Our first week in Spain

It's now Saturday at 8:30 p.m. my time, 2:30 p.m. everyone else's time. The sun hasn't even started to set yet here. Tonight, we're going to our first drive in movie on base, which starts at dusk, which is around 10:30 p.m. here. CRAZY right?

Our first day here was stressful. We were cramped in this little hotel room with no access to really anything. The next day, Wednesday, Joe and I ventured out onto base and started to familiarize ourself with our surroundings. I kept telling Joe I felt like I was in New Mexico... lots of dry, dead grass and cactus plants. I was waiting for the tumbleweeds. The base is a typical base with all of the usual ammenities but still all completely new to me. Everything is all about showing IDs, every building we're in, everywhere we go. And some of the time, we're showing IDs to people that we can't understand.

I falsely assumed the base would be primarily Americans. WRONG. There are a lot of Spanish nationals here on base which makes the need to learn Spanish that much greater. I have to admit, it's very frustrating not being able to understand what most people are saying around me. I've never felt like a minority before. Needless to say, I'm signed up for classes already!

After three days of running errands and getting all checked in on base, we decided to see something other than the commissary and the dead grass. Friday, we went to the city of Rota. We drove our TINY little rental car through the gate and towards the beach. First of all, the cars are miniature. Secondly, there are circles every 20 feet that people just whip around in these little Richard Scarry cars. We were fortunate enough to get parking pretty close to the beach. You'll see from the pictures, the water was an amazing shade of blue. There are several beaches in Rota. The base has a private beach, there's another beach that had paddle boats, then on the other side of the marina was the main, long beach of Rota near all the hotels.

Even with the sun beating down, and not a cloud in the sky, neither one of us even broke a sweat walking around (and I was even wearing black!) There is this amazing breeze that is constant here that keeps it from feeling humid or hot.

We walked out on the rock jetty-pier and sat on a bench for a while, just soaking it up. It was the perfect birthday view.

We walked just about a mile or so in that small corner of the city to see the "castle" in town. It's an old castle that is now tourable. We didn't go inside but took some neat pictures. The streets were so narrow, they were barely alleyways. As we walked through, we were literally walking past people as they cooked lunch with their doors and windows wide open. As you walk by doorways, every little hallway and lobby of the buildings are tiled with these beautiful colored tiles. They are mostly white with blue and yellow designs but some have other colors. It's unbelievable how clean it all is. People live in multi level apartment type buildings... there aren't really houses here. Everything is compact but it doesn't look crammed or messy. The buildings are pretty, the people are nice and it feels so safe when you walk around.

I have to keep reminding myself to say "hola" and "gracias" and not the American versions of each. I will speak English and then feel silly about it, realizing that I'm pointing out that I'm a tourist.

Last night, for the birthday dinner, Joe and I joined our friends, Nick and Sandy and Sandy's neice Valencia (who's visiting for two weeks) and went to the city of El Puerto de Santa Maria. From the base, there are two directions you can go when you exit the gate, Rota and El Puerto. El Puerto was much bigger than Rota and it felt like we drove forever until we arrived at the parking lot. We walked only a few blocks, near another marina, to find an "Italian" restaurant, "Pasta Gansa". Sandy was impressive, ordering and speaking with the waiter in Spanish. She and Nick have only been stationed here 1.5 years yet she seems pretty fluent with basic conversation. It gave me some hope! The ironic thing is that only a few months into dating, Joe and I attended their wedding (Nick and Joe worked together in NJ) and we wrote them a note saying that we would miss them and hoped they enjoyed Spain! Sandy had the note which we saw yesterday and we all thought it was ironic we ended up following them!

The sangria was everything I expected... fruity, light and sinfully delicious. I had three full glasses during dinner, which is a lot for me. It went down easily, like fruit punch. The dinner was nothing I would recognize as Italian. Everything had eggs or ham in it, and mostly made with pesto or alfredo. So much for my favorite chicken parmesan. There was only one or two things on the menu that fit into my typical diet and I was grateful they were on the menu. The best part about the food I didn't think I would like.... I couldn't really identify what it was anyway, so I was more likely to try it. Everything was delicious!

By the time we left, the sun was starting to set. As we walked towards the car, we saw a mini fair-type of thing set up along side the marina and wanted to check it out. It was like a carnival with mini rides, but tables/tents were set up selling jewelry and purses and dresses like a flea market. We finally got home around 10:30 just in time for sun down.

Unfortunately, I'm still moving on Eastern time and didn't get to sleep until 4 a.m. =)

Joe and I are excited for this week, since we will get to walk the house we picked out sight unseen. It's a ranch-style, 3 bedroom, 1 bath house. We lucked out and landed a 3 bedroom since they were out of the 2 beds even though that's what we qualify for with no kids (YET). We only share one outside wall with a neighbor and it's the carport wall so that's not so bad. We have a huge backyard that Rudy will enjoy and a big awning on the side of the house for shade. It's big enough for a 6-8 person table under with room to spare. The houses are fairly small inside and condensed, like everything else in Spain, but since we lived in that small condo last year, it's nothing new to us! For those of you that have visited there, it's similar in size with a lot more storage space. Unfortunately, we can't take pictures on base, so you won't be able to see the outside of the house. But I'm sure we can take photos inside the house. OH and my favorite part? Besides the big kitchen, we have a PALM tree in our front yard! We can't wait to see the inside on Monday. The housing dept told us that it will take two weeks to be ready since they will paint the entire inside and outside of the house for us and do all repairs before we move in. So far, we're shooting for August 12th and keeping our fingers crossed that our shipments all arrive then.

Joe won't have to start work officially until the end of the month. With moving in and the ICR class we have to attend, we'll be busy until the 24th. ICR (Inter-cultural relations) is a mandatory 5 day orientation class where we are briefed about everything the base has to offer, the cultural differences, etc. We get some languages classes and take two day-long field trips to local towns and gypsy markets.

It's a whole new world for us here but we're sticking together and loving it all. Please enjoy the pictures... and I apologize that there aren't more to show yet!