We arrived in Spain a week ago and have been kept very busy trying to get our life straight. So far we have replaced the stolen laptop with an iPad (I did not see that one coming!! I never thought I would see the day when my dad bought and iPad! He thinks they are quite pointless!!), signed a contract for a rental house in Churriana de la Vega on the outskirts of Granada, and started school. We are also planning a trip to Portugal over Easter Break. Zander and I (mostly I) have been closely involved in everything becuase we can translate Spanish for our parents, which is extremely tiring.
The first thing we translated for was when we were searching for a good prepaid phone plan for daddy´s iPhone. That was rough, and they ended up just using googe translate.That was on the way from Madrid to Cordoba. We stayed in Cordoba for a few nights, in a 5 star hotel where daddy booked a hotel room for TWO PEOPLE!!! It was a really nice room, with a huge shower and everything, but only one king sized bed. Sarah ended up sleeping on the cusion that she took off the baby changing table, Zander on a sheet on the floor, and Kayley, me, and my parents sharing the bed. That was a bit unconfortable becuase Kayley thrashes in her sleep so we got kicked off the bed for the next night. Instead we brought up the airmatress that we had bought in Italy for camping (and only used twice). That got popped when we were setting it up and Kayley and I did our best to patch it up with Tyvek tape. That sort of worked, but there must have been a leak because we woke up in the middle of the night on the floor. That entire time we were looking for rentals in Córdoba. That was not going well, because there were barely any in town and most of them were full because Easter is coming. We ended up just driveing on out of there.
We spent a few hours at the beach in Málaga and then drove to Granada. We did a bit of touristing there and visited Alhambra Palace, but mostly we were looking for rentals. We changed our focus from just rentals to holiday rentals becuase every one else was unwilling to rent to us for less than six months. We found a lot more that way, and I was searching in Spanish instead of English. When we really started going we were lining them up three a day. The day we found ours, we had three lined up (thanks to a ton of phone calls with people in Spainsh by ME). The one in the morning was in an adorable little town about 45 minutes from Granada. They were kind of a dump, and the one we wanted wasn´t complete yet. The next one was in Monachil, an outskirt of Granada. The apartment was cute, but really small, and the guy who showed it to us was Scottish. It was much better than the last one we had seen, but not perfect.
The last one we looked at every one had a good feeling about, because the places had been getting better all day. It was an actual house instead of an apartment, and had the perfect amount of beding for everyone. Three bedrooms, two had two twin beds each, and the master had a queen. There was a little back patio with one of those little charcoal grills. It was the landlady´s acutal house, so it was clean and tastefully furnished. The one little drawback was the fact that the landlady didn´t speak any English. None at all. She was really nice though, and the combined force of Zanders and my Spanish skills got us an apointment the next day to sign a contract. She also told us where the schools were and stuff. That evening we hit a pastry shop for celebration (the one fault of you little town is that is doens´t have a single ice cream shop open in the spring time).
Next day we visited the schools where we got us all in the next day, and then went off to get the contract signed. This time the landlady had her iPad out with google translate so Zander and I were only needed a little. After the contract was signed we went school shopping at the monster Carrefour Planet mall, which was "the most constructive" shopping trip daddy had ever had been on. There was still a strict list and stuff, which was dumb, and we were constrained to the half hour before daddy exploded but we still mananged to get stuff done.
The next moring we got out or our beds (oh wait, just kidding, not beds, sleeping bags on the floor) really early and went to school. Zander and I were dropped off first at the "Instituto de Educación Secundaria F.G.L." (Institute of Secundary Education -- so clinical!! Like they are going to preform scientific procedures to fill our brains with knowledge). It is perhaps the most ugly building that ever existed, the outside is stone and there is not a blade of grass in sight. The inside is echoy, with tiles on the walls (like a bathroom) and nasty purple doors. Gross. There is a fence with a locked gate surrounding the entire thing. The people inside though, are normal high schoolers, and of course, the "no electronics in school" rule is entirely unenforcable. I have no idea how anyone expects to enforce that one without having a secutity system equivalent to airports. The day was great though, and the kids try a lot harder to speak English to me than the adults do (even though they sound really funny, and I could probably understand them better when they speak Spanish).
After school was out we were all really happy, especially Kayley, who´s school is giving here a little laptop to do homework on. (lucky!!). We went back to our little two person hotel room in Granada and then the kids were sent to the mall for like 3 hours becuase we were apparently too happy. The next day was national strike day so there wasn´t any school. We went for a nice hike in Monachil instead, and it was really cool because everyone was just lazing around, and not doing anything. It was like a Sunday afternoon! Spain is turning out to be pretty good, and I really hope I come out of this fluent in Spanish, becuase that would be really cool!
