En el pueblito de Genalguacil....y un viajecito a California!

Much has happened since I last posted back in January (yikes!) and so I have finally gotten my act together to create some new posts for the last few months.

In mid-January, Aaron left for Brazil for a few months to avoid visa issues in Europe, to visit the house his parents have there, and to help out with some of the things that needed to be done on the property. He still was working everyday, but was able to enjoy lots of surfing and the beauty of Brazil and the culture. Meanwhile, I stayed here in Fuengirola to continue teaching and enjoy my time here in Spain (with a small trip to California in February, which was wonderful!

One of the highlights of January/February was a long weekend trip I took with some of my co-workers to a small mountain pueblo (village) near Ronda. We stayed in a house in the village and spent most of the days walking around the town and eating...eating and eating plenty of chorizo (sausage), lomo (pork loin) and jamón (ham). Let's just say they like their meat here...vegetarians, beware.

The pueblo is called Genalguacil, and is an absolutely beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and an abundance of almond trees and flowers. Not only is is beautiful, but it has a peculiar charm to it.

As I have spent a lot of time in Andalucia, I have had the opportunity to visit many of the small towns that scatter the mountains around Malaga, Granada and Ronda. Many small pueblos in Andalucia are often inhabited by older, retired people, many of whom have lived there their whole lives. It is hard to find a young person in many of the pueblos as many of them only have a colegio (primary school) and the children have to leave to go to high school somewhere else and usually, there is very limited employment. Thus, many of the very small pueblos are popular destinations for Spanish families to go take a Sunday drive, eat in a restaurant together, and enjoy some traditional Andalucian culture and beauty.

And so, as you can imagine, Genalguacil is mostly full of little old men and women, who still labor in their gardens and walk up and down the steep streets carrying food back to their homes or water from the town well. I would have to say that many of the tiny pueblos of Andalucia would be great places to do studies on longevity. Many of the hard-working people I saw there were well into their 80's and 90's, but very alive and active in their everyday lives.




















So the peculiar charm about this particular pueblo is that it is also an attraction for artists, particularly sculptors. The reason for this is that every year, the pueblo holds a competition for artists. The artist creates a sculpture that is judged by the people of the town, and the winning sculpture gets placed somewhere in the pueblo to honor the piece and its artist.

Along with the display of their sculpture, the artist is then invited to live in the pueblo for one year, with free rent and free food for the entire year so they can continue creating art in a beautiful place (all you artists out there, I seriously recommend it!). As you can imagine, this adds an extra charm to this pueblo as the winning sculptures from over the years are wonderfully displayed all over the town. And given that many of the sculptures are of a modern style, it makes for some very nice contrasts between the old and the new.

Totem Pole Meets Spanish Pueblo

Wooden Woman Sculpture

My Favourite (I spell like the British now, hehe)

Town map with the locations of each art piece

Arte y Naturaleza = Art and Nature

A few weeks after my trip to Genalguacil, I was lucky enough to take a short trip back to California to see my friends and family. It was lovely to see those of you in the Bay Area and down south who were around when I came. For those of you that I missed, no worries as we will be seeing each other very soon! Aaron and I return on June 20th.

Julia and Emma in San Francisco

Julia, Jenny and Beth, kickin' it in SLO

Julia and Jenna near Half Moon Bay

After I returned from California, I spent lots of time on the beach, reading, teaching, spending time with my fellow-teachers, and enjoying Spain. The next big highlight of this year came in March, when I got to see my first Semana Santa in Spain (The Easter Holy Week celebrations). All of that and more, coming soon.......

All my love,

Julia

Felices Fiestas

Seeing that it is almost February, I thought it was about time to update my blog and share with all of you what has been happening in my life since December.

