Our visas have been approved

We went into Alicante twice this past week, going to a place that could possibly give us information on our visas.  When we went on Wednesday, they said they were out of "numbers" and weren't taking anymore people for the day.  We peeked in at the waiting room and it was full of people.  So, we left and decided to go back on Friday.
On Thursday, Guillermo mixed some bug killer together and got up on a ladder and sprayed the nice big palm that is in front of this house.  He did that because we noticed some dead beetles on the ground underneath it and there's a big problem here in the Alicante area with those palm beetles.  We didn't want anything to happen to the palm, so Guillermo sprayed it carefully in the middle, so that it would seep down inside.  That took up most of the morning.
On Friday, we didn't leave as early as we wanted to, and sure enough by the time we got to those offices, the line to get numbers was really, really long.  We got number 50 and they were on like number 3.  So, we took our place on those chairs along with everyone else and waited.  We waited for over 2 hours before our number was called.
When we sat down with the guy and told him what we wanted, he checked on his computer and sure enough, he found information that our visas had been approved on Monday!  He also told us that Madrid had not received any requests for visas from Houston until this past August!  16 months after we turned them in.  That was not good to hear.  But anyway, they are approved now, Madrid has to send them back to Houston, and somehow or another, we need to get those visas in our hands.  We had been told by Houston that if we went on to Spain, they would mail us the visas when they came in, so we're hoping that is correct.

Today, Saturday, I decorated this house for Christmas.  One strand of 100 colored lights, and 2 snowflakes.  That's it.  We don't really want to go buy a lot of decorations or a tree for the little amount of time we'll be here, so a tree had to be fashioned.  It's really just two tall candle holders on either side of a wine rack.  The lights are all draped around this and the two snowflakes are sitting among the lights on the wine rack.  It's better than nothing, and having the lights up - no matter what they're on - just makes it seem more like Christmas.  Also, Christmas music started today!  :-)  So, here's our "tree".

And another view.  Just could not take a picture that wasn't blurry.

Gastronomy Fair

Today was another nice warm sunny day.  It's been so nice to have those kinds of days again lately.  So, I put on a load of clothes to wash, got them hung on the line and when I came back inside, we noticed our water had been cut off.  Whew!  Got that load of clothes washed just in time!
Our plan today was to go to a Gastronomy Fair that was being held in Alicante and we figured we'd wait until the clothes were dry and brought in before going.  Well, with the water being shut off (for who knows what reason) we decided to have a quick non-messy breakfast and go right after that.
That turned out to be a good decision because we got there just a little before the event was open to the public so we got a good parking spot and were able to be there before the massive crowds hit.  Once they let us inside, we walked around almost the whole event center trying to decide which restaurant booths we wanted to stop at to try the tapas that were being offered.  Each tapa cost between 2 and 3 dollars each, and a glass of wine or beer cost about 2 dollars.  So, we had fun walking around and then seeing something we liked and stopping there to taste it.

Guillermo trying to decide which one to take.

Should have taken a picture WHILE we were eating, but anyway, we ate at this place, at the little round table to the side of me.

A Swiss cheese booth!

They were having a cooking competition here.

 It was all very good, so good that we wished we could stay and try others but we didn't want to overeat and overspend.  So, after a while, we reluctantly left and that's when we realized how crowded it had gotten.  As we walked back to our car, we saw that the line to get in was LONG and when we got out to the parking lot, it had become a mess of cars.  Certainly not like when we arrived and our car was just one of a few there.
Anyway, it was a fun event and we're glad we went - and that we went early!
By the way, when we got back home, the water was back on.  Yay!

Tram to Alicante

First we drove to El Campello, where we would park our car for the day.  After parking, we went straight to that bank I mentioned before because after all, today is a Thursday, the time was between 8 and 10:30 and the date was the 10th. So, it was bill paying time!  We paid our little 20 cent bill, and then went to the tram station, bought our tickets and waited for the tram to Alicante.
Very nice ride to Alicante, with some WONDERFUL views of beaches and coastline.  We got off at the last stop on the line, which was near to where we wanted to be.  We wanted to go to a book store we had heard about to see if they had a Swedish dictionary.  They didn't have that, but they recommended we go up a few blocks to a store that is across from a language school.  Nothing in Swedish there, either.  Our next stop was a Coop store that we had seen on one of our previous trips into Alicante with the car.  As we walked to that store, we saw that a bunch of young people were gathering close to the school with signs, so it looked like there was going to be a demonstration.  We went on to the Coop and we found stuff there to make hot chocolate which is what we had been looking for and we even found Almond milk there, too!  So, we ended up buying a few things.
From there, we walked back up to the main street and there were the students, marching up the street hollering and waving their signs.  We never could figure out what they were demonstrating against.
We stopped at a little cafe and had a snack of croissant, tuna empanada and coke.  Then we walked over to Alicante's big market and that also was amazing.  We may skip El Campello's market one of these days and take the tram over to Alicante instead to do our weekly market trip.  We were very impressed with that market.
Then, we looked for a place to have a few tapas for lunch, got back on the tram and headed back to El Campello and drove home.  We thoroughly enjoyed that trip to Alicante and want to do it again soon.

