Tour Guide

That's right.  I had a surprise visit Saturday from my cousin "out-law" (I'm assured this is the technical term for X in-laws). ;)  He and his nephew were in Marbella (ritzy fritzy-ville on the Costa del Sol) and had an unexpected free day.  They were hoping to see a bit of the "real" Spain; I dare say, they came to the right place/person.  I showed them around La Roda a little and then we headed to the next town over, Estepa.

Estepa is a beautiful town, much more "Spanish" looking than La Roda.  As you come up to in on the free way, you can see the ruins of a fortress on the hill and the typical casas blancas cascading down from there as church steeples rise up through the maze of tiled rooves.  It is a place worth visiting, for sure, and being just 10 minutes from home made it that much more attractive for short-notice tour guiding.

Some friends of ours from La Roda recently moved to Estepa and so I got in touch with them, too, hoping they would be up for playing tour guides.  I know a little about the town, but not enough to make wandering around the kind of interesting visit that it could be.  It's always best to get that kind of history from the locals. My friends were good sports and after the three of us had made our way to the convent on the hill (the church dates to the 16th century) and ordered some sweets from the nuns there, we met up with my friends for a dose of Estepeña culture accompanied by coffee and drinks.

It was a wonderful afternoon/evening.  I learned much more about Estepa and my guests thouroughly enjoyed getting some history and a glimpse of "real-life" in Spain.  We ended our visit in a tapas bar in town. Apparently the tapas in Marbella, aside from bad, are also quite expensive (big surprise).  We ordered some fabulous grilled squid with green sauce, fresh anchovies in lemon, Iberian fillete and ham...  You get the idea.  We redeemed Spanish cuisine and all within our budget! ;)

Once we were back in La Roda, of course we made the obligatory stop at Pub California.  That's right--the first (x)family member to have a drink in the new bar! :)  They headed out of town around 12 midnight...although I offered a bed, they turned it down since the next morning they were planning to get up early for a visit to Gibraltar.

It was a great visit.  As one of my friends in Estepa points out, unexpected get-togethers are nearly always the most fun!  It's true.

Bon Appetit

This was my dinner last night.  Look good?  It was.  I made it 100% from scratch--tuna and olive pizza with manchego cheese and herb crust. :)

Sunday nights are pizza nights and usually we have frozen pizzas from the supermarket that we bake in the oven.  (don't curl your epicurian lips at the idea!) One in particular is especially delicious--Mediterranean with goat cheese!

Last night we were out of pizza, and in an effort to save some money (but mostly because I love inventing in the kitchen when I have time), I decided to make homemade pizza.

I guess it was a little more like a foccacia because the crust was a bit thicker than pizza crust tends to be here in Spain, but it was absolutely scrumptious!  I added some thyme to the dough to give it a little more flavor and then dug around in the pantry for the toppings.  Tuna is a very common pizza topping in Spain and I have to say, I've come to really like it.  In any case, my pizza tasted as good as it looks and I'm going to have leftovers for breakfast!

Cold, pizza: my favorite!

Another gem:

Just another cool video from one of my music classes.  This guy uses all kinds of daily objects to make really cool instruments!  I would have loved to make some of these in school... Who am I kidding?  I would STILL really love to make some of these. :)

So much to tell...

...And so little time!

That's how I feel, anyway.  Life has been racing by lately, and I'm not entirely sure why.  This semester I only have three classes, but just as I feared, the lighter work-load is a good excuse to slack!  I have been pretty consistantly behind on reading and unfortunately the class schedule usually conflicts with my work schedule so I haven't been able to make the virtual classes, either.

But school's not the only thing that's got be running around these days.  Most importantly, (and you must forgive me for not blogging about this sooner) we have finally made the decision to BUY a house.  Remember a while back I was bemoaning all the expenses involved with construction?  The real problem is that banks just aren't willing to loan money.  Since the real estate crash here, many banks have foreclosed on homes which have continued to lose value and so now they're pretty desperate to get rid of these properties without accruing the liability that comes with granting a new loan (for example, for contruction...).  