After visiting with good friends here in Fuengirola, we decided to take a very spontaneous trip to Scotland, which was absolutely wonderful. Neither Aaron nor I had been there, and it was on both of our lists of places we wanted to visit in the world. Also, Aaron's tourist visa was running out, so our visit to the U.K. gave him some more time to prepare for his next journey :)

Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Glasgow

Our first stop was Glasgow, which is an amazing city which, as the flight attendant excitedly told us, is famous for its shopping. Given the atrocious exchange rate between the pound and the dollar, we weren't exactly planning on doing much shopping. Furthermore, because we arrived on Christmas Eve, we quickly realized that everyone in Glasgow (and perhaps all of Scotland) shuts down from Christmas Eve until after "boxing day", which is what they call the day after Christmas Day. So, as you can imagine, we spent our few days in Glasgow roaming the deserted streets....the city all to ourselves, hehe (although it was quite difficult to find places to eat, but we managed just fine). We found the Scottish people to be extremely friendly and cheery. Our favorite was the front desk clerk at our hotel who spoke to us very kindly and was very friendly. There was only one problem: as soon as he opened his mouth, Aaron and I could not understand a word he said. We looked at each other with that panicky look that says "do you understand what he is saying?". After a while, we definitely got the gist, but it's true that some Scottish people are very hard to understand for us Americans...although it is quite pleasant to listen to, heh.

Edinburgh

A glimpse of Edinburgh lit up for Christmas

We were pleased to spend some time in Glasgow but our arrival in Edinburgh was our real Christmas present. If you can imagine what a real fairytale city looks like: that's Edinburgh. Not to mention it was Christmas time, so there were special events and Christmas markets all over the city. One of the most enchanting things about Edinburgh is the history, which seems to be frozen in time. We loved the traditional pubs, as each one had a historical singificance in the town, so you could read what happened there in the 1600's and how it got its name, etc. We were quite impressed with the food there....it was great! Not to mention the Guinness and the Scottish beers and whiskeys..

Aaron perusing the Scotch Whiskey selection

Edinburgh Castle

Nice view of the castle at night from near our hostel

Historic Pub "Greyfriars"

I think I'll just order half-pints from now on

One of the great sites in Edinburgh is their historical cemetery, which supposedly has 400,000 bodies in it due to the crisis of the plague, where they hurriedly had to dispose of the dead (eww!). It is right out of a spooky movie...in fact, they hold tours at night because it is notorious for being extremely haunted, especially certain graves. They say when it rains really hard, sometimes the bones come up from the ground...yikes! Aaron and I liked to walk in there at night...but we'd only last about 10 seconds cause it was too scary!

In Edinburgh, you can also find the humble cafe where J.K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter on napkins. She spent a lot of time there and there is an amazing school that looks like a castle....the school that inspired her vision of Hogwarts.

Lovely Rainbow in the Sky

We also visited Holyrood Castle, once home of Mary Queen of Scotts, who was involved in a scandal that later got her executed. The castle is still used by Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family and is home to many famous works of art.

The Highlands

Another highlight was our visit to the Highlands of Scotland. We had a humorous guide who told us much of the history along the way, although we were disappointed that the bus didn't stop very often, so we had to take pictures from the window. However, we got a glimpse of the castle where they filmed Monty Python, as well as the castle where some of the historical events in the life of William Wallace took place (the hero of Braveheart). Our tour guide was anxious to reveal all of the inaccuracies of the movie, as William Wallace would have never worn a kilt or face paint because he was from a different region and paint was not used during that time period. He also pointed out (for those of you who have seen the movie) that it was impossible for him to have had an affair with the princess because she was actually four years old at the time of his rebellion, hehe. Nonetheless, as a Scottish guy, he admitted that Mel Gibson did a decent job of imitating the Scottish accent :)

Aaron at the waterfalls

The name speaks for itself :)

We got to visit a whiskey distillery (I've learned that I don't hate whisky if it's good whisky, hehe) and try Haggis with napes (turnips) and tatties (potatoes), a typical dish in Scotland that comes from the Highlands (made of sheep's innards....yummm). We met a very handsome bull, native to the Highlands and got to visit some beautiful waterfalls. It is truly a beautiful place...very serene yet the home of many historical battles in Scottish history.

What a cutie!


This guy too! :)

Rockin' the Bagpipes!

