San Juan 09

Before the weekend I attended San Juan. It was quite a strange San Juan to say the least.

Things all started off quite well. Unlike last year were me and the missus spent the whole evening sat on our own, this year we knew people and got to have a bit more fun.
After some time on the beach I went for a little walk, spotted some other friends and doubled the size of our party.
Things were going quite well. The main problem at the beginning of the night was the DJ failed to show up and we didn’t have any music. In fact I didn’t hear much music this year on the beach. More of a fact is that that the beach seemed less busy then last year.
Also I discovered that this years effigy that was to be burnt was of a flame. A flame!? Who burns a flame effigy?
Things took a slight change for the worse at midnight. Just as the fireworks were set to go off and the time when everyone jumps in the sea to wash away evil spirits, two friends of mine and Sams, who are also a couple decide to split. This meant that most of the girls in our original group, being more then slightly drunk disappeared angry/teary/sick for some time.
This meant that my big moment of diving in the sea at midnight and getting more then 6 foot wetter* then last year went unnoticed and unphotographed. Sorry.

Anyways, here are some early photos from a very quiet, sociable, beach party.

Just arrived

Have a nice day

Being prepared is the key

When two become one

Killing time

Parties carry on until dark

Like I mentioned, unfortunately there are no photos of everyone in the sea as I splashing about and the missus was with an upset friend, but imagine me in this photo but a litter wetter and you get the idea.

How I looked before getting wet

Next year I think I’m going to head to one of the other beaches as I hear they have some music and DJ's there.

Here is the slidey show. [source]

*Also I felt quite ill with a cold and sore throat for the next few days.

Pre-Noche de San Juan 2009

Another day, another fiesta

Today is Noche de San Juan.

For those that were reading last year, you can skip much of this but you shouldn’t as you their might be a quiz afterwards.

The bases of this fiesta is it is the shortest night of the year. [source]
I don’t see how the longest day of the year was celebrated two days ago and the shortest night is celebrated today. I thought the two would come hand in hand? And originally thought that it was to do with John Baptist’s birth but that only applies to Venezuela apparently?

Tradition suggests that people have to jump over a fire three times and jump in the sea to cleanse my body.
Which is fun.

Tradition also suggests that you celebrate the night with friends, getting drunk and having BBQ’s, bonfires and parties on the beach until the sun comes up, which isn’t long seeing as it is the shortest night.

And it’s because of these many traditions that Noche de San Juan is by far my favourite fiesta in the whole of the year.

Last year me and the missus, having not been here long and knowing no one had a semi-ok night.

This year we actually know people and I am much looking forward to this years noche a lot more.
Although I doubt I’ll take a tent down this year. But at least my house/fridge stocked with beer is only a few minutes away so I will always have some cold beers near by.

Should be good.

PS it’s good to see some people getting an early start. Personally I’ve got a bit of work to do, perhaps take a quick siesta and have something to eat before I start.

The early bird catches the good spot. 

Happy noche de San Juan.

San Isidro 09

Last month I went to my second San Isidro festival. Incidentally this was the first festival I went to last year when I first moved out to Spain.

San Isidro means quite a few things to old locals, to me and many yoofs it means a piss up, parade, party and the start of the summer.

Here’s some photos from this year.

As always there were many animals

Of all shapes

And sizes

Plenty of well dressed people

 

Of all sizes

Some people cheated and got the Party Truck to the main fiesta area

While others danced

It was very thirsty work

Although for some it was much harder to not sit and watch but instead join in with the parade. Good work A.

Where’s yer horse?

As always the whole slideshow. [Source My Flickr]

 

Feeling lucky

These last few days I’ve been feeling very very lucky.

First I had popped down the shops to get some tomatoes for sandwiches. As I was lightly jogging up the stairs, as you do, I came centimetres away from stepping on a SNAKE! A monkey-fried snake.

A monkey-fried snake on a Monday to Friday step. [bonus second photo]

This guy is by far better then any of the lizard spots I’ve seen over the last 13 months here.
Pretty lucky that I just happened to go get tomatoes at that time.