Market day pictures

Finally took the camera to the market today so now you get a glimpse into what we do every Wednesday morning.                          There are stands like this row after row after row.

This is the bag  that we use.  Almost everyone has some version of this kind of bag.

The Olive Bar - there are 4 different ones of these.

Getting some peppers for us.

Guillermo picking out some pears.

Those are the bananas I want!

Looks delicious, doesn't it??

Bag filled to the top, we are headed back to where we parked our car.

Absolutely beautiful weather today.  Not a single cloud in the sky.  The temperature was only warm in the sun, though, in the shade it was quite cool.

That's just the way it is

Nice beautiful morning - sunny and warmer.  It's been quite a while since we've seen such a nice day.  Of course, got the clothes washing in early so that is out of the way.

After the clothes were hung up, we drove into the town of El Campello to try to pay our internet bill.  It's a bill of about 15 cents, this first bill, and it's crazy.  We got the bill like almost two weeks ago and we still have been unable to pay it.  We tried to pay at the internet company, and they said no you have to pay that bill through a bank.  So, we go to a bank and they say that's not a true bill, that we need to bring the "real" bill in and then they'll take the payment.  So, today we decided to go the the bank that the internet company deals with.  We found an excellent parking place, which we were so happy about.  Believe me, finding a good parking place is not easy.  Anyway, we get to the bank and they say they only take care of bill payments on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  (Today is Tuesday).  So, they said they only do bill payments between the 10th and the 23rd of each month!  (Today is the 8th).  And not only that, they only take bill payments between 8:30 and 10am!!!! When we walked out of the bank, we just laughed because it sounded like some weird joke, but it was reality.

We left there and decided to start this thing that El Campello is doing called the Tapa-Chupi route.  We've been wanting to do that ever since we got here and today we finally started.  The Tapa-Chupi route is a way to get people to try the food in various restaurants around the city.  You receive a card and when you go to one of the restaurants on the route, you get stamped.  And what you get at each of the restaurants is a little tapa (like an appetizer) and one drink for about 2 dollars.  So, our first try at this turned out good.  We each got a slice of bread spread with dressing and topped with lettuce and an anchovy with a piece of garlic on top.  It was delicious!  And our drink was cinnamon tea.

Next we tried to print our home internet bill at an internet cafe but the website never would load.  So, instead we went to a second restaurant on the Tapa-Chupi route.  At this little restaurant they served two meatballs each and a glass of beer.  The meatballs were good, but I opted for a glass of coke instead.  We ended up eating lunch there and that was also very good.

The weather was still beautiful when we got home so this afternoon we were able to work out in the yard again.  That was nice.

So windy!

It is extremely windy today here.  The day started sunny so I was able to get a load of clothes washed and put on the line.  The wind started picking up while the clothes were hanging up out there, so much so that it even blew a pair of my sweat pants right off the line!  I made sure everything was hanging extremely secure after that.  So, with wind like that, everything dried in good time.  Pretty much by the time I got the clothes on the line, there were so many clouds that there was hardly any sun, but it never did rain.  Which is good.  So, I'm writing this in the evening, and the wind is even WORSE out there.  Those are some really strong gusts out there.  Now those gusts may have whipped that clothes line straight out of the ground!

Today was the day we were going to go to the grocery again, but we went out yesterday to get the newspaper and decided, since we were already out, to just do the grocery shopping then.  When we left the house yesterday, it was raining and it rained almost the whole time we were out.  We were in a hardware store when we heard the rain really pounding the roof, so we hung around in there till it quit.  At the grocery store we took our time, checking out all the aisles and familiarizing ourselves with what the store has.  The name of this store is Carrefour and it's an amazing store.  The prices may be a little higher there, but it sure does offer a wide assortment of just about anything you'd want.

Not much new lately.  The weather has been quite rainy so we haven't been getting out as much.

On Tuesday, Nov. 1, we drove into to Alicante to take care of some business, not realizing that everything was closed for All Saints Day.  Then we tried to go to the grocery store, but that was closed, too.  So, we drove all that way for nothing, except for driving experience to help us get to know the roads.
For supper, we were going to fix a frozen dinner thing in the oven, to test the oven because we hadn't used it yet, but the test failed.  We couldn't get the oven to work, so we microwaved the dish, which turned out to be ok.  So, Tuesday we felt was a very disappointing day.

On Wednesday, Nov. 2nd, we were able to get in market day because fortunately the morning was somewhat sunny and the rains held off till the evening.  I had wanted to take pictures of the market today, but thought it was going to rain, so I left the camera at home.  We'll see how next Wednesday is.

Today, Thursday, we drove back into Alicante even though it was kind of raining and everything was open so we were able to take care of what we needed to take care of.  Then we drove back to El Campello and had lunch at a seaside restaurant which turned out to be very good!