casacollins

Hey Everyone!

What do you get when you mix language barriers, bureaucracy, hunger, fatigue and boredom and let it bake for 90 minutes in a 120 degree celcius police station? P.O.ed american paella!

Actually, it wasn't that bad.

This week has been a real adventure. We tried to get our Spanish i.d. cards at the police station, but were faced with the above ingredients so instead we got nothing and were close to a mutiny from the kids. We had to go back prepared with photos, cash, copies of the completed applications, snacks, dictionary, and more time to wait in line. Still "nada". You know, the kids have to go everywhere with us because we have no sitter or family here and they need i.d. cards too. What a pain. At least the lady at the tiny, little photo store was really nice so that was refreshing compared to the forlorn faces standing in line and sitting behind the windows at the "Policia". Oh yea, after waiting in line two separate days with hot, hungry children we learned that since we have no visas we can't get the i.d. cards. So we continue to wait...


In the meantime we are not about to sit around! Mark went with our landlord and his English speaking niece to check out a used car at this dealer. Jose Maria (landlord) is 85 years old, active, lively and wonderful. He has introduced us to neighbors, took our whole family out for dinner with his wife and niece, helped us with the utility companies, and now is finding us a car. He's a former priest, retired marble and granite businessman, has no children and a huge heart! We love him and Maravilla, his wife! We are so lucky.

While Mark was out with Jose Maria, the kids and I set up house. The house is great. It is in an urbanization 15 minutes outside of Granada center. In American terms it's a subdivision. The house is white stucco with ceramic tile roof. It's got 3 bedrooms with 4 twins and a double bed. The garden/yard is amazing! These huge arbor vitae evergreens give us shade and privacy. Everything here is close together, but out in "the country" there's a lot more space, yet people still live relatively close to one another. We have many fruit trees on the property, but of course this was explained to us in Spanish so for all I know they are poisonous, but will bear fruit either in October or at 8:00--something with "octo" in it! We have granite counters and marble tables, a marble fireplace and ceramic tile everywhere. It took a little getting used to with the celcius oven, different dials on the dishwasher and washing machine. Fortunately our fabulous neighbors, Genoveva and her adult son, Jesus, have given us various orientations to the equipment in the house, the area around the urbanization and even the grocery store! We love them, too! Jesus is about 28 and works as a pharmaceutical sales rep (no clue how to say that in Spanish) so he works a lot, but we see Genoveva almost every evening out by the pool.

The pool! It gets darn hot here during the day, probably in the 90s last week most days. So after a busy day in town we head over to the pool. We share it with about 8 other houses, some of whom are only here in the summer. It's great because we all can cool off, play together, get a little exercise and meet our neighbors. There's one guy who's about to be a freshman at the University of Granada. He's here with his folks. He speaks English really well and his name in Angel. So we've got Angel and Jesus right here on our block. How "blessed" are we?!

We finally met some folks at the kids' school, Granada College. It's bi-lingual, but the administration doesn't speak English, nor do the secretaries so we've had a fun time trying to figure out tuition and meetings with teachers, etc. They did hold meetings for parents in every grade level. So we show up, sit in the very front row and try to be good first-time American with no Spanish parents. They start the meeting in Spanish and do all the introductions in Spanish and then continue in Spanish the whole time! We are the only non-Spanish speaking parents out of 100 people in the room! Hopefully they didn't tell us anything too critical. We did figure out that there was rather important discussion about snacks and another about pencil boxes. I think we didn't miss much, but are glad we went. We did set up meetings with their homeroom teachers who are all fluent in English! It's going to be a great year I think. Half their classes are in English (English, p.e., science, and history of religion). They will have math in Spanish which will probably be tough at first, but they will have classmates assigned to them who can help them out. I met two English-speaking mothers whose kids are fluent in English. They have kids in Lydia and Reed's grades and one lives in our 'hood and has a teenage daughter who likes to babysit! Jackpot! Between the kids, parents, and teachers we've met it seems that the kids will be well cared for at school. Did I mention lunch? OHMYGOSH! It's served around 2:00 (they have a 30 min. break/snack time in the a.m.). The food is all prepared for them in advance and is basically fresh! During lunch every once in a while small groups from each class are taken out of the cafeteria into a small dining room where they are taught manners! I wonder if they would like to hear the Camp Echo "Get Your Elbows Off the Table" song? They get a 2 hour break for lunch and extracurricular activities then it's back to classes until 5 p.m.

We did two touristic things this week. One was a bus tour around Granada and up to the white washed houses, ultra-narrow streetsof the old Arab Albayzin neighborhood. That was really cool. It was hot out, but the views of the city were great. We got off the bus and had lunch in a little plaza. Then we walked 3 blocks up this road to a set of stairs that looked so unassuming and ordinary to this incredible view of the Alhambra Palace! It was one of my favorite moments so far. I had been up there with Priscilla in April and knew that the kids would be rewarded for what seemed like a long, boring, unrewarding uphill trek. As each of us finished our climb up the stairs the view of this ancient castle and fortress on a hilltop across from us left us with wide eyes and a mouths agape. The city was laid out before us with it's crown jewel perched atop the hill overlooking everything. Pretty awesome.

We also went on a drive out to a little village that Mark found in a guidebook. The drive was filled with lots of sites of olive orchards--literally as far as the eye could see! We kept going up and up and up and pretty soon we got to a look out that was sort of like a castle tower. We could see across this valley to a white washed village on a mountain. There was a big church and the ruins of an even bigger castle. "Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" is one response from Reed when we said yes to his request to go to the castle. As we were coming down from the lookout we noticed all these almond trees and collected a pile of almonds and 2 rocks to crack open the shells when we got back home. We drove on to the little village. Parked by the church and mounted the steps for our adventure into the ruins of the castle in Moclin. The kids ran around looking over every wall and out of every window they could find. They talked about how cool it must have been when it was a real castle and how the fighting and wars must have been huge! Funny how Iraq seems so different from the glorified wars of "the olden days".

So that's it for now. We start school in a couple days. We're expecting our boxes of toys, painting supplies and books next week which will be helpful for occupying all of us with things we love. In the meantime, we hope all is well with you wherever you are whenever you are reading this. Thanks for doing so as it is very satisfying knowing we can share this experience with someone else.

Ciao for now!