Amigos

Making friends was not a top priority for me on this adventure. Of course I hoped that the kids would develop friendships through school, but I moved here with my best friend in the world, and have friends visiting throughout the year, so I viewed this year as an opportunity to spend quality time with my family and didn't put much thought into it beyond that.

We made very intentional choices when deciding where to live. Not only did we choose a very small, non tourist town, we also chose a house 8 km out of town in an "urbanizacion" (community) which is extremely private and secluded. This is quite a drastic change coming from a big city and a house where we know and talk to all of our neighbours on a daily basis. We were looking for a home where all we could hear were the sounds of nature. This mission was successful! The peace, quiet and beauty of being surrounded by nature brings me so much joy.

The other reason we chose this town is because it was not on the tourist map. We wanted to immerse ourselves in a culture and be forced to speak Spanish on a daily basis in the community. What we were not expecting was to meet a large group of expat families in the town.

One of my favorite parts about travelling is making a plan and then changing it mid stream because I found out about something new or more exciting along the way. Well this is kind of what happened with the whole friend situation.

I am not one to easily meet new friends. The friends that I have are very dear to me, and most of them have been around for a long time. Knowing that this was not a permanent move, and we would only be here for a year, making friends wasn't really on the radar.

The first day of school we met this amazing group of people who welcomed us into the community with open arms. There are a surprisingly large number of expat families in our very small school and town. The group is from all over the world and so incredibly diverse in backgrounds and circumstances that have led them here. Some, like us have just arrived, and others have been here for over 15 years. Some kids were born here, and others have moved here without a word of Spanish. However, everyone shares the common bond of knowing what it is like to move to a new country, culture, and way of life.

Our days are easily filled with morning coffees, bike rides, hikes, playing on the playa (beach) after school, tapa Fridays, playdates, BBQ's and more. We are so fortunate to have met such a wonderful group of friends here. Beyond the places we go and things we do, it is the friendships that will form the lasting memories of this trip. Our Spanish may be suffering because of it, but those are the sacrifices you make for amigos.

Tis the season!!

Being away from home for an extended period has created some unique issues that we have had to deal with. We know that things are different over here, and there are many things we have had to forgoe for the year, but some traditions we are still trying to maintain. For example, during the in-laws visit, it was Thanksgiving (Canadian). We didn't have any plans to celebrate it, as that was one of the things we knew was not celebrated here. We had resigned ourselves to a year without the traditional feast. Fortunately, Ruth decided she could put on a feast for everyone here, so lo and behold, Thanksgiving dinner served in Spain.

As most of you know, every year Kristin and Ruth spend countless hours making and assembling Ginger Bread houses back home. This was another of the things we figured we would have to give up for a year. That was until mid November rolled around, and Kristin decided it might be another fun activity for everyone over here. Unfortunately, many of the ingredients are not readily available here. Kristin looked up some recipes that used ingredients that we could find here, but she decided that it just wouldn't be right to mess with tradition.   Now I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I had started shopping using Amazon here. The challenge of finding stuff on a Spanish website, and then arranging delivery to a house that isn't listed on any map, nor does it have an official street name, makes for good practical use of our limited Spanish. Now factor in trying to find ingredients aren't very well know in Spain, and then trying to get it all delivered in a timely manner makes for extra special Ginger Bread houses. We did manage to get all the stuff needed to make them, now we just need to find time in our hectic schedule to make them. We don't know if we should skip diving, hiking, biking, coffee, paddling, etc, in order to take a day and make/assemble the houses. Also, we have a 4 day weekend coming up, and we want to drive down to Gibraltar and spend a day or two in Morroco. Our time is starting to become limited. I do know however, that if anyone can do it, it's Kristin, and she will still manage to get in all the other activities as well.

With GB house, it reminds us that Xmas is also just around the corner. The kids asked the other day if we were going to decorate a tree this year. This is another of those issue that we have run across. How do you decorate a tree with no decoration, and no tree? I guess the kids will have to be creative. Also, when it's sunny, and the temp is in the high teens, is it really xmas? We have to find out if the Reindeer can even fly when it's this hot. All these first world problems we have to deal with!!

As always, cheers.

Shane

The Ugly...continued

I was going to have a second post last week about all the ugly, but I think the rest of the family pretty much described everything.  I don't need to dwell on anything bad, as it still is paradise here.

I am glad that our little run in with the critters is over, and I can report that there has been no new bites or issues since the drastic steps were taken.  So now it's just a funny anecdote we can share about this year.

