Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is our baby girl’s fourth birthday!  Every parent says this but it is just so hard to believe that four years have passed and our little baby is so old.  And who would have guessed that she would turn four while living in Spain?

We all slept in this morning, a lot.  We got up at ten.  The apartment is so comfortable and gorgeous with the morning light.  It is wonderful.  We still love it.

Once we got everyone up, Liesl was by far the last one to get up and the only one that we had to work to get up – Luciana was already dressed and ready to head out the door by the time that we were attempting to shake Liesl aware, our first order of business was heading towards the Cathedral of Córdoba, the Mezquita.  The Mezquita is by far the most famous structure in the city, the key tourist attraction and very amazing by any standard.

On our way to attempt to find it we started by going through the giant wooden doors near our apartment thinking that we could explore that way but found that that was a dead end – but oh so interesting!  Then we explored some back streets and ended up in a medium-sized plaza just after noon and felt that lunch while the getting was good was a wise plan.  Liesl ordered a cheese pizza, Luciana ordered fried calamari (of course) and Dominica and I got cheese bites and cream of vegetable soup.  It was good.

From lunch we headed on to the Mezquita which was totally amazing and well worth the trip.  The groves inside were really cool on their own and the outside of the building was staggering in size and so clearly very ancient.  The structure was originally a basilica, built in the 500s, during the Roman Empire.  So confusingly, it is so old that it started out as Christian (being Christian before Islam even existed) but then became most famous as the leading mosque of Western Islam for hundreds of years until the reconquista when it was turned into a cathedral and was made Christian again.  The structure is built on real Roman columns but most of the design is Arabic with the bulk of the structure having been built up during the Islamic period.  And then lots of newer Christian motifs added on top of that.  It was great and the kids had fun too, although we did not stay long.

Dominica needed to get back to the apartment after seeing the Mezquita but we got a little lost and ended up by the Roman Bridge over the Guadalquivir River before going back.  The bridge is really awesome having been built in the first century B.C. – so it predates Christianity!! – and used continuously since that time.  Well over two thousand years crossing the same river.  Unbelievable.  The bridge has been extensively maintained and much of it is newer but the bridge itself and some of the arches are completely original, still!  The Via Augusta used to run over the bridge, connecting Rome to Cádiz, two of the oldest cities of the classical world.  And it is full of people walking across it today.

We went back to the apartment, which took a little bit as navigating the city is a bit challenging and unlike most of our city stays, I did not have a chance to go out and scout the city ahead of time last night to get a lay of the streets and area so we are at a disadvantage compared to our normal pattern.

After a short time at the apartment, everyone was ready to go out again and this time we went, more or less, directly down to the Roman Bridge which we walked across this time.  It was very cool.  Luciana fell asleep before we got there as she was in the stroller.  She missed everything this afternoon.  Sadly there was a really nice playground at the far side of the Roman Bridge but Liesl was grounded from playgrounds so knew not to even ask about it.  It was very sad, though, because we could tell that she had seen it and it looked like a lot of fun.

Liesl really enjoyed getting to see the old Moorish water wheel and mill that was near the bridge.  She found that very interesting.

We did a little walking around and then got some ice cream while Luciana was sleeping as Ciana had gotten in trouble about asking for ice cream too much and was grounded from that today.  It worked well to do it while she slept so that she would not be overly upset.  She had no idea that we an ice cream trip.

While Liesl and I ate our ice cream and watched Luciana in the stroller while we sat on the steps of the Mezquita, Dominica went shopping for some Flamenco barbie doll dresses for the girls that she had seen at a little shop nearby.

Our next mission was to walk to the northeast a ways and find a plaza that Dominica was really interested in seeing, the Plaza Corredera.  The walk was about fifteen minutes and complicated by the fact that Apple Maps gave us directions to go places that you could not go.  So we had to backtrack a bit.