Then, later on me and the missus were out attending some evening for a local pub football and pool team. The seasons have finished and they' were having a trophy giveaway.
They were offering out raffle tickets and I picked up two. The tickets were for a game of “Play Your Cards Right,” you know, that game were you have to say whether the next card is higher or lower.
So my number got called out first and I stepped up to the cards. About 14 cards later (all in one go with only one change your card move) I had won.
A grand total of 89€. Sweet!
(There is a photo on someone’s camera of me, with trilby, €89 all gangsta style. A bit like this. Double sweet. If it comes back to me I’ll make sure to post it for sheer badass-ness.)
What makes this win a little bit better is that I was told Play Your Cards Right is a popular game in this bar and normally last 30 minutes to an hour with any number of people getting up to play after other fail. So me to get up and go from start to end in one go that’s pretty lucky.

And finally. After going down to one of the beach restaurants yesterday to spend my weekends winnings I topped up my phone on the way back. Since moving on to pay as you go I’m pretty crap when it comes to staying on top of keeping credit on my phone. So I grabbed a 15€ top up voucher from a shop, put in the pin and got a message saying I had 25€ credit!

My tired old phone.

Now I’m sure that Orange were having some special offer for those people that keep forgetting to top up there phone and telling them “do it now for free €10” as I got a message from Orange earlier that day but like normal deleted it immediately.
So it’s pretty lucky that I can’t read Spanish very well otherwise I wouldn’t of been so surprised about this.

It feels nice, when it happens to you.

So I have my dad and his family visiting from Saturday. It should be good. Their visit coincides with Semana Santa (Easter Week). There will be a lot of parades with men in cloaks and pointy hats (yes, like they look like those kind of pointy hats) carrying creepy statues of Jesus and other various things happening all week. This is also the only fiesta/parade that I have yet to experience since being in Spain. So now I can mark off the last one.
And expect quite a few photos.

Another favourite habit of mine when people come to visit, and I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, is I turn in to “Vacation Mode.”
I’ll do a lot of things I don’t normally do, like eat out (although me and the missus have been doing tapas nights out again quite recently), go to the beach in average weather (average to me maybe, but there are a lot of holiday makers walking around in shorts and vests) and just generally walking around the main part of town really slowly (damn it tourists, pick up the pace).

I’m also looking forward to showing off my new favourite place El Molino.
Unlike other touristy flamenco bars which do big shows with all the dresses and proper dancers, El Molino is 90%+ filled with the Spanish. It has a solo guitarist/singer who performs on a very small stage and then anyone in the bar can join him on stage and dance to his music. And after a few drinks no one is shy.
I learned about El Molino when we first arrived but never went to it. Not sure why. I was taken to El Molino last week and had a fantastic time in there and wondered why I never went to it sooner? Although I plan to make up missed opportunities.

But I do need to work on my rhythmic hand clapping a bit more.

And if I'm ballsy enough I might start watching some youtube teach yourself Flamenco dance lessons....

or perhaps not.

Clapclap-CLAP. Clapclap-CLAP. Clapclap-CLAP.

The Sun has just about got it’s hat on.

The last few days it’s starting to get a bit warmer here. Even the evenings haven’t been too bad.

Some noticeable signs of this are the heater hasn’t been on for a few weeks now. The butter is no longer frozen and destroys my bread every time I make a sandwich. And I don’t have to wear my slippers as often.

But I’m feeling myself slipping in to some British ways. No not wearing socks with sandals, but having a growing concern that the summer isn’t going to be all that hot.
With the UK’s inconsistent summers I find it hard to believe that this summer will be the same as last.

Last summer was baking hot here. For most of the summer it was 30+, even after 6/7pm. I didn’t attempt to take a walk past the farmacia to check on temperatures during the hottest parts of the day so wouldn’t guess on what they were.
There were times when we were staying up in Frigiliana and while waiting for a bus at the unsheltered bus stop, it was a killer waiting under all that heat. Especially as we were trying not to sweat too much in our dining out clothes. (Would of made for a stinky meal)

But these last few weeks I’ve found it hard to think that this summer will be as hot as it has just been so cold. When I came to Spain I expected it to be hot in the Summer and warm in the winter. But it can be nearly as cold as the UK in the winter (or at least it feels like).
Even when we spent time up in Frigiliana a few weeks ago, walking past the same bus stop I had a jumper on (but no coat as I had left it in home) and was shivering at about 6pm.

I’m sure that in a few months (weeks?) I’ll be complaining about the heat and this talk will just be impatient nonsense, but I blame a life time of poor British summers for my ‘Precognition Summer Dissatisfaction’.

