School begins Friday, Sept. 10th for the boys. They will be attending a local public school called Gomez Moreno in the Albaicin district of Granada. The boys are pretty scared right now and so I thought we'd take a little break from everything and head to the beach for a few days. Ricardo and Esperanza, our landlords, suggested a tiny little beach town on the Mediterranean called, San Jose of Cabo de Gata. What a treat it was! The train ride from Granada to Almeria was beautiful through many hills of olive groves one after the other. Around Guadix there were hundreds of wind turbines and solar panels. We all agreed we need to see more and more of these in the US. On a side note, during siesta each day it is frowned upon if you use much electricity. So, that means from essentially 3pm-6pm there is minimal usage of electricity. What would happen for the US if they tried this, or even just in the city of LA? Besides, minimal energy consumption everything is just simply, simpler here. You go to the store and there are 3 types shampoo...not 50. You get one type of cafe con leche and there are no additives - no triple carmel machiatto with skim milk. And I must say, a cafe con leche here has twice the kick of Starbucks.
After we departed Guadix via bus we traveled through the suburbs of Almeria. Apparently as of just recently this was one of the poorest areas of Spain. Within the last 5+ years they have begun to construct greenhouses for year round agricultural purposes. Now the area is quite wealthy, but quite unsightly. Until you begin to decent the canyon last leads down to Cabo de Gata you pass hundreds of white, plastic greenhouses loaded with cultivations. You can get organic produce here and even the non-organic is better than ours in the US. They still farm the old fashioned way without the use of many pesticides. Because we are so far south, the produce is quite diverse and we will have many options in the winter.
We stayed at the Albergue San Jose, an international youth hostel where you pay for each bunk. We couldn't check in to the hostel so we went straight to the beach and jumped in. The water was SO WARM. It was easy right away to fall into beach time and just sit, relax and watch the ocean.
The siesta time at the beach was even longer and more tranquil than in the city of Granada. We weren't able to get into our hostel until 1800 and then the woman was late in opening up. Everything moves much slower. You all think there is a "Tahoe time", oh, it's nothing compared to Spanish time. :) Let's just say it gives you time to...reflect - something we all need to do more often.
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| Albergue San Jose - Our hostel |
The waves were pretty good, some 2-2 1/2 ft. high and gave us the chance to body surf a bit. There were many urchins and shells to explore and lots to watch, primarily in human form.
For example, the boys quickly noticed that many men wore "whitey tighties" aka Speedos. By the end of this trip, both boys were interested in having their own pair because of the severe rash they had. Perhaps the old men knew something they didn't?
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| The sea does not discriminate. |
Besides Speedos being a la mode, it was common for women and girls to be topless. I did have a conversation with the boys about this, but the auditory lesson didn't have as much of an affect on them as the visual. I think it took them about 24 hours to be able to finally close their jaws and stop running into people. The women, both old and young who were topless didn't bother them quite as much as the girls their age. Yet another lesson in our journey to take home. What I loved about the beach was all the different ages that enjoyed this experience-young children, babies, families helping grandparents in the water. There was also quite a cultural diversity at the beach. A few Northern Europeans, many Spaniards, Italians and Northern Africans all enjoyed the warmth of the sand and sea, eating, reading, laughing, playing paddle ball, swimming and snorkeling.
Here's a little clip of our time at la playa - the beach. I thought you all might enjoy it. Also, I thought I would add a photo of the common staple these days: pan, pan, and more pan (bread), salchicha (sausage) and/or jamon (prosciutto), aceitunas (olives), zumo (juice), queso (cheese), fruta (fruit)- in this photo melocotones (peaches), and usually a little vino o cerveza. Fortunately the boys will eat all of the above so I don't have to worry about them going hungry here.
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| Lunch anyone? |
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| Owen's favorite - chocolate caliente |
And last but not least some of the recent quotes that made the paper... "Wow, that was actually pretty fast!" (after only waiting a few minutes to get our train tickets.
"Mom, just to let you know, I might want to live here for 2 years."
"Ah!" "She's NAKED!" "Just act natural, just act natural..." (said under his breath)
"I don't want to eat anything salty right now because I drank enough of the sea."
Translation from Spanish to English: "You know we have a saying in Spain." "If the US sneezes, we get a cold." (after a discussion about "la crisis" that is occurring in Spain)
After we departed Guadix via bus we traveled through the suburbs of Almeria. Apparently as of just recently this was one of the poorest areas of Spain. Within the last 5+ years they have begun to construct greenhouses for year round agricultural purposes. Now the area is quite wealthy, but quite unsightly. Until you begin to decent the canyon last leads down to Cabo de Gata you pass hundreds of white, plastic greenhouses loaded with cultivations. You can get organic produce here and even the non-organic is better than ours in the US. They still farm the old fashioned way without the use of many pesticides. Because we are so far south, the produce is quite diverse and we will have many options in the winter. 
