Author: laurasuzy

Day 7: Pamplona

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On Tuesday, we explored the town of Orcoyen, just 15 minutes outside Pamplona, where our church here in VA has a sister church.  The pastor and his family were wonderfully gracious hosts to us! Their kids are about the same ages as ours, and we FaceTimed with our kids both nights, and the kids had a blast being silly together.

We visited the small evangelical Christian school there where the Marrone kids go, and really liked it.  It was about as close to homeschooling as you can get while still officially being in school.  The only problem is that they are new, and the highest grade they have this year is 4th grade, so the twins would have to fall back a grade.  However, several of the schools there recommended that anyway, so they can learn the language while learning easier academic content.  The other drawback is that it is a private school, and while it’s cheap compared to private schools here, 200 euros per month per kid when you have 4 kids in school adds up fast!  Interestingly, the director did mention that they’re looking for an English teacher, and that if I taught English, they could offer a discount.  I wonder what I would do with Cora in that case?

We took a walk up to the old church in Orcoyen and got to see the old part of town.  We stopped at the grocery store to buy bread for lunch and some treats to bring home.  I was so glad that the sun came out!  It was very pretty (and chilly compared to the southern towns we visited!)

We enjoyed lunch with Dom and Damaris’s friends from Argentina, and they even drove us to their small town in the suburbs so we could see what an even smaller town is like (they said less than 200 families live there!).  It was very pretty and quiet.

The biggest hesitation for me about Pamplona is the climate:  gray skies more than half the year.  They say it’s like living in Seattle.  I’m not sure I could remain emotionally stable in those conditions…

Day 4: La Cala del Moral, Rincón de la Victoria

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  Saturday morning we took our time and had cafe con leche on the Balcón de Europa in Nerja.  We liked Nerja better by day, and the view of the beach and the mountains is beautiful from el balcón.  But the town is very touristy, practically everything is in English, and we just didn’t feel drawn to explore more deeply, so we got on the road.

We still hadn’t decided where to go next, but we had two ideas: check out Mijas more fully, so we could do an apples to apples comparison with Almuñecar, and stop by Rincón de la Victoria, because we knew of several churches in that area.  Rincón was on the way west, so we drove there first.  We somewhat accidentally entered the area through the neighboring town of La Cala del Moral while looking for one of the churches, and we saw that the area has a bunch of cute row houses and a nice little park where the kids could play.  We parked the car (quite easily!) and chatted with a mom and her 3rd grade daughter at the park.  She told us the town was “tranquilo-demasiado tranquilo!”, which to us is actually a good thing.  We walked down to the beach, which was just a few blocks away, and were very happy to see lots of young kids and their families at the playground and playing in el paseo near the beach.    

We played and talked a bit with a couple of boys about Peter’s age, and noted that the beach there is more sandy than the rocky pebbles on the beach at Almuñecar.  We picked up some snacks in the panaderia just before it closed for siesta, and took some pictures of the little historic church there.    

We liked this town!  It seems like it might have housing options within walking distance of school, beach, maybe church (depending on which one we choose to attend), easy parking, easy access to basic shopping needs, and only about 15 minutes from Malaga city and major transportation.  The only thing I didn’t like was seeing a decent amount of graffiti in town – it makes me worry about safety.  

Ah…  A Little coca-cola refreshment!  You can kind-of see some of the cute row houses in the background.

We decided we liked the town enough to stay and explore more, so we got a hotel and made plans to meet with one of the pastors in the area that night.  It started to rain, so it was the perfect time to take a nap!  That night around 8pm we got to see the church building of the Parque Victoria Church, and meet with the pastor and his wife.  We were so glad to be able to visit with them that night, because this weekend is the one weekend in years that they were not planning on having a regular service because they were hosting a German gospel choir instead!  So we decided to attend another church in Rincón de la Victoria.