Little did we know, but Edingurgh is famous for its Hogmany celebration, which is what they call New Year's. Everyone couldn't believe we were leaving to go to London for New Year's because many people come from all over the world just to see Hogmany in Edinburgh...it's a big partaayyy. However, we did get to see the beginning of the celebrations because it is more like a 4 or 5 day event. On the night before we left, the whole city was filled with people, and everyone carried a torch and proceeded to follow a Viking ship through the city (with bagpipes and bands playing, of course) all the way to the top of a hill where a castle looks over the city. From there, they set the ship on fire and release an amazing Fireworks show. It was a spectacular event and we were so glad to have been there to experience it!

Torches for Hogmany

Vikings.....sweeet

Lovely London Town

On to London!

Although we loved Edinburgh, we were excited to move on to London to visit our friends, Claire and Tim. We were so happy to be with good friends and to have some time to relax and enjoy the city. We really enjoyed going to the museums because they were all free! Being that we'd emptied our pockets quite significantly in Scotland and ran around like tourists do, it was nice to chill, to cook in a kitchen, and to see sights in the city while spending time with people we love.

Big Ben at night

Aaron and Claire on a stroll in the park

Aaron and Tim marvel at Julia's very moist pie

Two fine ladies strolling the city

It was definitely one of the all-time best New Year's celebrations. Claire is an excellent chef and we feasted on a trout dinner to bring in the New Year and we got to try some of Tim's nanna's homemade berry liquor (go granny!). It wouldn't have been proper if we didn't moisten it up with some fabulous costumes (capes and all) to celebrate the coming of 2008. And the party was very moist indeed....and yes, Tim was wearing a dress...and he looked fabulous.

Moises in the UK

Claire and Matt... looking very sophisticated, indeed

Besitos!

Fireworks on the roof terrace!

Julia and Mugatu

Mugatu gets wild and crazy with the cider

Our trip was so wonderful and we were glad we went. Thank you to Claire and Tim for their utmost awesome hospitality (we stayed with them a whole week).

Returning to Fuengirola, we definitely welcomed the warmer temperatures (what a difference!). And so, Aaron began to prepare for his next journey...on to Brazil!! In order to avoid overstaying his visa here in Spain, he decided to take a brief hiatus to Brazil to help fix up the house his parents have there in the countryside, and to go surfing, enjoy carnival, do yoga....and of course, work. Although I miss him a ton, he's having an awesome experience and enjoying summer in Brazil (it is summer there now). So, Aaron shall get an endless summer this year because when he comes back to Spain in March, it will be beach weather again! Lucky! As soon as I get more pictures from him, I will include them in my next post. He's glad to hear from friends and family and of course anyone is welcome to go join him there :)

So, lately my life has consisted of teaching (school is going really well), walking along the beach, reading, and hanging out with some of my Spanish friends (mostly my coworkers). We plan to take a trip this weekend to a small pueblo in Ronda where we will be renting a house for the weekend. Looking forward to it.

Out with my co-workers, Elena and Cristobol

So, to wrap things up, I will see some of you in California in February as I am coming home for a short visit during my holiday break. For those of you who I won't see: I miss you all and I hope all is well, wherever you may be around the world. Aaron sends his love from Braziiiiilllllll

Miss Ginger

I would like to dedicate this post to our little Ginger, who received her angel wings and flew away to doggy heaven...most likely with her tail wagging. She was surrounded by those who loved her in her last moments on this earth. She is now nourishing a beautiful tree by her favorite pond, accompanied by 5 almonds, one from each of us who loved her so much. We miss you, Miss G, but we are grateful that your life was filled with lots of joy, and we are thankful to have had you in our lives. Thank you for all the wonderful things you taught us about life. Te echamos de menos, preciosa.

PEACE!

Mucho de viajar! Feliz Navidad a todos!

Feliz Navidad a todos!

This past month has been wonderful, filled with travel, friends and some family. As Aaron embarked on his journey to Morocco, I was enjoying my teaching and spending more time with friends I've made through my job. Aaron had a good trip exploring the craziness that is Marrakech, but his trip was cut short as he became very sick (a bad cough and cold) and decided to come home early. However, the time he spent there was eye-opening and very interesting. He was able to experience the congested outdoor markets with pushy salesmen, snake-charmers, beggars, thieves, yummy but sometimes questionable food, and interesting people. He had a very unique Thanksgiving eating Tagine chicken and vegetables, a common Moroccan dish. But don't take my word for it, ask him! Here you will see some photos of his travels there.






