like this might have been a helpful reminder, if not necessarily a comfortable one.

Absolutely perfect summary of this trip. It's been very uncomfortable, rather disappointing in some ways, incredibly frustrating in others (wifi, cold showers, no dog beaches and cockroaches) but I'm not sad I came.

Would I have rather been in Cornwall for an extra month? Hell yes. But I've learned a lot and have seen a lot of beautiful things, so I won't regret it.

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

What? Nobody took the bait and asked me about the cockroaches?