Settling in a bit

The food here is different - Mediterranean diet - not remotely related to Mexican food. We're going to have to get used to eating green olives just as a snack. Lots of fish and pork. Not much chicken. Dinner is usually from 9:30 PM to midnight. Trying to find a place to eat at 6 PM is impossible. Lunch times are also strange and certain restaurants are open only for certain times. Tappas are the "snacks" and places are dedicated to them specifically. Bars are not bars, they're family establishments. Children are welcomed anywhere and at any time.

We rented an incredibly small car. If you've ever seen movies with the microscopic cars, that's what we have. Barely fits all of us. The trunk/hatchback fits our coats, and a 5 bags of groceries, and that's about it. Our Montero just arrived this week. That was a big suprise as we didn't expect it for another month. Ultimately we'll need another vehicle but we'll probably return our rental car soon.
We're pretty close to the beach which is incredible. Summers here
are reportedly insane, because people come from all over Europe to hang out at the beaches. Should be interesting. Spain is not cheap. For some reason I thought it would be.

It will be interesting to live off-base and integrate into the Spanish community. People don't speak English as much as we were led to believe, but so far we've done alright. Travis has learned a ton of Spanish in just a few weeks. The rest of us are catching on but we seem to rely on his language skills most of the time. Necessity breeds motivation. We are settling into our house now. We moved in almost two weeks. Our express shipment was delivered a few days ago. It was nice to see familiar things that we own. Now all of our beds have a homemade Grandma quilt on them. Each one of the kids have thier new ones and I have our heavy levi quilt on my bed. New heaters were finally installed this week too. So now it's much warmer in our house. We bought a couple of area rugs for the living room and the hallway so that is making it a bit more cozy also.
The base opened up a new shopping center this week. It's been about 50 years since they've had new store buildings so everyone here was really exicted about the modern shopping center. It's very nice! They even have a Subway Sandwich shop and Starbucks! The grand opening was just three days ago and it seemed to be a huge success. Travis got off work early because there were no patients - everyone was shopping! We are headed to the new grocery store, called the Commisary, after we finish here at the library. We desperatley need groceries so it will probably take us awhile.

Kindred Konnection

I loved reading our family newsletter. What a nice taste of home. It's so nice to hear from everyone at the same time. Thanks for organizing it Amy.
Well, we now have a place to call home! We spent our first night in our new house last night and all went well. It was a little cold because the heaters won't be worked on for a couple of weeks from now. It's not too cold outside (yet) but the homes don't warm up from the sun, during the winter. They are made with concrete walls and ceilings, not wood and insulation. The floors are all freezing cold marble! I feel like we are in a museum with the marble floors and the few pieces of rental furniture in each room. We'll definately have to buy some rugs and slippers but socks (and shoes) will have to work for now. The military delivered rental beds, tables, chairs and couches for us to use until our own furniture arrives (in a month). It has five bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms a big living room/dining room with a fire place and lots of built in shelves. We have a glass wall/door, enclosed patio that is practicaly begging for a hot tub for Travis, plus a lovely, tiled, courtyard patio too. It should work out very well for us while we are living here.
Travis is enjoying some vacation days this week so we can settle into our house and tour around southern Spain a bit. We've had a great time touring a couple of Spanish cities within 1-2 hours from our house. Yesterday, we were thrilled and amazed at the reality of how we spent the day. We took our passports, crossed the border and spent the day in Gibralter! It was wonderful! We spent about two hours touring the "The Rock of Gibralter" inside and outside. We took a private guided tour to drive around and up the top of the Rock and had several stops along the way to tour caves, mines and visit the local, wild, free range apes. We have some great photos of it all so I'll post them after I have full access a internet from home. (I'm still having to drive into the base to use the cyber cafes) Tomorrow we're planning another day trip and will probably head to Sevilla. Then on Monday, Travis will start working (and taking his first patients as an FNP!) and I'll try to normalize our routine and days with the children.