Uphill both ways

So Nate and I have once again embraced the Spanish life style. We wake up late (well, late for us, and my mother can certainly attest, it is not very late), we eat a breakfast of pastries, walk to do our daily shopping, eat lunch (with great local wine, of course), take a siesta, and go for a ride in the mountains, then eat dinner (cue more wine), and go to bed to start it all over again the next day. I have really been appreciating their very laid back life style. Everyone here is just relaxed. We had a fellow who was perfectly happy to drive behind us while we climbed up a mountain pass for a few kilometers, and then waived good naturedly when he finally passed on a more straight section of road. I could stay in Spain forever.

This morning Nate and I woke at the late hour of 0800 and headed out to do the shopping for the day as well as get breakfast and pick up a new cassette with slightly more gentle gearing for me. Being an idiot, I forgot to check my gearing and still had on a cassette that deals well with the rolling hills of Germany, but was killer on the mountains that surround Marbella. The guys at this great shop had a Campy 12-25 cassette that I was looking for, as well as a ton of super high end bikes that I was not. Having satisfied our need for bike things, we satisfied our need for chocolate with three large chocolate pastries. We walked back to our flat, ate some of the night before's "Vlad" pasta (so called as we got it from a Russian specialty store, and it was called "Putini" after Vladimir Putin and read until we fell asleep for Siesta (which, yes, they actually do here!). After waking up from our naps, we got kitted up to head out for a ride.

Nate and I started our ride with a hellish climb out of Marbella, as all of our rides have started. Once out of the city, we climbed into the mountains for what seemed like ages. We were passed by a couple of guys on one of the local teams, who climbed like mountain goats and looked like wonderful tanned Spanish gods. Needless to say we didn't try to keep up. We climbed into picturesque towns, and even found our way into some little caves. All in all it was a great ride, followed by a dip in the pool, and some grilled veggies, aged cheddar, fresh bread, and yes, more wine for dinner. I hope you all have enjoyed my random post, but I have had a hard time concentrating thanks to Nate looking through a Jamie Oliver cook book and exclaiming, "Oooohh that looks so good, we should make that," about every 10 seconds. We will hopefully post again tomorrow. Good-bye for tonight!