Day 2: Along the Coast and Almuñécar

On By laurasuzyIn Costa TropicalLeave a comment

  We slept so late that we didn’t have much time to meander along the Costa del Sol like we’d hoped before we met up with the Wagoners, an American family who moved to Spain 3 years ago.  We took a quick drive through Fuengirola, and found it to be quite a busy little city, with nothing particularly appealing in the few streets we chanced to navigate.  I know there is a church there that looks to be a good one, so we may want to go back and investigate further.

From there, we meant to take the coastal road, but missed our turn and ended up on the highway a little inland, so we took the next exit and drove through Benalmádena.  Wow, there are some WINDY, steep roads all along there!  We saw some really pretty villas, and the view is gorgeous.  It seemed less congested than Fuengirola – and it’s a good thing not many cars travel those roads!  But again, we really didn’t have time to stop and look around, so back to the highway we went (via more amazingly steep, crazy little roads!).  What would we have done without Google Maps?!?

As we drove east past Málaga, the scenery started to change.  There is a little more land between towns, more vineyards and farms (with plastic greenhouses stretched right over the plants!), and still the cute little classic white Andalucian towns. 

 When we took the exit for Almuñécar, I could immediately see why someone would like it here.  It’s beautiful!  There is a little cove and a point jutting out with an old castle on top, and the houses, like in Mijas and Benalmádena, are cut into the mountainside in a terraced fashion.  But there seems to be a lot less “city” between the mountain and the sea.  It is very peaceful.  El centro, the main “city” part of town, isn’t really very big and is definitely walkable.  The Wagoners, who we got to meet for lunch, are now living here with no car, and their kids walk to school.  This really appeals to me!   

 They have a view of the Mediterranean Sea from their apartment.  They can walk to the beach, and the water is clear and inviting (but cold right now!)  We walked by the area of town where the villas are – that’s the houses like we would prefer, with 4 or 5 bedrooms.  It would be a totally different lifestyle for us, walking or driving up and down a steep hill to house on the mountainside, but yet… I can imagine it.  We didn’t get to see any of the insides of the villas, because it’s really too early to be doing that level of research.  On the whole, it seems like a very peaceful town.  The people are friendly in the restaurants and hotels, although we noticed that most people don’t say hello when they pass each other in the streets here.  I’ll have to ask if that is a cultural thing?

We are staying at a nice hotel a block from the beach that only cost us 35 euros.  There is a really pretty garden out back with delicious smelling flowers.   

 The mountains are gorgeous and the sunset over the beach was fantastic.  We walked in the center of town at night after everything was closed (too bad), and stumbled upon the ruins of a roman aqueduct dating back to the first century AD!   

 Tomorrow we want to go check out the castle, maybe go ask some questions at the local public school, check out the parque de naturaleza, and then we meet with the wife of one of the deacons at a church here to get a feel for what it is like.  Then we go to check out another town!

Day 1: Happy Anniversary in Mijas Pueblo!

On By laurasuzyIn Costa del SolLeave a comment

  We had booked an apartment via airbnb.com, and our instructions were to contact a guy named Santiago to arrange to pick up a key.  However, we were lacking in a cellular phone calling plan, food, sleep, and apparently, for me, also some brain cells.  I tried emailing him, but got no reply, tried texting him, and it didn’t seem to go through, and tried using an old fashioned pay phone and those round things… what do they call them?  coins? – and this is where my lack of sleep showed up – dialed the wrong number and had spent all my coins.  Oops!  So we bought some over-priced food at a touristy cafe, and asked the waiter where we could buy a different SIM for the phone so we’d have calling capability.  He suggested we try the papeleria up the hill, so we went up the stairs and asked there.  The guy said he could order one for us to pick up the next day, but didn’t have them in stock.  At this point I could hardly see straight, much less conjugate a verb in Spanish, and so I just asked if he could help us and let us use his phone to make a local call.  All I could think of was finding our bed for the night, and Ryan said “you can’t fade on me now!”  Thankfully, the shop owner let us make the call, and when he heard me ask for Santiago, and then stumble over my request in Spanish, he said (in spanish), “let me talk to him!  I’ll work it out for you!”, so I handed him the phone.  Can you imagine my surprise when he said, in a very familiar tone, “hola! Santi! Soy Pedro de la Papeleria!” – he KNEW our man!  Personally!  Later he said (everything in Spanish), “Of course I know Santiago!  Everybody knows Santiago!”  We had a good laugh, and a moment of thanks for the divine providence!