The plaza was pretty interesting.  Very large and neatly done.  Tons of restaurants there, but it was late afternoon and everything was closed for food and it was only coffee and wine.  So we got coffee and just relaxed for a while.  We stayed there until seven thirty and then started to head back to look for one of the places that we had found during the day that had Flamenco dinner shows.  Of course no scheduled show is really all that authentic but with our limited time and lack of knowledge there is really no way for us, especially with the kids, to find “real” Flamenco.  But we really wanted them to see Flamenco in Spain and this seemed like a great opportunity to do so.

We ended up having issues finding the place that we wanted to go and instead of getting there early or even having time to go back to the apartment and hang out for a while before going to the show we ended up racing just to make it to the show!  It took over an hour to find the place and we were very hot and exhausted when we got there.

We did not have a reservation so got stuck on the second floor away from the view of the show, which was tough.  But at least we made it before the show started.  I took the girls down and sat on the steps so that they could watch the Flamenco show, which they enjoyed a lot.  The food turned out to be excellent and we stayed long enough to see the nine and the ten o’clock shows.  The girls loved it and we were very glad that we had done it.

It was eleven when we got everyone back to the apartment.  Dominica went straight to bed.  The girls were hold up in their bedroom still watching YouTube when I went to bed after two in the morning!  I went out, right around midnight, and walked for two hours exploring the city.  This was my only chance to really walk the city and get to see it.

I walked north and found the more modern part of the city.  I walked the big pedestrian shopping areas which were packed with people out walking.  This might be the most lively late night city that I have ever found.  The number of people out and about late at night was really surprising.

I walked all over and then across the park and over past the university.  I explored the park and then back to the apartment.  I did four miles on my own tonight.

While out walking as a family, we did seven and a half miles today (so eleven and a half miles total for me today.)  Luciana did much of that in the stroller.  But Liesl walked the entire seven and a half miles with no complaining and no issues!  She is such a trooper.

I was up at eight this morning, an early day for me as my meetings at work start early this morning.  I need to be in the office pretty close to nine, much earlier than I am used to.  I showered and got out the door while everyone was still fast asleep.

I got to the office just after nine but quickly discovered that there was no one else there!  I ended up having to wait until after nine thirty for someone to arrive and unlock the office!  Apparently on Fridays they all come in at the very last second.  We had a nine thirty meeting that I was the only person who was on time for and we did not get started until nearly ten.

Nearly the whole morning was spent in the large, all hands meeting.  It went very well and was really informative.

At eleven thirty Dominica and the girls were ready to check out of the apartment.  So I left the office for a little bit to help them carry the luggage out and get it stowed in the car and ready to go.  Once they were all set and were free to just wander the city for the day I went back to the office and they went north on Fuencarrel to look for some large playgrounds that we had been told about last night that would be far better for the girls to play on today since they have many hours to spend there.

Dominica had originally planned on taking the girls to the zoo today, but that would be expensive and a lot of work for her to do on her own and potentially they would only get an hour or two there, which would be a big waste of the energy and money.  And the girls will be much happier, we assume, just playing on a nice playground.  So that was what they did.

The playground that they found was big and very nice.  The girls had a great time.  Liesl was the oldest kid there, as today was a school day, but there were lots of little kids and Liesl is an expert at fun games with little kids and so she actually developed a pack of little kids that followed her around!

At one point a little two year old accidentally threw sand in Luciana’s face and got it in her eyes which made for a very unhappy episode.  Thankfully Dominica had bottled water and was able to flush it out.

When they finally had to leave the playground, after hours of having been there, Liesl had a bit of a temper tantrum and has been grounded from playgrounds for five days which is very sad as we are heading to a city tonight that is probably full of them.

It was a very nice day in Madrid with the sun out bright and strong but the air decently cool.  As long as you were outside in the breeze it was a very nice temperature.  The office seems to be extremely stuffy and always warm.  But once outside it was very nice.  And we have gotten so little sun here in Spain that having a sunny day was a very nice change.

