Tres Semanas

Another week has come and gone and it still feels like a holiday....except for maybe taking the kids to school everyday. Shane and I attended the parent meetings at the school this week hoping a little too optimistically that we might understand something (we did not). Those two hours of feeling completely incompetent as parents was just another motivator to sign ourselves up for Spanish lessons. The civic center in town offers free Spanish lessons for residents. We signed up with some friends and were the only four in the class. The first day was a little overwhelming, as our teacher does not speak any English. We have now been to three classes and five more people have joined our class. I am realizing that it is truly a benefit that she only speaks Spanish, because we are forced to listen, focus, and do some charades, which also helps us laugh, which is important in life, especially when you are feeling somewhat overwhelmed. I continue to be overwhelmed, not only by our lack of Spanish, but also by the beauty of this country and area. The sunset takes my breath away daily, and we have had so much fun exploring the area by boat, foot, and bike.

We have been biking to school about half the time. It is 8 km of mostly downhill, and takes about 30 minutes, a little longer if we hit the panaderia (bakery) for chocolate croissants before school...which has pretty much become standard practice, and earned after the ride. Everyone benefits from bike days; kids get a morning ride to wake them up...and croissants, mom gets a good workout going uphill 8 km on the way home and Shane gets to sleep in, and doesn't suffer from me harassing him for a workout all day long. Then, we typically pick the kids up in the car after school and head home for lunch. It may seem soft driving them for the uphill portion, but the school day is from 9 AM to 2 PM which initially seemed like an incredibly short school day, but there is no lunch break, so the thought of riding straight uphill for 8 KM at 2 PM in the peak heat of the day with 2 starving children is not at all appealing. Today we biked to Nerja which is a beautiful little tourist town about 15 KM away. We packed a lunch, wandered through town, went to an heladoria (ice cream shop), swam at the beach, rode home and made paella for dinner.

Shane has almost mastered paella. I don't want him to think it is perfect yet, or he might stop making it, but I will say it is better that what we ordered in the restaurant. I almost lost my mind when I saw how much seafood and meat he bought to put into the paella...until I saw the price, then asked why he didn't use more. Some prices are quite similar to home, and some are even more like fuel, but there are a few things that are so cheap, that I can't help indulging. The cheapest things to date are cheese, wine, beer, meat, and seafood/shellfish. Perhaps it is a good thing we live on top of a mountain, otherwise it could be a very fattening year.

We have also been out paddling a few days each week. Last week, Shane dropped me off at our beach, and I paddled on my SUP to La Herradura to meet the kids after school which took about 45 minutes. This weekend,we spent a day at the beach and took the kayak and SUP over to some cliffs where we found some great climbing and cliff jumping locations. We also enjoyed just hanging out in the boats and watching the fish frenzies. They swim in massive schools and feed at the surface with their heads just breaking the surface. From far away, it looks like wind rippling the surface, but when you get up close, you realize it is massive schools of fish feeding at the surface. We have also discovered some really cool caves, and private secluded beaches from the boats.There are other boaters which can find these places, but it definitely separates you from the masses of car access beach goers.

Friday night we joined a group of friends for tapas at a restaurant just off the central plaza in town. It was wonderful because the group of kids could run off and play all evening, periodically returning to check in and grab a quick bite or drink. This is a regular event for this group, so it was nice to relax, visit, and not worry about the kids. It was close to 11 PM before we decided it was time to head home. We found Jaedyn easily at the plaza with some friends, but circled the area for well over an hour for Brae, gradually expanding our radius and trying to calm my increasing anxiety. We were fairly certain he was with a friends 13 year old, but could not locate either of them. Finally we found them on the beach searching for a sock he had lost. He didn't want to leave the beach without finding his sock, which I suppose was somewhat responsible of him, but I was so worried by the time we found him, I couldn't care less about him losing a sock!

Shane and I also went diving for the first time this week. I think we will try to make it out at least once a week. There are a number of dive locations that leave from town. Shane and I were going to try a dive with each of the various companies around town and decide which we liked best, but after our first dive, the owner offered us an ice cold beer, and Shane bought a package. I was a little more sold on the fact that the dive shop is across the street from where we park to drop the kids off for school, and leaves 30 minutes after drop off, but I won't lie, the ice cold beer tasted pretty good. After our dive, we decided to walk across the street and have a cervesa on the beach while we filled out our dive logs. I thought it would be on the expensive side, because it is on the beach, but it was the cheapest beer we have had in a restaurant and they brought us pulpo (octopus ) for tapas for free. We also watched them unload fresh fish out of a bucket for the BBQ. SOLD!

Both Shane and I are having difficulty being tenants. It is difficult going from being homeowners, and landlords to being tenants. I am fairly certain that our landlord will benefit from this struggle. Shane has already been to the hardware store a number of times in an attempt to set up a solar heated pump system to heat our pool. It is still quite pleasant now, but the temperature has already dropped 4-5 degrees since arriving here 3 weeks ago. We have also enjoyed gardening, reorganizing, cleaning, and planning "projects" for the winter...if we ever get bored.

I am also having a great deal of difficulty walking by real estate offices without "looking" at the postings in the windows.....we all have to plan for retirement right?