  Turns out we were just a staircase and about 50 meters away from Casa Tejon, where we were staying.  It is a cute little guest house with 4 studio apartments, and the family that runs it also owns the bar/restaurant attached.  There is a charming patio filled with flowers where you can sit just outside your room, so we put Cora down for a nap and planned to sit outside to talk where we wouldn’t wake her.  But then we chatted with the owners, and they assured us she would be safe if we wanted to get a bite in their restaurant, and that they would come get us if they heard her cry (they also had to wait just outside our room for another guest to arrive).  Who knew our room would come with built-in human baby monitors?  We were able to enjoy a delicious 15th anniversary meal in the restaurant maybe 10 feet from our room, while Cora slept peacefully.  What a treat!

The rest of the night was not as easy – she woke up when we went back in the room and wouldn’t go back to sleep, so just before midnight, after about an hour and a half of trying to settle her, I gave up and took her out with me so that Ryan could get some rest.  Where would you go with a baby at midnight in a small spanish town? Back to the bar!  They were so nice when I asked if they had anything the baby could eat… they made her a baked potato and mashed it up for her, gave us some juice, let me hang out there until she got tired enough to go back to sleep, and when I asked how much it would cost?  Nada!  Praise God for the kindness of strangers!

We all slept till 10am the next morning, and Mijas Pueblo looks even more charming when you are fully awake.  There were a shocking number of people about for off-season.  It is all pretty touristy.  The streets are cobblestone and VERY steep, so driving in town is pretty scary (but Ryan did a masterful job!).  They are also marked pretty poorly, and many of them are one-way – even more frightening!  So if you ever go, just drive directly to the parking garage where you can park for 1 euro a day, and do the rest on foot.

We didn’t get to stay very long because we had an appointment in Almunecar, about 1.5 hrs away.  But I think we saw what we needed to see there.  Santiago tells us it is a great place to raise a family, because everybody in town knows everybody else and it is a safe area.  Though I found it to be amazingly beautiful, with all the white-washed houses terraced into the side of the mountain, I don’t see myself living in quite that kind of town.  We didn’t get to see the other parts of the municipality of Mijas yet, though, and there are a bunch of little towns in it, so perhaps one closer to the coast or further on the outskirts would appeal to us more.   We may head back that way to explore more later.  For now, on to la Costa Tropical!

Day 1: Planes, Trains and Automobiles – Oh my!

On By laurasuzyIn TransportationLeave a comment

The flight to Madrid with the baby was… let’s just say LONG.  Thankfully, an angel disguised as a flight attendant offered, without us asking her to do it, to move us out of our assigned two-seat smoosh right next to the bathroom into a row that had 3 seats across (and one of them empty!), so we’d have more room for the baby!  That was wonderful, but it didn’t keep our very tired baby from being awakened when drinks were served, lighting changed, or I just moved the wrong way.  She probably cried for about 2 of the 6.5 hours in flight, but the people around us were very gracious and sweet.  Here’s a picture of me laying across two seats with my head in Ryan’s lap, baby laying on me, and pillow trying to block the lights from my eyes (we left our sleep masks in the seats we vacated, and didn’t dare ask the poor souls that switched with us to pass them forward!).