I left the office at four, I was nearly the last one there and needed to leave before the last people did as I did not know how to lock up the office.  I went to the book seller that was right out front and while Dominica and the girls made their way back from the playground I did some shopping.  I got three travel guides for Spain, in Spanish, and a big ancient history book for Liesl, also in Spanish.  It is her first St. George’s Day book!

We all went straight to the parking garage and met there, saving some time.  It turned out that our credit cards were not accepted there and I had to leave the garage for fifteen minutes or more to wander around Gran Via looking for an ATM in order to get enough cash to cover the $63 parking fee!  I am really not happy that Visa has not figured out universal access and just because someone takes Visa doesn’t mean that they take your Visa.  American Express is not accepted as many places, but anyplace that accepts it really accepts it.  So it is far less stressful and more reliable.

The drive out of Madrid actually went quite well.  It was pretty easy to get out of town.  Madrid has a really impressive underground highway infrastructure and we almost never had to drive above ground to get all of the way to the outskirts of the city!  We were underway in no time.

We tried taking the Radial 4 instead of the Autovia 4 which turned out to be rather expensive and I don’t think that it really sped us up getting out of the city, but Dominica thinks that it did.  Both roads seemed to be moving pretty quickly.

The drive south to Córdoba was very nice.  The road was clear and easy to drive and the scenery was very nice.  We got to see a lot of La Mancha that was new to us, including many additional old fashioned windmills like in the story.  We got to see a really pretty sunset during the drive.

Getting into Córdoba was very easy.  Unlike most any other city that we have dealt with in Spain this required very little European driving expertise or crazy navigation.  The roads were mostly easy and pretty straightforward.

We are staying in the old Jewish Quarter, the most ancient and well preserved portion of the city.  The person renting us the apartment is also renting us a parking space under the old city wall and was standing by the wall waiting for us as we made the turn off of the boulevard that lined the big park in the center of the city.  That made things very easy.

We followed out weekend landlady and she walked us (as I drove) to a tiny little garage door through which I had to drive down an incredibly steep ramp where the car barely fit and into a tiny parking garage where I had only inches to back up into a tiny parking space.  Dominica was really impressed that I was able to do it at all let alone go right in and park, straight on, with less than half an inch between the car and a pillar, backwards.  Getting out is going to be fun.

We walked to the apartment which was not too far away.  The landlady was there with her teenage daughter.  She was pregnant and due in a week which was a surprise.

The apartment was on Plaza Ángel de Torres which was really nice.  We had a little fountain and a little area with trees right outside our windows.  The apartment was on the third floor (fourth floor for the Americans who don’t count from zero) and was really large.  It was a two bedroom, two bath (with a shared shower that was really interesting) with a huge living space and tons and tons of windows and a couple balconies, one of which ran from the master bedroom, around the corner of the house and along the living room!  Everything was brand new and really gorgeous.  It is our understanding that we are the very first people to have rented this place – the owners only just moved out of it a few weeks ago.

We unpacked a little and pretty much immediately set out to find dinner as it was quite late and we did not want to miss out on a chance to eat as none of us have had a meal today.  I had a croissant at the breakfast meeting but that was it.

We had seen some restaurants on our walk from the park to the apartment so we just went back that way hoping that at least one of them would be open.   We were in luck, even though it was around ten there were four that looked like they were open all in one spot and the one had hours posted saying that they were open until close to midnight.  So it looked like we were going to be okay.

We scoured menus for a bit before deciding to try the Casa Rubio which was in the middle of the row and had the most interesting looking menu.  We would later find out from Jeff Rubio (my old boss at Citi) that this was highly ranked on TripAdvisor and later we would find out that this was the only recommended, affordable category restaurant on WikiTravel for the entire city!  So we really chose well.

