The adventures of school

Yesterday was the first day of school for the kids. A mix of excitement and nerves for all of us reminded me of sending the kids to kindergarten for their first days.

We quickly found out that we missed the section of the website that had a very long list of required school supplies. Since everything in Spain closes from 2-5 PM, we went home for lunch and down to the beach for a quick paddle and snorkel, where we discovered a great spot witha a guard house, hidden cove, and thousands of fish, before venturing out to find the supplies.

We were unable to find the store that a local expat told us about, so we made our way to Motril, the nearest major center and found an Alcampo store which is similar to Wal-Mart. Apparently we were not the only family who showed up to the first day of school without the required supplies. The stationary section of the store was packed!This task would have been daunting at home, but here we are, at 7 PM, haven't eaten, massive crowds of people, looking for items written in Spanish that we need to individually look up on google translate and then try to locate. An hour and a half later we have all but 2 items and decide we can find them at another store....then we wait in the 45 minute line at the till to pay. Then the 30 minute drive home with an added unsuccesful stop at one more store, a quick dinner after 10 PM, and unwrapping and packing of all the supplies, and a not so early night to bed. It didn't help either, that Brae came out of school horrified by the fact that he had to learn French! At first we thought it was a mix up, as we were with the understanding that the students got to choose a second language being either English or French, but it turns out that all grade fives learn French. Lucky Brae! Jaedyn helped us out immensly this morning when we pulled her out of the first hour of classes to translate our meeting with the school director to make sure everthing was  good with Brae. We were very happy to see a big smile on Brae's face when he came out of school today. To help with the transition into school, we invited some of the other expat families we met at the school over for drinks and a swim in the pool. As luck would have it, we experienced our first stormy day in Spain. It did not however stop the kids from having a great time in the pool, and us from having a lovely visit with other families who have been through our experience and have some local knowledge. It is encouraging to realize that we might actually have a social life here.
Kris