Costa del Sol: Land of Sun, Storms and Silver Linings

We've settled back into winter in Spain and I finally have a chance to write on this blog. For the last few weeks I've been writing my business blog and dedicating more time to writing a novel that I started nearly a decade ago. With renewed faith in the story, I'm finally back at it, but after making some necessary revisions to the characters. More on that in a future post...

If you live in North America, it isn't likely that you heard much about the recent floods in Spain. I struggled to find any news of it in Canadian newspapers. So to fill you in...a week ago, the area where I live in the Costa del Sol was hit hard by two weeks of unusually heavy rains and disastrous flooding. Many of our friends and neighbours are still reeling from the destruction. 

There were three deaths and hundreds of houses, restaurants and businesses in the region were knee-high in water with much damage to furnishings, cars, garages and structures. Farms just north of us were wiped out as all their crops and belongings, including many animals, were washed down to the sea. 

The beach at the bottom of our street.

Broken sea wall in Sabinillas and destroyed beach

Our favourite 'China-store', the huge one where we get all our dog, electronics and art supplies, was under water for days when it sat trapped in a low area between a hill and the wall that lines the highway. They suffered extensive damage to their inventory, but within hours of the news, there were dozens of volunteers hovering near their doors looking for a way to help the owners dig out from under it all. Others took to Facebook and generously offered strangers elbow-grease, rooms in their homes, working cars and dry clothes. It was incredible.

Flooded A-7 highway and China-store.

The highway underpass near the China-store was flooded, leaving cars stranded or diverted around the town. And so much water ran through the town of Sabinillas that the crews had to knock down the beach wall in order to provide an escape route for the water. As a result, the sand and many beach structures have been heavily damaged.

For those who lost much, the recovery will take a while - both physically and emotionally, but one of the truths I have learned about Spain is just how resilient and optimistic its people are. And how willing strangers and friends are to help out anyone in need.

Though the beaches are still thick with bamboo stalks and garbage, the clean up has begun, and fishermen found a way through the debris to launch their boats in calmer waters. 

And of course, this being the Costa del Sol, the sun is once again shining, adding to the feeling that no matter what people here may go through, there is no storm cloud that doesn't come with its very own silver lining. 

Typical Spanish storm cloud

Peace and blessings to you all.

Well that happened...

After telling ourselves over and over that we wouldn't do it, we did it.

We bought an apartment in Spain.

The reasons not to were numerable: we could continue to rent for 20 years and never spend the amount of money that it would take to buy a place; we could move around and winter in other cities or countries; we could change our minds and go back into the regular work force in Canada, blah blah blah. These are all good, solid reasons.

Instead, I listened to the little voice inside that said "You should buy a place because it's the insane thing to do. Plus, you're getting a great deal! (rational justification was necessary)." It is that same little voice that made me buy a cottage in 2001 as a single woman when no one was buying cottages, the same voice that made me quit my well-paying, secure day job and move to Spain, the same voice that makes me ride my motorcycle way too fast - jeez, it actually made me get my bike license 20 years ago. And it's the same voice that made me fall in love with Andrew when we both said we wouldn't. So far, listening to that little voice has worked in my favour. Fingers crossed that this is another successful adventure!

The apartment is a European-sized (meaning small but sensible) one bedroom penthouse apartment in a beach-side community. It has an enormous sea-facing terrace that is almost as large as the apartment itself, and came completely furnished and outfitted except for patio furniture which we'll need to buy. It also gives us a place to store our stuff when we're back in Canada.

The plan is to rent it out to the vacationers (SHAMELESS PLUG) who (apparently) travel to the Costa del Sol in droves during the summer. This should help off-set our carrying costs. That's the plan anyway. We've never done anything like this so there will be a big learning curve for us. Now we need to get insurance, a property manager, start listing the apartment on rental websites, blah blah blah. But really, we bought an apartment so we had somewhere to store stuff.

The bedroom

Living room and kitchen

The large terrace facing the Sea

Swimming pool outside the front door

 

"You've only been in Spain for five months and you're renting a furnished apartment. What do you really have that you need to store?", you may astutely ask.

Well....for some reason, we have an abundance of sea glass and sea pottery. I swear we only picked up a few pieces here and there, but the stuff seems to have multiplied considerably. It's everywhere in our apartment. We collect it because each piece is unique and interesting and seems to fuel some desire that we have to create art with it.

So....we started making cool stuff and selling it through an Etsy shop (ANOTHER SHAMELESS PLUG) and kept the name Reflections On Spain. This week, I made my first sale! So far, I've made pretty sea glass earrings, necklaces and bracelets; Andrew has made a cool sea pottery mosaic. It's all very hippie dippy. But the thing I love is that Etsy is just the most brilliant online market I've ever seen. Way back in the 90s I used to buy and sell stuff on eBay and Amazon, and I regularly buy stuff today from Aliexpress, but in terms of connecting creative-minded people selling unique stuff, Etsy has it going on.

