Day 88, 30 September 2012, Arcos de la Frontera. Specifically, on the sofa. Thank the heavens, a rest day. Today's cover photo, courtesy of the internet, is Arcos´s second Church, San Pedro. And I mean the second church. San Pedro and Santa Maria were duking it out in the 17th and 18th century about who was numero uno church in Arcos and the Pope had to rule on it. St Mary's won. Apparently, goss, goss, it was such a big deal, that back in the day the parishioners at Saint Peter´s refused to honour
'Hail Mary, mother of god', instead praying to 'St Peter, Mother of God'. Yep. Our lovely hostess Carmen has entrusted us with the apartment and gone to see friends for a few days. The Hardies left the Hobbit Hole for precisely 5 minutes today (more or less in pyjamas) to see her off. Other than that it was sofa/books/wine/soft socks and doing nothing, gloriously, all day. Which brings me to a slightly funny story I've been saving for just such an occasion. When we took the ferry from Tangier (Morocco) to Tarifa (Spain) James went into the E.U. passport queue on his Australian passport and was stamped through without a glance. I went into the All Other Passports queue with my trusty New Zealand passport (which allows me to stay in most European countries for 3 months each.... as opposed to the Australian passport which restricts us to 3 months, in total, in European countries out of every 6 months). One immigration officer looked at my NZ passport. He called over another officer (yikes...). Queue is piling up behind me. All of us having just arrived on the ferry from Tangier. They ask me where have you come from? Er... Morocco. How did you get here? The ferry. Just now. How did you get there? Ahhh.... thinking to self, is this some kind of trick question... Well sir, I flew there. Then he says Where from? Turkey I say. And ´lo and behold, all is well in the world, pennies are dropping, Immigration is smiling and they finally stamp me into Spain. Very strange. I only figured it out when I reunited with James safely past the little room with the rubber gloves (he was rather wondering where I´d gotten to by this stage). Anyway, due to the ridiculously good deal kiwis have for staying in Spain for 3 months at a stretch, I do suspect quite a few live on pennies and every three months do a snappy visa run to Morocco and back. Which I'm sure they are perfectly entitled to do. But who am I to question what puts the fun into an Immigration Officer's day.