St Patricks Day post

as you may of noticed it was St Patricks Day yesterday

and like most of the english speaking world i went out for a few drinks
for drinking guinness you got a fancy native irish hat
and there were many hats on the tops of people around town

from what i can make out this is how all irish people dress

you could get a giant guinness hat for ordering a pint of guinness
im not the biggest fan of the ‘black stuff’ and ordered a half
/just to get in the spirit of things
i asked the bar owner about getting half of a hat or something similar and she came along with a strange shaped hat

me styling weird mushroom shaped irish hat

about an hour later a friend
/who was irish so knows these things
/pointed out that the hat was on backwards
i made a comment to the bar owner about this and how it should say “front” and “back” and not just guinness
her suggestion

“it should say ‘idiot’ and ‘not idiot’”

but there was much drinking and many merriments

we hit a bar
and i spotted that the bar had a new supercool lazer shooty thing

peeeown

and i strolled in the earlier hours of this morning

luckily i was saved by some ham and egg sarnies this morning otherwise id still be in bed about now

and the rest of the photos

Video killed the radio star

I think the missus hit the nail on the head when she recently commented that Twitter had taken away from blogging. Anyone else finding this? Most of my tweets would of been padded out to more then 160 letters and turned in to an actually blog entry, Twitter spam followers, craving for pasties, messy sandwich eater. It's time to claw some blog time back.

Recently on The Boy Who Likes To...

Work has been taking up A LOT of time for me. Until very recently I was doing regular 8 hours days all month. And I don't mean being in the office from 9 to 5 and actually doing half a days work, really working for 8 hours.
In the current job climate that is a good thing. Whereas many people are finding it hard looking for work I'm getting snowed under. Plus with working in the car industry that is quite a surprise.

My work though has effected other parts of my life. Blogging has gone awol, although I put time aside to comment on blogs when I can. But mainly hobbies and especially my Spanish lessons have gone. Not finishing work until gone six most nights has prevented me from attending class. I do have Spanish lessons that I can do from home but by time I finish I'm not really in the mood to sit behind the computer for another hour listening to more audio.
I hope that the weather gets more stable and warmer quicker as I will be able to sit on the balcony, away from being indoors and all electrical "entertainment" appliances that get in the way of my learning.

All this work has got me thinking about the summer to. Or at least when it starts to get hot in a few months. What will happen with my work routine? Will I be able to juggle work and beach/snorkeling. I hope so, I'd hate to lose fish chasing as well as Spanish class.

In other news. The sandwich deli that was supposed to turn up down on the beach still hasn't materialised. I did go down there for a sandwich a few weeks back and all they had to offer was ham and cheese, which I can get from my fridge. But I have started recently buying tomato and lettuce, never sure why I stopped buying them in the first place, as well as adding ham to egg sandwiches and I'm going through an explosion in sandwich fillings. Which is all good.

Still, it no deli.

air strike

we dont often see planes in these parts
perhaps now and then we might see one cross-atlantic (???) jet high above but we never hear it
in fact just after we moved here we went a few months without seeing a single jumbojet or trail

we do get a lot of other different airborne travelers

there are alot of very low flying helicopters that pass right over us

this one hung around for a little while circling

i also see, more often in the summer, low flying single/double seater small engine planes
the biggest plane ive seen was a fire plane that was skimming just over the sea

it made some pretty huge waves

i even once seen a hot air balloon parked on the beach

and we very frequently get power paragliders
like this guy who has been hanging high outside for the last 10 minutes

seen here with a winged friend

and alot of the time i wonder what it looks like from up there
above everything else but still low enough to hear all the sounds

but most of the times i wonder where did they come from and where do they plan on going next?

and ive just popped my head out the window and paraglider man is still there

End of the storm

Sat out on terrace watching the football. Lovely weather. Hope the wind stays away.
about 20 hours ago from Me

So the heavy rains and strong winds have died down now. I even had time to catch the Arsenal/Tottenham game AND catch up on some work while sat out on the terrace in some lovely weather.

It seems that it wasn't just me that was enjoying the end to the bad weather.


