Life: Idiotropic

After 6 days of traveling, though only half were spent in the car, my desire to avoid a car at all cost has won out over the curious photographer in me. By 1030, mine and 5 other gurgling stomachs forced my exactly 60 second drive across the street to the Mercadona. Tiara and I perused the isles there looking for what we know and what odd things we could discover. Shopped a bit. Tried some new things... random breads of which one of each daughter would like while the others wouldn’t. Loved the fruit. It’s delicious and cheap. But citrus. No berries, not even strawberries which really disappointed Luci. The deli meats are not what I am used to and there was no cheddar, but I’ll be able to get a good selection of French and Spanish cheeses as well as Feta and a few others. No pepper jack. No paprika paste which I use in my Hungarian and Turkish dishes. But this is one grocery. I’ll look at others as well.

A few hours at home. Pool for the girls and jumping on the trampoline. Me pretending to be productive, but dragging my feet. After 3.5 years of full speed ahead, this couple days of slow is nice. I know it will speed up soon enough.

Met the landlord and the current residents at our new house at 5. Getting there was fast and easy and included a narrow pitted road through the orange groves which is quite the norm here. The house was sort of what I remembered, but empty changes things. I’d seen it first liking it, but thinking that it was too small and wouldn’t work. Then with a lot of time and thinking with a limited supply of houses and from Germany, saw photos of the house again which helped in making our decision. The landlord was the clincher. He’s known as wonderful and has proven that already.

So, the house is nice. And will be nice. But seeing it mostly empty and a bit dirty was sort of discouraging. Manuel is going to paint for me though and I get to pick out the colors. He’s also giving us a new dishwasher and leaving some of his nice furniture in the house (if we want, or he’ll throw it out!). He’ll put a nice stone patio area in front of the BBQ where a dry weedy garden now sits. So I’ll have a small manageable garden area for vegetables, but not something so big and hard to maintain.

Dinner afterward with Cami who’s interior decoration skills and good taste make any other house look horrible... probably not the best place to see after seeing mine in dingy disarray. Oh well. The company and food was great. Burgers and a green salad with feta, craisins, and caramelized walnuts. Mmmm.

The girls got to bed about 11. Exhausted enough to sleep in the hot. I miss my pillow.

More Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=126238&id=674507268&l=15399d8a07