Dinner ended up being really phenomenal.  Everyone enjoyed their food, a lot.  And we got some variety too, which was great as we have a tendency to get a lot of the same foods over and over again.  We got Dominica’s favourite food, patatas bravas but here they were more like a curry based than what we have had before and they were the best that we have had yet, really something.  We got a kind of hummus-like cheesy dip that was quite good.  We just dipped bread in that.  We tried the local Jewish Quarter specialty, aubergines (eggplant for the Americans) fried and covered in “sugar cane honey” called “miel de caña” here, but is really molasses.  They were amazing.  We would never have guessed that such a thing existed.  We are so glad that we tried that!  We just loved it.

We got calamari for Luciana but it ended up being whole squid, not rings, and not fried.  So she was not interested.  It had a nice, spicy red sauce on them and they were grilled.  Liesl happily tried it and liked it.  For the girls we ended up getting them tempura fried cod pieces that they both completely loved.  In fact, Luciana would demand that we return and get that fish again, too.

After dinner we just went back to the apartment.  It was nearly midnight and we were all pretty tired.  It had been a bit of a long week for us.  On the way back, across the street from our apartment, we found this really neat little street through an ancient set of wooden doors that was completely amazing.  Very Arabic in design, a fountain in the middle of the street and several places for sale in it.  Very cool, we will explore it tomorrow.

Our Internet access is great, for a change.  Rock solid (and it even works way outside in the plaza by the fountain) and no issues.  So all of our pictures are getting uploaded and we are easy to contact while here.

Alarm went off at nine this morning.  Sleeping on the couch turned out to not be all that bad.  It was very stiff and it has been a long time, now, since I used to sleep on the floor but it still did not bother me at all.  The pillow might as well have not existed and that meant that my head was a bit low but that was really the only issue.

I got u and showered and left for the office.  I had to get Dominica up so that I could leave her with the apartment keys while I was at work all day.

The walk to the office only takes a few minutes, which is really nice.  I got there probably around ten.  It is a very nice day here in Madrid.  The sun is out but it is not too warm.

Had a nice morning in the office.  Got a tour and introduced to everyone.  Then after about an hour I got set up with a spot to work in the common room as there was no spare desk available for me.  The office is so packed that several people have to work without desks regularly.

Dominica and the girls had been planning on coming to the office shortly after I went there this morning to get a tour and introduced to people but they slept in and then the girls were both very engaged in playing ABCMouse on their iPads so Dominica decided that it would make the most sense to hold them back at the apartment so that they could get some quiet time and educational time.

At two the whole team in the office went out for lunch to a really nice seafood place not far from the office.  We had a really nice time and it was good to get a chance to casually sit down and spend time getting to know everyone.  There was one other person visiting from the San Francisco office too.

I had fish tacos for lunch, which are nothing like tacos in the New World.  It was much more fried fish bites.  So weird how the words vary between the regions.  We had some amazing tapas to share before we started too including some of the best patatas bravas that I have had yet and a tuna salad (real salad, with tuna, not the tuna with mayonnaise thing that we call tuna salad.)  It was really nice having wine with lunch as a normal thing that everyone at the office did.  And very nice that we did shots after lunch!  That’s less common even in Spain, I assume.

Back in the office for the afternoon.  As soon as we were back from lunch, Dominica and the girls walked down from the apartment and came up to meet everyone and get a look at the office.  Dominica got some coffee there with me.  The girls probably spent about half an hour at the office.

The girls went out for pizza and cupcakes and took the food back to the apartment and spent the afternoon happily playing ABCMouse again.

After work I went back to the apartment and dropped off my bag.  Then we all set out for a walk to go find some dinner.  It was around six when I got back to the apartment, so on the early side for dinner but we wanted to do some exploring no the way.

Today, I learned at lunch, is Saint George’s (San Jorge) Day and that means the day of books here in Spain.  So all of the booksellers all over the city have the streets full of books that are on discount.  It is apparently a lot like St. Valentine’s Day in the U.S.  A very big deal here.  I had been wondering about the extreme number of books for sale all over the place.

