I usually go to Thailand for the winter and particularly the north of Thailand but a couple of years ago things were a bit dicey in Thailand because the king had just died and Chiang Mai, where I normally stay was in fact the Summer Palace of the king so I decided to go visit some wonderful Russian friends of mine who live in Marbella Spain. First I went to Portugal which was very lovely and I wrote about that and then I went to visit my friends in Marbella. it was off-season so a lot of places were closed nevertheless we had a great time catching up, dining by the beach, shopping in the Canada Mall. It was a nice vacation but the same as Thailand. My hotel was on the beach but it was outside of Marbella so it wasn’t that easy to get in and out. However, I did take a few guided day trips on a minibus. I went to Gibraltar saw the monkeys that were interesting and I visited some of the more local places