Thursday, October 30

So I am a little behind. I am currently sitting on the veranda, waiting for the house to blow down. When Liza Doolittle says “The Rain in Spain….” She just needs to stop there. It rains in Spain all the time. Like 24 hours plus, every day or every other day at the least. A friend has said that Spain’s seasons are Summer Hot, Fall Rain, Winter Cold, Spring Rain. Well, did we mention that there are huge winds here as well. So it is cold, rainy, and windy – we are basically freezing. I’m thinking Chicago. It was 5c degrees (39f) yesterday with –1c (27f) degree windchill!!! And home is still in the 90’s!!! We have turned on the furnace and we had a fire on the last rainy night. I’m thinking we will have to have a fire again tonight. I’m so glad that I brought all of our full winter parkas. I also brought hats, scarves, and gloves. Bryce brought boots, and Jocelyn and I purchased fancy boots in Leon – to keep our toeseys warm. Brent has purchased a scarf, gloves, and a wool hat as well. We all brought umbrellas. The wind has ruined at least two of them, so we continue to purchase umbrellas. I did finally buy the girls uniform tights – to keep their little legs warm.

When we visited the American school two years ago, they stated that the Fall semester was a big waste, because of all of the holidays. Well this year, all of the holidays fall on the weekend, so we have only seen one – that involved school being off. Well El Dia De Los Muertos/All Saints Day is on Saturday November 1. Since it is on a Saturday and it is a National Holiday, the girls get school of on Halloween. Well, they don’t celebrate Halloween like we do, so the Alvar family is going on a family play day. We are going to go and see High School Musical 3 en espanol, and then have dinner at The Original Texas Rib House – Jocelyn’s choosing. We’ll keep you posted on that one.

Continuing on Halloween. Jocelyn’s class watched “The Curse of the Ware Rabbit” in English class yesterday. Bryce today got to dress up for Halloween. I don’t know if she had to change into her uniform later, so I sent her with her PE attire and her complete uniform. Thank goodness the girls have their suitcases – because they have sooooo much stuff to haul around. For Bryce’s attire, we sent her in a black long sleeve shirt and her Halloween sequined pumpkin shirt that Aunt Jen brought. She also wore jeans and her black boots (which are against dress code except for Halloween). Brent found her a witch’s hat that was orange with silver spider webs and black trim. She looked very cute. I will post pictures when I become a computer intellectual.

Someone said that we are going to be very lucky during our four months in Spain. We saw the end of summer, are experiencing fall now, and will see the beginning of winter. Yeah – I can’t wait for it to get colder!!!

Another crazy thing. We did daylight savings last weekend, a first for this Arizona native. You all not living in Az don’t get to do daylight savings until this weekend. I’m assuming that all of Europe has changed and that we Spaniards aren’t just trying to get “ahead of the times!!!”

Fall. It is soooo cool to see all of the leaves change colors. We have these gigantic trees in the backyard that have these huge leaves. We have acorns – a fun first. We have a lot of pine trees, so tons of pine needles – which aren’t my favorite to clean up. We have some rose bushes as well. I didn’t realize it until we had a single giant red rose that lasted a real long time. The nice thing was that we could enjoy it from the veranda.

As I have been reviewing my notes, there are some things that I have missed.

I forgot to mention that Steve asked Ana to bring her clippers when we had the Argentinean Barbeque, so he could shave his head. Well, Brent got Ana to shave his head as well. It is really cool and I love it. It is cut to a number 1 – so some hair but not a lot. It is amazing how fast that man’s hair grows. We had his parents bring out his trimmers and I have had the pleasure of shaving his head a few times since. Very stressful, but cool.

The school buses here are chartered buses. Very glamorous. Jocelyn’s friend Bilen from Chile says that the buses there are yellow and yucky like ours.

It is crazy to look at the grocery adds – octopus, rabbit, goat heads.

The reason that Spaniards are so thin, is because meal time is forever. If you are dining with people you like and a comfortable chair – this is an awesome experience. It is amazing when you order one tappa dish at a time and you share it with the people around you, you don’t eat very much and your tummy has ample time to tell your brain that you are full.

Graffiti is everywhere. I have seen some workers clean it up on the glass walkways over the freeways. I haven’t seen a lot of painting over the mess. I have almost gotten used to seeing it. I do make a point to state to the girls how sad it is that the kids are doing this to their city. It is in our neighborhood, on the girls’ school – pretty much everywhere, regardless of the social classes. But there is some graffiti that is great to look at.

I was wrong when I spelled Nicole’s girl friends majors, it should be mejors!!!

Also, Pedro’s girlfriend is Paloma – not Pabloma – I have hearing translation issues on top of everything else.

If you want to see a “grown up” view of Spain, you can visit Brent’s blog at docswanderings.blogspot.com. He is more on top of his blogging and has more pictures. Can I just whine and say that it is because everytime he is blogging, he takes up my time getting pictures from me – so I don’t get my blogging done. He’s at school now.

Family wise, we are all excellent. The girls have so much fun playing with each other, and then playing with Steve-Laurie and Kelly-Chelsea, and Brent-me. Brent and I are doing great. This has been wonderful on our relationship. I think it is because we are spending so much time together and experiencing the stresses together, versus coming home with our own burdens and not wanting to burden our spouse with it all etc.

We have decided to take the girls out of the Spanish school at the end of November. Firstly, we have to pay a whole month tuition, even though they are only going to be in school for two weeks, saving us 1300e/$1800. Secondly, I am behind on their studies from AZ. If I spend that two weeks getting them caught up, they will probably have a smoother transition going back to school in January. Lastly, there are going to be a ton of people and activity happening in the house for the last two weeks. Bryce didn’t care one way or another. Jocelyn was bummed. I know they will miss their friends. I will miss them having one hour of physical activity every day and their Spanish lessons. Again, parent guilt comes shining through!!!

And blogging, yes I’m wordy. This is mainly my journal. When I get home, I’m going to print it all out and put it in a huge memories box with all of my pictures – that you haven’t been able to see yet!!! What joy, what rapture!!!