Sid's Travels

I can´t believe I´m not dressed up tonight - my favourite holiday! Spain doesn´t quite do Halloween like we do. Some people were dressed up last night, going out to bars, but I don´t think anyone is trick or treating or dressed up tonight.

We had a fun day today - went to a birthday party for a one year old named Pablo today in the Arabic neighbourhood. Mom is American and Dad is Spanish so there was a mix of people at the party. We hung out with some very nice Americans who had retired in Spain and talked for a few hours, eating and drinking wine (of course). It rejuventated me even though we didn´t practice any Spanish. It was just nice to have someone to talk to who were interested in us and interesting. And all are very against Bush so that made for some fun conversations.

And now I´m going to watch an Indian version of ¨Pride and Predjudice¨ with Spanish subtitles.

Buenos noches.....

Shiloh

Well, after realizing that we´re going through culture shock (apparently there are five stages and we´re apparently in stage 2) we decided to take today and not to worry that our Spanish sucks and that no one understands us, yadda, yadda. So, we went to the best look out point in Granada and sat in the sun and breeze and listened to the gypsies/hippies (not sure how to define) play music. It seems to be a type of flamenco music -- you can tell by the clapping they do while singing. Savannah has a portable tape recorder that is small, and therefore, discreet, so we taped them. It suited the beautiful day! It was also fun to think that this is lookout where Bill Clinton said that he saw the best sunset of his life. That was for you Tara

Pam, Savannah and I been discussing this culture shock phenomenon and decided to use a previous quote to sum it up: ¨Life is like a box...¨JUST JOKING - no really, someone said that travelling and living in a new place is multi-layered. It´s not like a week´s vacation to the beach where you just fully relax before heading back to your job (which I will do again). Our primary goal, to meet our sister and say that we´ve been to Spain, has been accomplished. Now, we have to learn to adapt to a very different way of life, which is quite exciting for the first week or so but then reality hits and the most simplest of things become difficult or frustrating, to the point that you begin to withdraw....a.k.a. the dreaded ¨Stage 2¨. I always thought that I would avoid that because the sheer excitement and disbelief that I´m somewhere new would just stay. So naive! Alas, you just have to deal with it and get over feelings of aimlessness, frustration, and whatever else you feel by getting involved and not being too hard on yourself or trying to hard to fit in. It´ll happen.

We also sat in the Plaza later this afternoon and watched a huge (!) family leave the church after a christening. We still can´t get over how loving the families are! Men and women and children are always hugging and laughing or touching each other. I even saw boys of about 12 -14 years old with their arms just resting on each other. No one is afraid to show affection for one another. Even the macho, macho men! That´s one of my favourite things about Spain.

We´re just about to head out for Greek food (so much for integrating ourselves) so I´ll write again!

Buenes noches!

P.S. It´s going to get harder to keep my blog up to date when we move on Monday, as we´ll be a little way out of town and won´t always be able to get to the cafe.

That´s a boring title! I am being a lazy thinker today Not much happening (by choice). We woke up late, read magazines, had a nice lunch and conversation with Pam, napped, read, and didn´t do anything really. I guess there´s always something going on here that you don´t have to worry about missing out too much. It´s also mucho hard on the wallet!

We do have a friend (well, someone we´ve met twice, once while sober) who is coming to visit in a week or so. He´s been travelling in Europe for his first time and wants to visit southern Spain so it´ll be nice to mix up the company a bit! Add a new perspective on things.

Well, before I bore myself and any readers, I will end this little blog entry. But thanks for reading it!

Shiloh

....is the name of our new cottage we rented today! If you go to this website (address at end of message), you can get an idea of the place. We´ve paid for a month and hope that things work out money-wise. It´s a beautiful home (one of three that we looked at today) and quite cheap. The owners live in one of three small houses/cottages on the property. The first home we looked at today was gorgeous and completely renovated, with a pool and our landlords would have been this wonderful couple, Richard and Tim, from England. However, it was more expensive and a little further out of town. The third place was an apartment with a beautiful view of the mountains, but also more expensive. Savannah and I felt so bad because the man who showed us this apartment was this sweet but kind of gruff older Spanish man and now we have to call him tomorrow and say ¨No¨ in Spanish ;( The place we ended up renting is taken care of by a really cool, unique couple who have lived in Spain for 15 years and have three kids. We got to talk about BC a bit today He´s formerly of Kelowna and they have family on the Sunshine Coast so it was kind of nice to have that connection. We may be able to get work picking olives in their olive orchard. Everyone has an orchard of some kind here! However, this wouldn´t be for another month now. At the very least, we have a roof over our head! There is also a pool and a family dog so we´re happy!

I´m feeling kind of travel sick at the moment from our very windy highway bus trip there and back today so even though there´s more to talk about, I don´t think it´s going to happen right now. We don´t move until Monday, which is nice. No more buses for a few days....

http://www.holiday-rentals.com/Spain/Sierra-Nevada/holiday-cottage-Orgiva/p15850.htm

By the way, this is an open invite to ANYONE who wants to come visit! It´s so cheap (really....check Zoom Airlines to London, Ryan Air to Granada (where you can sometimes get a ticket for one cent....yes, one cent) and then a 3€ bus trip down to Orgiva. All can be done for very under $1000).

And Erin, your emails are not in vain either! Enjoyed your responses and glad to hear things are well....

Shiloh

Hola! I wish I could say something other than ¨Hola!¨but we´ve been lazy these past couple of days with our Spanish. If we really wanted, we could grunt and point our way across the country but what is the fun in that!? Savannah and I desperately want to converse with the local shop merchants (they´re all old, cute men!) but we can´t! And it sucks!

Savannah and I are currently drinking wine from a small grocery store that cost us 1.75€ (so almost double that to get Cnd dollars....still mucho cheapo). It´s certainly not great, but it does the job! I don´t think I needed that comma in there but whatever, that was never my strongest point.

We were productive today, waking up at 10:30am (1:30am Cnd time) and out of the apartment at noon. We had lots of posters to make up at our local internet cafe. We are hoping to find work in our next stop (Orgiva!) so we had to make posters for dance and English lessons and we are hoping to start an animal group so we made posters for that. Speaking of animals, does anyone want a really cute, friendly tabby male cat? I´ll send him over! His name is ¨Little Gato¨ -- Little Cat. People laugh at us when they see us feeding him behind his dumpster....whatever!

We wandered Granada today, like most everyone does, and ooohed and awwed over the church and the sunlight and the birds and the live music..... It was beautiful music! Two older men, one playing the guitar and the other smoking and singing....it sounded like ancient flamenco music. It´s impossible to keep up with the amazing and elusive beat they keep.

We´re listening to Paul Gross singing (the one and only from ¨Due South¨) singing about Alberta. Sigh.... we love him! And Canada!

We´ve decided that tapas and wine are truly worth living for (once we pick the ham and lamb off the bread). To discover a little bar off a side street and order dos vino blancos is wonderful. You never know what free appetizer you´re going to get with it. Speaking of wine, we had an excellent waiter (also very elusive here in Spain) recommend great wine and pasta to us today. Sooo good.....

I always wish that my friends and family could be here with me (us). We´re lucky to have each other (when we don´t bicker) but it´s always good to have others who would truly appreciate something different. I can see where Canada and our society could improve but I also see what I love about our life in North America and how lucky we are. That´s a little bit of cheese for you (but it´s true!).

Gotta go! Savannah has been wanting to check email for an hour!

Un grande beso!

Shiloh