Today we changed our plans to go to Tangier and took the day off. It was a multitude of things but primarily Andrew is tired! Driving in Gibraltar was hard on him – with all the tight streets he had to really concentrate on his driving and with all the motorcycles and various people on other types of moving devices like scooters it is a lot to watch out for. They love to drive down between the waiting traffic and sit at the front of the line at a red light and then zoom off! It is quite distracting – even for a passenger! So we basically relaxed in our nice 7th floor hotel room with it’s terrace and spent the day napping (Andrew) and blogging or knitting (Lynda). We were outside until the sun came over the building and it got too hot! Once Andrew was more ready to face the world he found a restaurant that said they do gluten free and we decided to walk the 15 minutes there instead of driving and trying to park. It was a good decision as the parking was underground with only stairs to get to the surface! The restaurant name was “La Mafia Se Sienta a La Mesa” and it is part of a chain of Italian restaurants in Spain. Their website indicated they opened at 8pm and Google said 8:30pm. So we decided to arrive at 8pm as we were unable to make reservations. After a nice walk through a high rise residential area – similar to what we experience in Huleva, we arrived and there were tables out front however the restaurant was closed up tight. So we sat out front, I had brought my knitting so I proceeded to knit away and we watched the “action” in the square – there also were a set of teenage girls sitting at one end of terrace for the restaurant tables and teenage boys at the other side and the catcalling was something else! It became 8:30pm and the restaurant was still not open… what was Plan B? Well we had seen a Domino’s Pizza on our walk – perhaps we would go walk there and order pizza and take it back to the hotel! Just as I was checking out if they had GF options, Andrew saw action in the restaurant and we were saved – they opened at 9pm! However as we were there already they told the teenagers to scram and they did clean and set our table early and got us some beverages to start. It was also interesting to observe the body language going on in the restaurant – it was VERY obvious that the owner had fired her waitress that night – quite the passionate Spanish conversation took place! After dining at several restaurants now, we are presuming that one of the results of COVID is that restaurants do not use menu’s anymore in Spain – I think we have only had the pleasure of using 1 or 2 menus! All the other restaurants give you a QR code (LIZ – this is going somewhere) and you scan it and see your menu. If you have Google Translate on your phone it will also help translate the menu items for you! So then you just point on your phone to what you want (yes you need internet and that can be a problem for International Visitors) and ordering is EASY! At the above restaurant they did have WIFI so Andrew could use his phone too to order (mine already has internet on it) which made it MUCH easier! We had a great meal – I had an octopus appetizer and then curry chicken and rice and Andrew had beef medallions with potatoes and sautéed onions. For dessert we had a new experience – a lemon sorbet that you drank with a straw – homemade! We then walked back on the seaside walk (which had a lovely l’odeur d’low tide) to our hotel!