He was lucky to get some video of the sounds and sights, which really give you an idea of the unique flavor that is Morocco. With the Muslim call to prayer five times a day, few women (who aren't tourists) in the streets, no sight of alcohol but no lack of hashish, you know you are in another world! You can hear the different mosques calling for prayer in this video...it is quite amazing.




After Aaron had returned and was feeling better, we met up with Angela (my co-worker) and her boyfriend Jose for coffee and dinner. We had such a wonderful time, and Angela invited us to go with her to Ronda, her home town. Ronda is a beautiful city north of the coast that sits upon a giant gorge, with buildings that peak over impressive cliffs that look out over the countryside below. It was a really wonderful trip and we saw some of the wonderful sights in Ronda, but not all of them because we had plans to return shortly with my parents. I also happened to run into Paula (my old student from Granada) and her family who were having a Saturday lunch in Ronda (el mundo es un pañuelo)...what a small world!




After a nice weekend trip to Ronda, we spent the next week working and anxiously awaiting the arrival of my parents. They arrived in Amsterdam on November 29th and spent time in Brussels as well as in Bruges. They arrived in Malaga to be greeted by Aaron and me, as well as the sun! Their timing was wonderful. Since their departure a few days ago, the weather has been acting more like winter, with many days of rain and some colder temperatures. So, we were pleased to have sun and warm temperatures while they were here, and they enjoyed their time in Fuengirola before we embarked on our roadtrip.


We rented a car and went to Ronda, Jerez de la Frontera, and Cadiz....all amazing places, although one of the highlights of the trip was passing through the "pueblos blancos" (Andalucian white towns) on our way to Ronda. They were absolutely breathtaking, some so isolated you feel as though there is no other world beyond the hills. When leaving Ronda, we also passed through a natural reserve (Sierra de Grazalema) that was so beautiful...green and lush with an occasional pueblo blanco along the way. We enjoyed the views of Ronda, took a tour of the Tio Pepe Sherry Bodega in Jerez de la Frontera (and drank some, too!) and got lost in the small streets of Cadiz. In Jerez and Cadiz, we were lucky enough to stumble upon live Zambombas, which are traditional Christmas gatherings where they sing songs (like carols) but with a Spanish/Flamenco flavor. One of the Zambombas was live in a plaza, performed by the local people from that neighborhood (elderly and children alike). The second Zambomba (in Cadiz) was a wonderful concert put on in a local bar/restaurant by a professional group. It was great! There is no way I can go into detail....this blog is long enough. We had such a great roadtrip....what a nice early Christmas present!











After my parents said goodbye, we welcomed Kacy and Martin, who had been traveling through Andalucia in their fabulous caravan. Kacy is a good friend of Aaron's from his college years who is living in Portland but decided to spend her Christmas break travelling around Andalucia. We were so thrilled to have her come visit. She is travelling with her friend Martin, a wonderful person, as well who is originally from Argentina but has lived in Spain for a long time now. They met in Costa Rica and had since planned this trip through Spain. It was fun to see their pictures from surfing and camping along the coast. We loved having them and although it was quite rainy these past few days, we had some wonderful meals, played some fun games, and had some good laughs (and chilly walks on the beach). Good times were had, indeed. Os echaremos mucho de menos!! (We will miss you guys!)







And so, I guess I have arrived at the present....it's amazing. But the big question is: So where should we spend Christmas?? Hmmmm, ummmm, well....how about Scotland? Ok, sounds good. Christmas Eve is tomorrow, afterall. Nothing like last minute planning (it's a Payne thing, hehe).

Good thing I'm finishing up this blog because it's off to Glasgow tomorrow and then to Edinburgh, then to ??? and then to London to see Claire and Tim for New Year's.

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends! We love you all so much.



Feliz Navidad

(It's our little tree)