Some of the bracelets I've made

One of my necklaces

Andrew's sea tile mosaic

The only problem that we've encountered trying to sell stuff has nothing to do with Etsy and everything to do with the Spanish mail service, Correos. For some reason, the costs to ship items anywhere - inside or outside Spain - are exorbitant. We're talking two to three times the cost of sending items in Canada (and the US, Australia, and other EU countries from what I can see online). It is for this reason that we can't really list Andrew's heavy tile mosaic for sale.

One comment I found online was made by a Spanish t-shirt manufacturer who was lamenting that it was going to cost him more to ship a t-shirt to an out-of-country buyer (20 Euros!) than what he could sell the shirt for. It was limiting his ability to expand his business and income. It seems so unnecessarily short-sighted to me that the Spanish government would allow this. When all the surrounding countries in the EU manage to cost-effectively ship things via their government-run mail services, why can't Spain? Sadly, our way around this will be to bring items back to Canada with us when we go home in the spring, make the larger items there and ship them via Canada Post. Very disappointing all around.

So that's the big news with us. 

Check out our Etsy shop when you get a chance, and please share it with your friends. I'm adding new items all the time. http://www.etsy.com/shop/ReflectionsOnSpain

And this summer when you want to experience a different kind of summer vacation, consider renting our little apartment in Spain. It's just 70 meters away from a fabulous beach on the gorgeous Mediterranean Sea. I'll post a link to the rental website as soon as we have it.

Can you tell that we're doing what we can to avoid having to go back to the real world any day soon?

How Time Flies...

As the saying goes, no news is good news. And that has certainly been the case with me since my last blog post two months ago.

I have been enjoying my time settling into this Spanish life and the day-to-day has been going surprisingly well for us. Oh sure, we've had some frustrating hiccups dealing with various authorities for things like our Número de Identificación Extranjero, or NIE, a permanent number that is assigned to all foreigners who do any kind of business in Spain. We needed an NIE in order to get internet in our apartment. After trying and failing for over a week to get through by phone to the government office that issues the NIE we found Castles, a local English-speaking company that would complete our NIE applications, get all the necessary paperwork together, go in person to the government office the next town over, and secure us an appointment. All this at a cost of €25 each. A week after meeting with Castles, we had our appointment, scheduled for a month later. The actual appointment was over in less than five minutes and the next day we picked up our NIEs. Best €50 we've spent here. 

During that time, we set up a bank account with Banco Sabadell to make paying rent and utilities for our apartment easier. Though a lengthy process, made more so by the fact that they are only open between 10:00am and 2:00pm Monday to Friday, the transaction was done entirely in English and the bank representative was so friendly. Awesome.

One of the obvious benefits of being in Spain is how much easier it is to find the right apartment. I mentioned in an earlier post that the duplex we originally rented in Spain was not as depicted online. After nearly two months there we decided we'd done enough fighting with the shower and lack of consistent hot water, the broken furnishings, the noisy people who congregated outside our bedroom window at all hours of the day and night, and the crusty old woman who glowered or cursed at us each time we walked past her ground floor apartment with Fred. It was time to find a new place. With the help of the property manager who managed the apartment we were in, we went to see four apartments all situated just blocks from the beach. Our criteria was: they would accept dogs, be nicely furnished, quiet, have consistent hot water, at least two bedrooms, an oven and not just a stove (sadly, an apartment overlooking the beach that we loved didn't have one). For €50 more a month, we got all that and more. The place we moved into at the end of December is a block closer to the beach, situated as part of a pretty, gated garden community, has three bedrooms, and is beautifully furnished. There are some detriments, but all in all, we are pretty happy here.

The apartment complex where we live

The astute among you may have noticed that I referred to "dogs" in the above paragraph, and not just "dog" when listing criteria for the new apartment. The reason for that is the addition to our little family of another canine. Lucy (or Andalucia, so named for the region where we live in Spain) was a five or six week old pup when we rescued her from the Sabinillas Sunday market on December 6th. We had left Fred at home that morning because navigating the busy market with a dog, correction, with Fred, is a chore. He likes to eat stuff off the ground and dart back and forth through the crowd, intent on smelling everything. The market is no place for him, or for us with him.

Our Sunday Market Find

Our shopping done, we were leaving the market that day when we heard whimpering and saw a sad-looking pup tied to the gate underneath a scrawled cardboard sign that read "Gratis. Present". My heart broke on the spot and I looked at Andrew with tears in my eyes. Without a word between us, he walked over to the man standing behind the gate out of sight of the dog and asked in Spanish why he was giving her away. Andrew was told that her mother had had too many pups and couldn't care for them all. He walked back to me as I was untying the rope from the gate and inspected her. Chubby belly, well-fed, clean ears and eyes, no fleas. I couldn't manage to look at the man as we walked away from the market with the pup in my arms. 

In hindsight, I know that bringing the puppy to the market and waiting with her was an act of kindness. It meant she would go home with someone and be taken care of. As is too common among the rural Spanish who view all animals as tools, he could have simply dumped her in a ditch or tied her to a tree and left her to die. He chose not to and for that I am very grateful.