So we started walking north on Fuencarrel and did about a mile when we came upon some playgrounds in the middle of a large pedestrian area.  The girls are always looking for playgrounds so even though these were small and designed for very little kids we found a bench to sit on and let them play, probably for an hour at least.  It was a playground that we think that we might remember having seen in Madrid in 2012, the last time that we were here.  Hard to believe that we would have chosen the same road again!

The girls had a grand time on the playground.  It was pretty busy when we first arrived but quickly went down to just a few kids as the evening wore on.  There was one little three year old boy that played with them a lot.  They had a great time playing with him.  The three of them kept trying to go down a small slide together and would pile up on top of each other at the bottom.  They were hilarious.

The little boy’s mother and grandfather ended up hanging out with us for quite a while.  She spoke a little English but he spoke a lot, having been special forces stationed in the US at Fort Bragg.  We had a very nice time.

From there we walked a little farther north and took the girls to a place called VIPS which is an American style and themed diner that I had discovered as I walked past it last night.  I was hopeful that they would have pancakes and other “comfort” food that the girls have been craving.  The place looked, from the windows, much like a high class Denny’s or maybe a Perkins and was very big and I knew that they were open very late or possibly twenty four hours.

We got to the diner and thankfully they really did have pancakes!  Luciana got those, with strawberry syrup as they did not have breakfast syrup, golden syrup or maple syrup, and Dominica and I both got “California” sandwiches which ended up being both very healthy and super tasty.  The French fries at this place were really good too.  All of the food, with the exception of the syrup options, was extremely American in selection and style and was a nice change of pace after an entire month of having nothing like that.  The water was tap and not bottled too!  I am pretty sure that this is the first tap water in a restaurant that we have had since arriving in Spain!  Liesl opted to just have onion rings.

Dinner was very good and we were quite happy by the choice.  We know that we will not have an experience like that again for quite some time.  One of the big things about being in Madrid is that the “traditional” food in Madrid is not traditional Spanish food but big restaurants with a lot of variety.  So eating American here isn’t as non-Madridian as you might think (and tomorrow I would actually have someone recommend eating at VIPS as a Spanish restaurant not realizing that it was American fare!)

After dinner we walked south and stopped at one of the other small playgrounds and let the girls burn off some of their dinner.  While they did that I explored one of the book stores that was open late for the holiday.  I really wanted to get “Don Quijote” in Spanish but could not find a copy anywhere.

Back to the apartment.  It was pretty late.  It took a little bit but we finally got everyone off to bed.  Luciana decided to sleep with Dominica in the bed tonight.  Liesl and I shared the couch.  I have to be in the office before nine thirty tomorrow morning so do not want to be up too late tonight and we already walked a bit today so I decided not to go out for extra walking tonight.  Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

 

We got up early this morning, Dominica at eight thirty and the rest of us at nine thirty.  Our original plan this morning was to go directly to Córdoba where we could leave the car and catch the Renfe AVE north up to Madrid so that we could avoid driving and parking in the big city.  But after looking at it and really thinking about it we made the last minute decision to just go directly to Madrid by car.  With four of us in the car it just made a lot more sense.

It was almost exactly noon when we got out of the door and onto the road.  It is just over five hours on the highway from Cáñar to Madrid, a bit of a drive and roughly halfway across the country south to north.  This will give us a very good opportunity to see much of the country.

The drive north went well.  Driving through most of Granada Province was very familiar to us.  It was only a little above Granada that we transitioned into Jaen Province which we have not seen before.  That area had a truly amazing amount of olive groves.  I mean truly amazing.  Mountains and hills and valley and stretching to the horizon in every direction for a very long way.

Once we came to the northern edge of Jaen we left Andalucia, for the first time since arriving by train a month ago, and entered, for the first time ever, Castille-La Mancha, the land of Don Quijote.  The landscape immediately changed as we left the mountains behind and entered rolling hills.  The olives and almonds stopped too and more traditional farmland began to appear.  This was more European plain than Mediterranean coastal region.  Very beautiful and the population was quite sparse.  And we really did see Quixotic Dragons (windmills) standing in triplicate on little hills here and there.  And castles would appear here and there dotted around the landscape.  Very magical.