We arrived in Madrid, had no troubles finding our way to the local train that took us to the Atocha station, and we were there several hours early!  So we hoped to change our train reservation from the 1:00 to the 11:35am train.  The Renfe office was very busy.  Take a number, wait 30+ minutes, then interact in your second language with a grumpy attendant who keeps saying “Entiendes? Te explico!” but yet somehow doesn’t at all explain why and how he has cancelled not just my 1:00 ticket reservations but ALSO the ones for next week, and then managed to break our Renfe Spain pass so that we can no longer make any new reservations at all.  Grr… let the train fiasco begin!  He sent us to another office where the attendants were much nicer, but couldn’t help us fix the problem, either.  They sent us back to the customer service branch of the original office, where they said we could buy new rail passes and hope for a refund later (in a month or so?) from Renfe, or just book all of our train travel in fixed, non-refundable tickets at no extra charge, which is what we did, losing the flexibility of the rail pass, but saving about $400. Travel Tip #1:  Don’t use PayPal to buy your Renfe Spain Pass online!  Apparently, if we had just paid with a credit card directly instead of using PayPal, they could have refunded us for the defunct passes.  Lesson learned.  If we decide we really must travel by train at some time other than the tickets we booked, I guess we can just re-buy that leg… not at all consistent with my frugal nature, but I suppose there could be a scenario where flexibility (with cost) trumps saving money.

While I was trying to work out the train tickets, Ryan went off and bought us a Spanish SIM card for my phone.  Go Ryan!  The lady didn’t speak english at all, and we have a 5 GB data plan on my phone for only 35 euros!  But oops… for some reason it doesn’t include the ability to make phone calls. We’ll have to see about fixing that part later.  Travel Tip #2: Don’t buy your SIM cards at the first kiosk you see at the airport.  That is highway robbery!  The first place we saw wanted to charge 150 euros for a smaller data package.  The second wanted about 100.  Much better at the train station – and I know there are smaller offerings for more like 15 euros.

Travel Tip #3: The AVE trains in Spain do stay mainly on the plain, but they DON’T have Wi-Fi as advertised.  This was our next minor disappointment, especially since we discovered that our Lebara brand SIM doesn’t allow tethering.   No laptop use on the train for us, so we all got a little nap and enjoyed the scenery.

At the train station, the car pickup at Hertz was the smoothest, easiest thing ever!  They were waiting for us, they had the car seat we needed (although what they charge for it is also highway robbery, but we decided it was worth the convenience of not lugging our own around on the trains), and we were off to Mijas Pueblo!  We arrived around 5pm (feeling like it was about 11am EST and we haven’t slept yet), and our experience there is a topic of another post.

 

We Bought Tickets!

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This is feeling so much more real!  We bought the tickets for our scouting trip, and will be traveling to Spain (with just the baby) in less than 2 weeks.  We are flying into and out of Madrid (because that was cheaper), and hope to check out Madrid, the Costa del Sol, and Pamplona before we head home.  It’s a lot of territory to cover in 8 days!  We are excited to meet with the pastors of our sister churches in Madrid and Pamplona, and we’ll just be exploring and meandering in the south, trying to get a feel for the place.

Please pray for our safety while we travel, for the safety of the kids while we are gone, and for clarity and wisdom from God about if He really wants us to make the move, and if so, to where!

So Many Questions!

On By laurasuzyIn Research and PlanningLeave a comment

As we begin this adventure, I have so many questions!

  1. Where is the most reliable broadband internet coverage?  Can we get the speed we need for Ryan to work there?  What about satellite internet?  http://www.internetandalucia.com/
  2. How much do private or semi-private spanish schools cost?  (I think maybe ~$5k per year per kid?)
  3. How do schools handle mid-year transfers?  Can our kids enroll mid-year?
  4. Would it be better to put the 10 yr olds in a bilingual private school, rather than spanish public school?
  5. Where are there evangelical churches, and what are they like?  Are they casual, modern, and less liturgical?
  6. Do we want to choose a place in the Mediterranean climate?  (Here’s a good article about climate areas: http://www.spanish-town-guides.com/Weather_in_Spain.htm)
  7. For a 1-2 yr move, should we plan on going with only basic clothing and books, or should we ship other household belongings (kitchen stuff, furniture, etc)?
  8. Can we bring the van with us?
  9. What about bringing the cat?