The seagulls were acting suspicious




This guy was topping up his tan


This ladybug was a little overcome by the good weather


These holiday makers had a great start to their cruise


And the clouds looked liked they had given up
After a week of bad weather the clouds were looking like creamy blobs resting on top of the mountain peeks.

After a morning of packing

After a morning of packing, this is what we have.

Things packed


Various bags


DVDs and a tent


Clothes and WiiFit

We have accumulated many more things then when we originally arrived. Although I think perhaps about 25%~33% of the clothes in these bags are clothes that we haven't worn in a while/since we arrived.

But there are a few things that we haven't packed, mainly Red

Red out catching a few droplets

So after spending most of the morning packing we now have very little to do during the week........except move.

Oh and all this without a cup of tea. :(

Sunday, bloomin Sunday

I still find it hard to adjust to Sundays here. It's can be pretty quiet at times. A bit like a few years back in England when shops were not allowed to open.

Most shops here are closed of a Sunday still. The only ones open are tourist-y ones and that's during the tourist season.

But the small grocery stores and supermercados they stay closed. So for the essential important items, like PG Tips, you can't get them on a Sunday if you were to run out.
Days, for example, like today.

After making a cup of tea for me and the missus this morning I realised that we have run out of such an essential item.

Back in England, if this was to occur, I know I could of just gone down the local Co-Op and been back making a cup of tea within 5 minutes.

What's made this particular situation harder today is that we are packing for our move. And all this hard work will seem so much harder without the medicinal strength giving properties of leaves and cow juice.

Tapping red shoes and singing

There is no place like a new home.

After days waiting around for a response from our letting agent we have now been confirmed a moving in date in to our new home.
Originally planned for the 1st of February we were able to get the date moved forwards a few days to this coming Thursday.
Which is a good date really as we get chance to move in and then the weekend is straight upon us.

Another good reasons for this date is we get kicked out next Friday.

The NYE Post

Yeah it has been a while but it's time to get this guy out in the open.

The missus had her parents visiting for Christmas and New Years so we all decided to go down to the Balcon de Europa (main square) to celebrate the Spanish way, which consists of eating a grape with every chime of the bell at midnight.
But just lots of people gather and do this at the same time.

In Britain I'd expect them to advise on wearing safety specs just in case there are "shooting pips."

So as you'd expect an un-experienced Brit attending a Foreign event we turned up too early. Much too early in fact. Like at 10pm! You'd think that wouldn't be too early but no one else was there. We were a but lucky the bars were open. But for celebrating The New Year the Spanish leave it pretty late and not starting until gone 11ish.


The Crowd

When we arrived I went for a walk to see what was on show and if I could spot where the fireworks would be coming from.
I certainly did spot the fireworks. Unattended and open to anyone to stand in the middle.

Health and Safety first


We past away the time by playing dress up


Tuck in
And finally twelve oclock came. I was given the task of photographing the moment. Moments before my mum phoned to go through the Spanish New Years moment. So I had a phone under my chin, eating grapes out of small cup while trying to take photo's.
I'd like to see THAT on Krypton Factor.


Swoosh BANG


Pop
And then a few of us went over to a "British" bar where we celebrated a "British" New Year at 1am with traditional Auld Lang Syne.

Not to long after that everyone went home at a nice sensible time.

The next day I took a walk down to the beach and it was packed. It was strange walking along the beach and seeing families out playing in the sand and sunbathing. Mind you it was in the 20's.

So all in all it was a very strange New Years Eve.

New Home

Mainly for those that have not kept up with my updates on twitter and facebook.

Yesterday me and the missus put down a deposit on our new apartment. It's a wonderful little apartment.

Our list of things that the apartment MUST have where

1. Not to be on The Big Hill; our current apartment is situated half way on a hill notorious for being a struggle to get up
   
2. To have a terrace; or a balcony, not sure the difference
   
3. Somewhere quieter; I've complained a few times about the noise level when people leave/enter the building and pass by our window.
   
4. Having some privacy; related to terrace above. At the moment we have no where to sit when it's hot. The last few week have had some lovely sunbathing days here and we have no where to sit on such occasion. Also when it is hot and we have all the doors and windows open everyone who needs to enter the building will walk past our open front door. It's a little annoying.

We did have a pool for the last year. Only it was open for just a few months over summer. And during that time we didn't use it that much. We decided we would rather give up a pool for a terrace and some privacy.