There was really no traffic or large population until we reached Madrid itself, the mammoth city sitting in the very center of the country.

Driving in Madrid was less than fun and the GPS was less than helpful in places.  At one point it sent us to the same roundabout three times with me having to pull u-turns in the middle of the largest urbanization on the Iberian peninsula twice in order to make subsequent attempts at it!  Not fun.  And when we finally got to our parking garage – it wasn’t there.  This caused me to have to go do a turn around in an extremely crazy traffic situation.  And there were policia directing traffic against signals all over the place and at one point they yelled at us to go when an on coming car was not stopping!  Almost had a policia-induced t-bone.

We were very grateful when we were able to turn off of the Gran Via and into the parking garage.  Very grateful, indeed.  The car was parked, we unloaded the kids and walked up to the Fuencarrel to look for our apartment for the week.  It turned out to be a super easy walk and we were set up in the apartment in no time.

This is a very small, very urban apartment.  One small living space with kitchen, nice couch, little eating area, tiny television over the table all in one space.  And then a comfortable bathroom with a nice shower.  And then the one small bedroom with a nice sized bed.  That was all.  Only barely not a studio.  But quite comfortable, a good use of the space and an amazing location.  The windows, one next to the couch and one in the bedroom, basically opened up right next to each other an only existed to let in light and air as the view was only of the apartment a few feet away from us on the other side.

They accidentally left us with no WiFi login information and no toilet paper.  That was frustrating. Dominica managed to reach them and get toilet paper pretty quickly but we did not get the WiFi password all evening leaving me unable to work in any fashion and the girls without anything to watch.  This was frustrating as we had raced to get into the apartment in time for me to attend my seven o’clock team stand up meeting!

I went to the car and got our luggage and stuff and got it up to the apartment. Then I set out to find a market as we needed some food supplies and toilet paper (they had only given us one small roll to hold the four of us over until we were able to buy some of our own!!)  I went north on Fuencarrel and was able to find that pretty quickly.  There was a Carrefour Express right up there.

Then we went out to eat.  There was a Turkish place called the New Istanbul (yes, in English for some reason) that we had walked by just after having parked the car.  We knew that that would be simple so we just went there.

Dominica and I started off with some amazing hummus.  The girls got buttered pasta, as they often do.  Dominica and I each got felafel which was a very nice change of pace.  One of the big advantages of the large city, Madrid has anything and everything.  No need to each traditionally here.  It’s not even traditional to eat tradition when in Madrid!

After dinner it was just an evening in the apartment.  Once everyone was heading to bed I went out for an evening walk and did about four miles in a big loop around the area.  I went south to Gran Via, where my office is located, and headed west to find the office location so that I would be all ready for tomorrow morning.  The I continued on for about a mile or a little more since the road veers to the northwest.  Then I took an east west road over to Fuencarrel far to the north and came down to the apartment from there.  It gave me a decent layout of the area and a good idea of where many things are located.  I found a restaurant called VIPS that looked really interesting – very much an American diner like a fancy Denny’s.  I am hopeful that it will have pancakes which would make Luciana very happy.

Once back to the apartment it was time for me to go to bed as well.  No Internet access yet, so we have nothing but our phones tonight.  Dominica got the big bed.  Liesl, Luciana and I are sleeping together on the couch.

Dominica got up at nine thirty and right as she did Luciana sneaked downstairs and climbed into bed with me and immediately fell right asleep in Dominica’s warm spot.  So I stayed in bed for a little while since Luciana was being so adorable.

Today is our only “down day” for the entire week.  We have a lot going on!  We just got back from Cádiz yesterday afternoon and tomorrow we are driving to Córdoba in the morning and taking the AVE high speed rail to Madrid pretty much as soon as we get there and get things figured out.  Then two days in Madrid and two more days in Córdoba before getting back to our village on Sunday night.  Dominica put in a lot of time working on those plans today to get everything ironed out.  It is going to be an expensive week for us.