I have a guilty pleasure I have to confess to.  Every morning, I wake up and check the weather forecast.  It is autumn here, and the temperatures have been dropping, so I like to know if I need to put socks on with my shorts, or if it's going to be sandal weather.  I also always check what the weather is like back home.  I have this huge smile every morning, as our temperature here is in the mid teens, and the Calgary forecast has this funny "-" sign if front of the temperature.  Yes I understand I am checking in the morning, which makes it somewhere around 01:00 there, but I still find it really hard to be cold when I know the difference.

That being said, our house does not have a furnace, so we do feel a little chilly here, but we have been lighting the fireplace, and sitting around as a family visiting, playing, reading, and just relaxing in the evening.  It's quite amazing how stress free life is when you aren't constrained with schedules, and commitments.  The kids only have one event each week (guitar on Fridays after school), and we combine it with a beach date, play session with several of the local families.

The last couple weekends, we have tried to get out to the mountains and find some new hikes, or neat places to take/recommend to guests.  We have found a couple real quaint little towns, with some easy strolls, plus a few great treks through the mountains.  We even managed to explore the local climbing area, and got in a quick climb after school one day.

It has been raining here for a couple days, and all the locals are telling us it's pretty rare to have this much rain this time of year.  The rainy season is still a few months away, and the summer here was extremely dry, so the extra moisture has filled many of the reservoirs, and the little streams and creeks are flowing.

I played Futbol (soccer) last night in the rain, and even though I was completely drenched, it wasn't cold.  It was the first time I wasn't overheated playing since I started.

Hope all is well back home, and I will post again soon

CIAO
Shane

Money

So something iv'e noticed that's different here from Canada is the money. One thing is it's euros here instead of dollars which was a bit confusing at first but we got used to it over time.

The second thing iv'e noticed is the size of bills here. The bills here are all different sizes,unlike Canadian  or American bills. There's also way more colours of bills here than back home.

Another thing is the amount of change. In Canada there are nickels, dimes,quarters, loonies and toonies. Here there are 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cent coins plus 1 Euro and 2 Euro coins.

I know that this probably hasn't been the most exciting blog but I felt like it was time to write about something that wasn't just action, action, action.

Stay with us,

Jaedyn.

Today I am going to try something new, and only write about one thing. We went climbing a couple of days ago in a spot we scouted out twice before. The first time we hiked up a beautiful valley and up a mountain and through a bunch of bushes. We finally found the climbing spot in the next valley over but by then we were out of time. The second time we went it was way to windy to climb and we would have got blown off the mountain, so we went on a hike through private property and saw a snake thanks and no thanks. That day we also went on a hike through some orchards and talked to a old Spanish goat herder [you name the fruit they got it, please leave a fruits name in the comments.]   On our third attempt we finally made it to the right spot to climb. It was a beautiful spot with a couple of rivers conjoining and millions of hundreds of bamboo reeds. We started at a climb that was surrounded by reeds, mom led the climb followed by me. the climb was at least 25 meters high if not more. I started off pretty good, but then it got really hard and in your face. I barely made it through before I went down. I had my lunch and went bamboo jumping before my next turn. This time my dad was belaying me instead of Jaedyn, so I felt a lot safer, and I almost finished the climb.
YOUR FRIEND    BRAE    

 

 

Hello, I  guess you guys are getting used to the blogging routine, but that is not what I want to talk about. When the cousins were here we made a birthday cake for Tyler, it had 1 cup of salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar, it also had onions and baking powder plus a bunch of other good stuff. It was a pretty funny reaction Elisa cried.  Then we had another cake that was actually good.
Last weekend we went and toured Portugal. We went to this one hotel for the first night and ate chicken and watched a movie. The next day we went to a really sandy beach on the Atlantic ocean and built sand castles and body surfed. Our next stop was Lisbon, we arrived at our one room hotel room and after getting all settled we all showered and went out for dinner. The next day we went on a big walk. First we went up the mountain to the castle, we had to wait in line for 15 minutes so me and Jaedyn looked at some shops. When we got in we went to an open area with statue in the middle, the castle also had cannons adorning the outside. We went to the heart or the castle and saw the real keep walls and where the balustrade and catapult used to be. After that we toured Lisbon on our way to Belem. In Belem we walked by the coach museum. It was a long walk so we went out for ice cream. It was getting late so we went and saw a cool tower and took the train back to the hotel. The next day we went to the aquarium and saw tons of cool fish, but someone else will explain that. My favorite

 thing there was the Otters. We also went to Evora and saw the chapel of bones.

Your friend BRAE.

Evicting unwanted houseguests

For being unemployed, life seems to be incredibly busy. The month of September was dedicated to settling into a new city, country, culture, language, and school. We were finally feeling settled into a routine, and our first visitors arrived. The timing seemed perfect.