The first thing we translated for was when we were searching for a good prepaid phone plan for daddy´s iPhone. That was rough, and they ended up just using googe translate.That was on the way from Madrid to Cordoba. We stayed in Cordoba for a few nights, in a 5 star hotel where daddy booked a hotel room for TWO PEOPLE!!! It was a really nice room, with a huge shower and everything, but only one king sized bed. Sarah ended up sleeping on the cusion that she took off the baby changing table, Zander on a sheet on the floor, and Kayley, me, and my parents sharing the bed. That was a bit unconfortable becuase Kayley thrashes in her sleep so we got kicked off the bed for the next night. Instead we brought up the airmatress that we had bought in Italy for camping (and only used twice). That got popped when we were setting it up and Kayley and I did our best to patch it up with Tyvek tape. That sort of worked, but there must have been a leak because we woke up in the middle of the night on the floor. That entire time we were looking for rentals in Córdoba. That was not going well, because there were barely any in town and most of them were full because Easter is coming. We ended up just driveing on out of there.
We spent a few hours at the beach in Málaga and then drove to Granada. We did a bit of touristing there and visited Alhambra Palace, but mostly we were looking for rentals. We changed our focus from just rentals to holiday rentals becuase every one else was unwilling to rent to us for less than six months. We found a lot more that way, and I was searching in Spanish instead of English. When we really started going we were lining them up three a day. The day we found ours, we had three lined up (thanks to a ton of phone calls with people in Spainsh by ME). The one in the morning was in an adorable little town about 45 minutes from Granada. They were kind of a dump, and the one we wanted wasn´t complete yet. The next one was in Monachil, an outskirt of Granada. The apartment was cute, but really small, and the guy who showed it to us was Scottish. It was much better than the last one we had seen, but not perfect.
The last one we looked at every one had a good feeling about, because the places had been getting better all day. It was an actual house instead of an apartment, and had the perfect amount of beding for everyone. Three bedrooms, two had two twin beds each, and the master had a queen. There was a little back patio with one of those little charcoal grills. It was the landlady´s acutal house, so it was clean and tastefully furnished. The one little drawback was the fact that the landlady didn´t speak any English. None at all. She was really nice though, and the combined force of Zanders and my Spanish skills got us an apointment the next day to sign a contract. She also told us where the schools were and stuff. That evening we hit a pastry shop for celebration (the one fault of you little town is that is doens´t have a single ice cream shop open in the spring time).
Next day we visited the schools where we got us all in the next day, and then went off to get the contract signed. This time the landlady had her iPad out with google translate so Zander and I were only needed a little. After the contract was signed we went school shopping at the monster Carrefour Planet mall, which was "the most constructive" shopping trip daddy had ever had been on. There was still a strict list and stuff, which was dumb, and we were constrained to the half hour before daddy exploded but we still mananged to get stuff done.
The next moring we got out or our beds (oh wait, just kidding, not beds, sleeping bags on the floor) really early and went to school. Zander and I were dropped off first at the "Instituto de Educación Secundaria F.G.L." (Institute of Secundary Education -- so clinical!! Like they are going to preform scientific procedures to fill our brains with knowledge). It is perhaps the most ugly building that ever existed, the outside is stone and there is not a blade of grass in sight. The inside is echoy, with tiles on the walls (like a bathroom) and nasty purple doors. Gross. There is a fence with a locked gate surrounding the entire thing. The people inside though, are normal high schoolers, and of course, the "no electronics in school" rule is entirely unenforcable. I have no idea how anyone expects to enforce that one without having a secutity system equivalent to airports. The day was great though, and the kids try a lot harder to speak English to me than the adults do (even though they sound really funny, and I could probably understand them better when they speak Spanish).
After school was out we were all really happy, especially Kayley, who´s school is giving here a little laptop to do homework on. (lucky!!). We went back to our little two person hotel room in Granada and then the kids were sent to the mall for like 3 hours becuase we were apparently too happy. The next day was national strike day so there wasn´t any school. We went for a nice hike in Monachil instead, and it was really cool because everyone was just lazing around, and not doing anything. It was like a Sunday afternoon! Spain is turning out to be pretty good, and I really hope I come out of this fluent in Spanish, becuase that would be really cool!
Mia--thanks much for the update. We were wondering what was going on. So, delighted to hear that you've found a townl found a house that seems very good for you; and found a school that you seem--at least for now-content with. Also good to hear that you are already getting yourselves immersed in Spanish.
ReplyDeleteWe bought our tickets to Europe yesterday--so we'll see you before too long. love, love, bippy