Dominica also worked on getting everything finalized for our Norwegian Cruise Lines cruise from Buenos Aires to Santiago (Valparaiso) going around the tip of South American in February.  Because we are in Spain the company’s phone options do not seem to work.  We were only able to reach them in French, for some reason.  So she had to put in a bit of work dealing with that today but did manage to figure it out and we are pretty much all set now and very much looking forward to that cruise which is now less than a year away!  As amazing as it is that we are living in Europe now and as amazing as that was previously that we would be able to do this that we will be in South America in just eight months and doing this cruise that we have been talking about doing for forever in ten months is a little unreal.

The sun was out this morning and it was pretty nice.  Our first time with a sunny day here in the village for quite some time.  Liesl and I did some of her school outside on the terraza.  She has missed having the sunlight.

Dominica made an attempt at doing the laundry today as we have been running low on clothes since it has been so damp and cold that there was no way for things to have dried.  Today was the chance to get a lot done.  Sadly, by early afternoon the sun had left and the clouds were back and nothing was drying.  By evening she had everything draped over chairs and railings around the house with fans and electric radiators running trying to get them to dry.  Hopefully there will be dry clothes to take with us tomorrow.  Five days of travel is going to be a pain if we have laundry issues to contend with as well.

Ryan confirmed today that he was able to get his passport dealt with and has finalized his plans and we will be seeing him here in Andalucia in less than two weeks.  He is only coming for a few days as that was all that he was able to schedule so last minute.

We are also expecting Rachel to be here to visit us soon.  She is leaving Wales and heading for Dover at the end of this week to take the ferry, I think, over to France and then hitching her way across France and hoping that I can pick her up on the Spanish side of the border in about two weeks.

I managed to get in over an hour on Rosetta Stone today.  And some DuoLingo.  I hit level seven there today.

We had to get to bed on the early side tonight.  Laundry had to be brought inside still damp because it got cloudy during the evening and there is always the chance of rain at night and the likelihood of dew in the morning.  Dominica hung the laundry everywhere that she could, like on chairs and railings, and set up an oscillating fan and an electric radiator to see if that would do the trick during the night.

I spent the day working from the main floor, instead of from the kitchen, as Dominica has found it impossible to do anything with me being in the kitchen in the way all day long.  There just is not enough room at our tiny little table there.

We got to bed around midnight, early for us.  Tomorrow is an early day.  Our plan is to drive to Córdoba in the morning so that we have plenty of time to deal with the train and get up to Madrid and get into our apartment so that I can work in the evening.  There is a lot to be done.  Dominica is tired tonight and decided to save the packing for the trip until tomorrow.

Tomorrow starts our longest time away from the house in Cáñar since we first arrived in Spain.  We will be gone for five days leaving first thing tomorrow (Wednesday) morning and being in Madrid all day Thursday and Friday, then all day in Córdoba on Saturday and Sunday.  We did not want to pay for Sunday night in Córdoba because it is so crazily expensive in that city (we have no idea why) so we are going to put in a very full day on Sunday and drive home late at night.  We figure that that will save us easily well over one hundred dollars.

We’ve hit “pricetag” parity with the US. The Euro is SO weak against the dollar that the exchange rate is 1:1.06. Since in Europe the price is the price (a one Euro item costs exactly one Euro) and since everywhere we live in the US tacks on seven cents (roughly) in tax to every dollar – which is slightly worse than the exchange rate, it means that a one Euro price tag costs us exactly the same amount as something with a one dollar price tag would in the US! It makes price matching really easy.

Rapidly life in Europe is becoming very, very inexpensive.  Food here is costing us almost nothing compared to food in the US.  And we are getting so much better food.  Now that the dollar and the Euro are nearly identical we are going really far on our money.  This is really wonderful.