We've gone round and round and looked at different things and played with the idea of different scenarios; but in the end it looks like we're going to end up with the first house we fell in love with! :)  

That's right, way back at the beginning of May (2012) we were shown a house that we absolutely LOVED.  It was a little big, but the layout was such that it still felt warm and welcoming.  The whole house was centered around the patio in an L shape so that there were lots of windows looking out on the patio and therefore lots of natural light.  The property was also on a corner, which is important if you like windows because Spanish construction is typicallying wall-to-wall with the neighbors so that it's impossible to have lateral windows.  It was was beautifully tiled in the kitchen and bathrooms...but they were asking far too much for our meager budget: 200,000.  

We pretty much gave up on the idea of living there, but after seeing that house, we didn't even want to look at any others!  That's when we decided to go ahead and buy property of our own to build our own home.  When we had the plans drawn up for our own house, we basically recreated the one we'd fallen in love with in the beginning--centered around the patio, etc.  The only difference was that our house would be smaller and not on a corner lot (those are more expensive, as you can imagine).

...And then along came Life and whipped everything up into a frenzy.  We were up and down and all over the place, frantically looking for a way to go ahead with the construction of our dream house, but resigned to the reality that we'd probably end up in some property that currently belonged to the bank.  

Then one day, we got wind through the owner's cousin, that the house we had loved so much back at the beginning of summer had come down, down, down in price.  She assured us we could get it for 130!  Since then we have been wheeling and dealing with the owner and have finally agreed on 145.  It's not what we hoped for, but they did come down some and the house is really worth much more, even without the inflated market prices of 5-7 years ago.  We are thrilled, as you can imagine. :)  

But of course, it wasn't just a matter of reaching a sale price.  We've also had to negotiate interest rates with the bank, to arrange for our take-over of the home's current loan (you were wondering about that, right?)--so stressful!  And make all the arrangements for money transfers from my U.S. accounts.  It's been crazy--a lot of details to attend to, etc.  But I think we're in the home stretch (finally), and soon we'll be able to breathe easy and enjoy our already-constructed dream house! :)

Both of us are pretty anxious to get the sale finalized and be moved in!  Right now we're just waiting on the notary to give us a date to sign all the papers.  We will probably hear from him next week. Which means that for my birthday we'll be moving! :)  

I will send pictures as soon as we have the keys!

...And I promise more news soon.  Yes, there is more to tell (not house related).

Truth.

Some of you may have seen this already.  I saw it a few years ago.  I won't say much more other than... think about your assumptions and reflect on your reaction to what you see.

In the Groove

Today I was finally able to attend one of my virtual music classes because my afternoon classes were cancelled.  The unit we're beginning is about techniques for teaching musical instruments to children.  Of course the one intstrument we all have readily available and by far the cheapest, is our own body!  Clapping, stomping, clicking, humming, singing, etc.  There are a number of professional groups that have made "body music" or "body percussion" quite popular lately.  This first video is a group from Brazil.  They make their music using their bodies only--no "foreign" instruments at all.  We watched this video in class and I wanted to share:


So as I was watching these Brazilians making music, I was reminded of my mother.  Why?  She has a hidden talent that none of us have propperly appreciated (until now).  She can play melodies on her head.  What?!  That's right, she hits her head and makes music.  We always laugh because it really sounds like she's got a hollow head--no judgment. ;)  Anyway, I also remembered that I had this video evidence of said talent.  I hope she doesn't mind that I'm sharing with you.  This was filmed in a Starbucks in Reno, NV...not the best acustics, but you can get an idea.

I think she missed her calling!  Maybe you should head to Brazil, mom. ;)

My talented mother:



...And that's where I get my musical abilities. ;)  Thanks for the good genes, mommy.