Ruth and Earl arrived and we had a few days to visit with them before Tyler, Marzia, Lilli and Elisa joined. The next week was packed with adventure and fun! We started off by celebrating Tyler's birthday (the kids can tell you about his special cake 😉). We also celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving, which just added to the two weeks of eating and drinking way too much. We enjoyed cooking many meals at home trying to master tapas, paellas, and seafood dishes. We also had some lovely meals eating out at the local restaurants.

We did a beautiful hike in the Alpujarras, despite the torrential downpour. We explored the caves of Nerja as well as the town. We hiked El Caminito Del Rey, which was once considered one of the most dangerous hikes in the world. It was recently redone however, and is now an incredibly safe boardwalk suspended from the cliffside over a gorge. It was spectacular, especially seeing the old crumbling path below the existing one. We spent a day in Granada exploring Alhambra and the old town. This is definitely a place we can return to many times with visitors and learn something new on each visit. We had a few great beach days, a mixture of chilling out, paddling, snorkeling, kayaking, and enjoying the beautiful weather, scenery and company.

Unfortunately, during the week of 10 people in the house, we had a few issues.... We lost water for a day, internet was intermittent at best, we lost power for 3 days, and in turn lost a lot of food (luckily cervesa can thaw and be refrigerated again without going bad), the car broke down...and then came the uninvited house guests!

 During the week we were all noticing an increase in the number of bites we were getting (mostly at night), then we started noticing blood marks on the sheets. We first thought that we had bed bugs, but then found evidence of fleas, and found out that the signs are similar. The next week was spent researching how to remedy the situation (when we had working internet), trying to get our landlord to believe us, trying to get the rental agency to understand the urgency of the problem, and trying to systematically clean and fumigate while living in the house and entertaining. Our guests were amazing, even though all of us were exhausted by the end of the week. We all looked like we had chicken pox, we weren't sleeping at night due to the itching, and psychological battle of knowing the little critters were coming out to feed. With so many people in the house, it was impossible to isolate any areas, and we weren't given enough fumigation bombs to do the whole house. The rental agency brought us 3 bombs for a 5 bedroom house with 2 separate living areas. By only doing the 3 worst rooms, I think we just made them mad and they spread to the rest of the house.

The day our guests returned to Germany, they steam cleaned their luggage and wrapped everything they brought in plastic to go directly into the freezer when they returned home, as we wanted to make sure they didn't take the issue home with them. I went to town with them and rented another vehicle, then Shane and I worked non stop for days to rid the house of our unwelcome visitors. We gave up on the rental agency taking care of the problem, and tackled it ourselves.

We bought a steam cleaner and steamed everything in the house! Every door, closet, baseboard, headboard, mattress, window frame, curtain, bedframe, couch, chair, cushion, table... Then we bought an entire case of fumigation bombs, and fumigated the whole house at once except the kitchen. We then took every single linen, towel, blanket and pillow to the laundromat, and washed and dried them with high heat. We bought an industrial sized plastic wrap and wrapped all the clean linens in airtight packaging. We also plastic wrapped our mattresses, so any little critters who may have escaped the steaming or fumigating would not be able to get out. We spayed all the baseboards and furniture legs with a special spray, put powder in baking cups under all the bedframe legs so no critters could climb up and thoroughly ventilated the house to get rid of any excess fumes. We swept and mopped and dusted the house from top to bottom. We took all outdoor cushions and scrubbed and soaked them in the tub and hung to dry. We washed all of our camping gear in the tub and hung to dry, and we set dish soap and tea light traps in every room of the house and lit them every night all week to monitor if we were successful in our eviction attempts.

Then.....we locked up the house and left for a four day weekend in Portugal....which was fabulous, and a much needed break!

THE FAMILY

The family

So the family just left and I have to say I`m kind of glad.

While they were here we had A few issues. I'm not going to get into those but let me tell you that minor problems can become extremely difficult to handle when there are 10 people.  
The first to arrive were the grandparents, Ruth and Earl. It was actually quite relaxing while it was just them, and then came the Germs (A.K.A the Germans).

As soon as they were here it became a very, very busy 2 weeks.
The first day they were here we went on a  hike in the mountains. Now I'm just going to tell you that there was a 70% chance of rain that day. We ended up walking a 13 km trek in a torrential downpour on the top then bottom then top then bottom then top of a mountain.
By the end of it everyone, even my mom was tired and happy to jump in to a car with the heat going full blast.