So the missus spotted this particular apartment on a our current letting agents website and we arranged to see it. It was over our budget but, possibly thanks to economy and low sterling, the owner accepted €450 without hesitation.

We had our appointment on Wednesday to view some properties. After seeing two (thumbs down) the agent realised she left the keys to the property we wanted to see in the office.
Rather the re-arranging, the missus, surprisingly but not forward, told the agent that she had to see this last one today.

After picking up the keys and setting foot in the apartment we both fell in love with it straight away.
It's a cute, one bedroom, spacious apartment. It's at the very end of a dead end road, which is gated off, so no worries about vehicle noise. It's semi-detached along with a handful of other similar apartments and the front door is away from the main path, so no worries about pedestrian noise. It's very well lit due to full window door along on side.
But then comes the best bit. The doors open up on to a small private terrace. The terrace has some patio furniture, table and four chairs, a sun lounger and still some extra space.
The view is fantastic. A panorama is needed really. It has one view that stretches from the sea and beach, across the roof tops of town and right across to the mountains. (You may of seen how pretty the mountains already look in some of my other panoramas)
Plus it faces west so basically we get sun on us from before mid-day right through to sunset.
Basically the terrace alone would be worth the asking €500.
It doesn't have a pool but the steps lead down to almost on top of the beach.

The annoying thing is it's still on The Big Hill.

Well 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

But enough of the romance and back to the drama.

Straight after walking out we told the agent we wanted this one. She let us know that she had a couple viewing it the following day, lucky the missus put her foot down earlier on when the keys had been left in the office.
We told them that we definitely wanted this one right away, the agent half said that if that's the case then she could not show the other couple the apartment the following day.
She did say that if we could pay a months deposit then we could guarantee it.

Unfortunately, as most will know, the first week in January isn't very good on the wallet.
After a trip to England, which made us skint anyway, Christmas presents, Christmas and New Years drinks, paying current house rent and bills we didn't have an awful lot.
In fact we had about €500 to our name until pay day.
Also that €500 was had just been transferred from our UK account to the Spanish account so in fact was no where right now and available funds to us was £100 still in UK account and the money in out pockets.

When we check online the money wasn't in our account and so begun our night of worrying. We knew if anyone else set foot inside there then it would be taken straight away.
I had one last check online to see if the money had gone in. I don't know why I checked as it was only a few hours after I last checked. But to my surprise the money had gone in.

So the next day we made a dash across town, stopping by the cash machine, which involved yet ANOTHER drama as we could only take out €300 at a time. We ended up having to use three different cards to different accounts to scrape the money together.
Then we dashed off to the agents to pay off the deposit and hold the apartment.

All went well and we explained the reason for being early and wanted to hold the apartment and the agent told us that the person showing us around was currently showing around the second couple and she was supposed to be heading to that apartment.

So it was very close indeed.

We move in at the beginning of February and I can't wait to get in there. The space, privacy, terrace and view is too much excitement for me and I don't know if I have the patience to sit around here.

It fells a lot like Christmas

As I've bene out of the apartment for the last 2 weeks I'm playing cath up with some blog entries.
This one is from my Spanish Christmas. The most significant thing about this is that it is actually Spanish Christmas TODAY.
Feliz dia de los Tres Reyes.

But here is how things went down with me this Christmas Eve

The local Council have a great set up where they have a Santa parade around streets where Santa and his helpers give out sweets*.




Packing up


Little Helpers




Handing out sweets

Then on Christmas Eve everyone went out for a small drink

Yes, that kind of small drink


And wore silly hats


Various silly hats


Had a little dance


Copied the DJ

Then it all got a little fuzzy, including the photos.

And a few hours later we got to open up all are many presents under the huge Christmas Tree**


And here is the slideyshow


There where a few downsides to Christmas though.
I have to admit this is the one Christmas ever when I was half hoping to get some socks and underwear as in teh last few days/weeks I've noticed mine are getting thin on the material side. But to my surprise I didn't get one single present of socks. Not one.
On the plus side though I will hopefully stop unconsciously singing Christmas songs now that it's all over.

Hopefully....

*Giving out sweets is polite, they actually launch the sweet at anyone within range. The young, elderly and injured are most open to attack.
**You may think that is a small Christmas Tree but you would be wrong. I was just standing really far away when I took that photo.