I wiped tears from my cheeks the entire walk home and as we walked around the China store getting a harness, leash, bed and toys for her. Andrew consoled us flawlessly. My benevolent rock.

Upon arrival at home, the yet to be named Lucy, and Fred inspected each other. Within minutes they were chasing each other with Lucy hiding under the coffee table to get away from Fred who was just a bit too excited by his new playmate. She would soon grow too tall for that trick and sought out better hiding spots from her brother from another mother. Fred is extremely gentle with her but sometimes he forgets she's a baby and pushes her too roughly into a wall or table. When that happens, Lucy turns into the Incredible Hulk and lunges at him, teeth bared, paws flailing. The killer terrier in her lives just below the surface. For the most part, their wrestling matches sound like Chewbacca and the Adam's Family's Cousin Itt having a heated argument. Hilarious in the middle of the day, but not so much in our bed at 2:00am when we're trying to sleep. 

We originally considered finding a new home for Lucy that would love her the way we would, but after living with this little pack for the past seven weeks, I knew I couldn't give her up. Fred and Lucy really are inseparable, following each other everywhere. Lucy is a sweet, smart dog with a happy nature and clearly loves us all. But there is something special in the way she greets her Andrew. It's all full body wiggles, barks and licks and big smiles. Andrew's greeting for her is the human equivalent. It's very easy for me to say that our hearts are happy here in sunny Spain.

The Family on Christmas Morning in Barcelona

So that is a quick synopsis of what has kept me from writing. I promise to be more prolific going forward because there are just so many things to tell you about this great country. Another day soon. Right now, we're heading to the beach to collect sea glass, chase Lucy and throw rocks for Fred.

The Famous Manilva (Sabinillas) Sunday Market

With the majority of Sabinillas' shops and businesses closed on Sundays there isn't much to do in southern Spain except walk along the beach, visit with friends or family, or visit the huge Sunday market in Sabinillas. Sadly, we have no friends or family here and we walk along the beach every day, so on Sundays we make the 20 minute walk up the road to market. Walking to the market is key as traffic queues to get into and out of the market are almost a mile long and enforced by half a dozen local police (it would seem we're not alone in the 'no-friends, no-family' category).

I meant to write about the market when we were here in March but apparently never got around to it. Basically it's a giant food and flea market that has everything you could possibly want or need,(including:

The kitchen sink

More cowbell

and most especially, the stuff you don't (see below). Items aren't always in the best or cleanest condition, but if you look hard enough, you can find it at the market.

Since we're here for another five months and our bare bones apartment is lacking in the majority of amenities that make life easier, we've been at the market the last two weekends picking up bits of stuff, particularly a variety of used electronic cables that would allow us to run our laptop through the apartment's old-school TV so we can watch the movies and TV programs we brought with us, on a larger screen. Ten Euros, three different cables and an adaptor box later and we still haven't sorted this out. We think we found what we need at a local 'China store' (oh don't worry, the 'China store' will be covered in a future blog.) but can't decide if it's worth trying and failing with yet another cable.

One of my favourite market stalls is the 'Ceramics Guy'. Because I seem to have an addiction to bright colours (also obvious with the beach glass I've been collecting) I nearly have to glue my hands into my pockets to keep from buying everything ceramics guy sells -- beautiful, handmade Spanish pottery. Last March, I bought a small version of this jug as a 'thank you' to my friend Anna for taking care of the my cat, the late (not tardy) Bumper, while we were away. This trip, we picked up a larger version for ourselves that serves as the perfect decanter for a €2.20 bottle of wine (don't judge).

Pretty ceramic jug

Cheap wine

We didn't have much of a shopping list this visit so I took the time to look more closely at the stuff being sold and less for a particular electronics cable. Of the estimated 120 or so vendors, maybe 40% (Ceramics Guy included) are selling items that are brand new. That leaves 60% of the vendors selling used, garage sale-esque items, some of which is the holy bounty of absolute crap. 

While it's been said that one man's trash is another man's treasure, in my wildest dreams, I can't imagine that any of the items pictured below could be considered anyone's idea of treasure. Though I could see them being buried in an unmapped location.

Behold, a small sampling of Sabinillas Sunday market crap:

This playful bear wants to spend its life on its back in your living room. Make a two-for offer and they'll throw in the domineering Thai elephant.

I like to think that the guy in this print never told his friends he posed for this. I also like to think that one of them will see it at the Sabinillas market and never let him live it down.

What would Spain be without its bull? And of course, the matador. Thankfully more and more people here are recognizing the cruelty of bull-fighting, but such traditions are hard to break in a country that puts the image of the black bull on everything. Imagine these museum-worthy paintings hanging in a special place on your walls.

Whoever painted this must have either really hated his mother because that is not a flattering image of her in the background.

'Don't look now Matador Michael Jackson, but there is an angry bull coming up behind you!!'