Caminito del Rey.. AHHHH

The next day the adults said that we were going on another hike, on this trail called Caminito del Rey. (Hike of the King). I was a little iffy at first but it was actually REALLY cool. It's this skinny wooden walkway bolted into the side of a canyon over a rushing river. I suggest looking it up.  

The caves of Nerja

Soon after we went to these really
cool caves in Nerja, worth every penny.

MEDUSA ALERT!!!!!

We all decided it was time for a beach day so we packed up and hit the beach with our army of boats and boards. We had so much fun in the water and then we went out and boated around and saw at least a thousand Jellyfish in the water and got a little more picky about where we were swimming.

WOW!!!! OCTO!!!!!

Once we got back my mom found 
a giant octopus in the water a
everyone decided to risk the 
jellies to go see it.

CASTLE MUCH!!!!

Wealso went to this really 
cool castle called the Alhambra 
in Granada that was EPIC!!!!      







As I always say, hang in there
and keep reading.
Jaedyn

                      

The Good, the bad and the UGLY!!!

Hello again.

I guess our noble goal of blogging everyday or two was just a pipe dream. Turns out life catches up with you no matter what part of paradise you live in. I will endeavour to catch up with all that has happened to the Boisjoli Clan since our lst update.

The Good.

In-law arrival, We had the whole clan here for a family holiday. Ruth and Earl showed up for a few days alone, and then the cousins showed up. We had a few real nice relaxing quite days showing R&E around the town, and taking in some of the local flavor, and then when everyone arrived, we had an incredibly action packed week of non-stop activity. Group trips included a short (13km) hike through the Alpujarra range in a torrential downpour. According to our map, it was supposed to be 8km, but apparently we read the map wrong. Not withstanding the distance, the hike was amazing, following an old spice trail through the mountains, with serious elevation drop, gain, drop and gain. We hiked past old roman ruins, ancient structures, a fruit grove, and through a couple real quaint little towns. It did start raining about halfway through the hike, and I had fears of a few implosions, but everyone was a real trooper, and even though it was the coldest day we've had here, no one complained much....except that there was no hot chocolate at the end!!!!

Following the hike, we headed out to trek the Caminito Del Rey trail. If you haven't heard of it, I would suggest googling it. At one point it was considered the most dangerous hike in all of Europe. Fortunately, the trail was revamped into a leisurely stroll. For all those who are coming to visit us, read up on it, as we think it's one of the definite must do's here.

After 2 days of hiking, everyone decided a day off at the beach was called for, so we ordered up the tropical Spanish sunshine, and spent a day relaxing, paddling, swimming, kayaking down on the beach. It might have even been 2 days. Sunburns were had by all, but that was the whole point!!! During the paddle, we saw a whole line of jelly fish floating in the water.  There must have been a couple hundred of them, and they had the most amazing colors.  We didn't risk swimming with them, as we didn't know if they were the stinging ones or not.  We did get some great pictures though! And speaking of pictures, at the end of the day, the kids decided to hit the water for a quick cool down, and stumbled onto a big octopus.  Not a giant pacific one, but a good sized one for this area.  It was amazong, because it stayed around and played instead of hiding like they normally do.  

Another day, we drove into Granada, and toured through the Alhambra. Again, Google this one, as it's another must see. 3 hours strolling the grounds, following the footsteps of the ancient Sultans, Caliphs, Kings, and conquerors was amazing.

Throw in a trip to the Caves of Nerja and it was a action packed week.

The Bad.

While everyone was here, we had a major rainstorm, which knocked out the power to the entire community. We didn't think much of it, as we had planned to leave for the day, and figured it would be repaired by the time we got back. Arriving back the the house after dark, we were glad to see the street lights on, but found out when we got in the house, the power was still out. The rain was so heavy, it fried the power meter at the street, and we were left in the dark. Close to 3 days, without power, and 10 people makes for some cozy living. Also, we had just bought a fridge full of food, so scratch those meals.

2 Days before the power outage, we woke up to a water issue...specifically, no water in the house. Fortunately, it was just a temporary issues, as crews were working on the hydrants, and shut the water down....only they went away for siesta time and didn't turn the water back on while the were away. Who really needs water for about 5 hours? Answer pools, automatic pumps and filter system, and other irrigation fields. The house above us must have had there pool system timer set to run during the water outage, as we heard their pump start, wind up, get real loud, and then go into alarm....followed by no more pump noises for a couple days. When we did get the water back, it ran brown from the taps for a couple hours, and had varying pressure, so it would spit and surge when the taps were opened. Made for interesting showers and flushes!!

Since we have Internet today, I will post this portion of the blog, and work on the ugly section offline.