Lita's Visit

We had our first official guest this week-end. Lita, mom's classmate flew in last Saturday from Rome to Madrid and rode the train to El Puerto where we picked her up from the station around 9 pm. I was gonna take a welcome to Puerto picture but my battery died. We had steak and corn on the cob for dinner with green tea for her, wine for mom and beer for me. We talked about lots of things especially seeing each other again in Europe after spending a lot of time together in Japan.

Went outside to the patio since the weather was still nice and continued on with the stories. Lita was called by her loving hubby Fumio from Japan who's looking forward to joining her in Rome and then coming over to Spain for a visit. We went inside after it started to get chilly and went to bed about midnight.


Got up around 7:30 and cooked tocino, eggs and warmed up the adobo and inihaw na bangus. It was a very heavy breakfast in preparation for our walk on the beach and around the area. It was a very beautiful day with the sky filled with clouds scattered like wisps of cotton. See pictures.

Walked down the beach and observed the people doing surf-fishing. They had their rods propped up on stakes driven on the sand and just wait for the fish to bite. We didn't see anyone catch anything and an older guy approached us to kid about one of his friends catching a 'big plastic thing'. There were families out there just having fun with kids running around.

We walked to Puerto Sherry following the walking trail and admired the multicolored buildings reminding us of San Francisco. Walked by the Marina and then along the boardwalk where some people were also fishing. Walked along the beach on the return trip climbing up some rocks and between boulders.


Took a shower upon getting back (we worked up a sweat!!!) and dressed up for church. We were not able to get a base pass for Lita so we had to drive around the base perimeter to get to Rota to attend one of the local masses. It turned out that the church that we went to was the same one that she attended a wedding ceremony when she came here for the first time.

Walked down to the beach area and took some pictures with the famous Rota lighthouse in the background and then proceeded to the parking lot after stopping by the co-op fish market.

We went home afterwards, changed clothes and lounged around the patio for a while while waiting for the landlord to come and pick up the rent. We went to the Venta Rufana Retaurant for brunch but the waiting was so long so went to the El Puerto restaurant area by the channel. All the places were packed too and we had to wait for about 30 minutes.

Most of the places were at a 'grab your own table' mode because of the time. Spain's lunch time is from 1:00 - 5:00 pm especially on week-ends and we got there about 2:30. The waiters were really busy and just taking orders and clearing tables. After snagging a table, we just helped ourselves and got the plates/silverware/condiment tray from their station. Mom ended up buying some of the food from the display counter because the waiters were really tied up.

We found out later that it was the preferred way of getting your food and then just ordering additional stuff from the menu later on. Menu for most of these restaurants are seafood and they had all kinds of shrimp, crabs, lobster steam-cooked fresh and are very good. Eating with your fingers is the norm and there's plenty of hand-wipes and napkins to clean your hands afterwards. Needless to say, we were full. We had to hurry up to the train station (about 3 minutes away) after eating because Lita's train (last one for Madrid) was leaving in 15 minutes. She made it though and called us when she arrived at Madrid. What a great week-end.