Chiringuitos (beach bars)

I think it goes without saying that I love the playa. And I love the month of August - in Spain it's the height of summer, when many people are enjoying weeks of vacation time, and El Puerto de Santa María is bustling. It's great to see the city full of people going out, enjoying themselves, and (most importantly for local businesses) spending money. But to be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of the beach in August. 

When the temperatures are reaching into the 100s (or 40s) inland, it seems like every Sevillano heads south to El Puerto and straight to the beaches. Maybe it's my Americana need for personal space, but I just can't handle the masses of people, packed umbrella-to-umbrella. If it's high tide on a weekend in August, buena suerte finding a piece of beach to call your own. The only way to get some sand to yourself is to show up early (10 o'clock might as well be the break of dawn for vacationing españoles), claim as much playa as possible, and leave before you end up sharing a towel with your new beach neighbors, sometime early in the afternoon. 

I prefer when the playa looks like this:

The August crowds, not to mention the lack of parking in the surrounding neighborhoods,  have me longing for September, when the beaches will be relatively peaceful again. But there is one thing about the summer season that I will miss - the chiringuitos.

January sol

Maybe it's because it rained last week and when it rains in Andalucia, it feels like the most unnatural thing, you think it will never stop, you will never leave the casa, and never see the sun again...but I have really been loving the weather the last couple of days.

65 degrees (Fahrenheit, since I still can't get the hang of Celsius) in January, driving with the windows open, springtime flowers already in bloom, walking on the beach, sun on my face, bare feet in the sand.

It's days like these that even though I'm an American girl at heart, I feel like I might not care if I ever go back. 

And then I get a craving for blue crabs...or I miss hanging out with that cute little niece of mine.

Our Christmas

from Meghann:

This was our second Christmas in España and the second year in a row that we celebrated with just the two of us and no other family (well, besides Chloe and Cora, of course). We still miss our families, the big dinners, opening gifts together, but we've gotten used to and learned to appreciate our simpler, more relaxed holidays. And we know how lucky we are to be able to spend Christmas together, when so many others cannot. Our family might be small (and 50% four-legged) but we can still be festive!

 Our Christmas was filled with food - some traditional dishes, along with some Spanish favorites. For both of us, food helps us feel closer to home, especially during the holidays. So there was plenty of cooking, baking, canning, eating, and drinking.

We canned homemade cranberry sauce on Christmas Eve.

And I used it to make cranberry coffee cake, which we ate on Christmas morning.

Another lovely thing about Christmas in Spain - the weather was gorgeous. Christmas Eve was sunny and warm.

You can see some people in the water in the background (for the record, we didn't think it was that warm, but people come down from the North over the holidays, so maybe it was warm to them...?).

There was a lovely Spanish sunset...

Surf, Soirée, Snacks!

from Meghann:

Our weekend turned out a little differently than we had planned. The weather ended up being a downer. The living nativity in Arcos de la Frontera that we had wanted to go to on Saturday was cancelled due to rain, and my horseback riding lesson was, too.

We did go to a Christmas party on base Friday night and got to get spiffed up for that. It's not every day that Graham wears a suit and tie (or hardly any day, since he works in a flight suit) or that I wear lipstick (heels on the other hand, are a short girl's best amigos).

It's always a good time to hang out with friends and coworkers (even better when the coworkers are friends) and have some hors d'oeuvres and cocktails. There was even a venenciadora - a professional sherry pourer! 

Playa + Italian-Style Veggie Soup

from Meghann:

Hope you all had a wonderful, family, friend, and food-filled Thanksgiving! And that your football (Americano) team won - both of ours did!

We were invited to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner (plus plenty of Spanish cava) at our friends' casa on Thursday. We were so grateful to spend the holiday with friends - and no dishes! Our families were definitely missed, but we were able to call and talk to them. One thing that wasn't missed - Black Friday. Neither of us were into it when we lived in the States and it seems even sillier now. There's really nothing similar in España and it seems difficult to explain that we follow a beautiful holiday dedicated to giving thanks by immediately going out, fighting crowds, and spending money. 

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and enjoying the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We don't deck the halls until December, so this time is perfect for catching up on things at the casa and enjoying our little familia. 

On Saturday, we took the dogs down to the beach. This time of year, it's pretty empty at the playa, besides a handful of surfers and a few other people walking. That meant we were able to let Chloe and Cora off their leashes so they could run around. After a busy few weeks traveling and the start of the holiday season, we all needed some exercise. And the beach is so peaceful during the fall.

The hillside was so green! No rain in the summer makes for great weather, but everything turns brown. After a few days of rain in the fall, all that brown comes back to life. 

 

iWeekend

Hope you all had a great weekend! Here are some iPhone snaps from ours:

Thursday night's beautiful sunset. Yes, Thursday counts as the start to the weekend, because Friday was Spanish National Day, also known as Columbus Day. Yeah, same one. No matter how you feel about the guy, he's still a big deal here. After all, the town that we live in, El Puerto de Santa Maria, is the place where one of his three ships sailed from. Guess which one! 

We watched the Orioles game at Molly's (since our American satellite hasn't been set up at the new casa) where the staff was nice enough to turn on ESPN America, after the soccer futbol game was over, of course. The O's lost but it was still great to be able to watch the game - they haven't had such a good season since Meghann was a freshman in high school and way before Graham met a Maryland girl and became a Baltimore fan. 

Even though the loss stung, getting asked by multiple British sailors (there was a Royal Navy ship in town) if those were REAL baseball hats did make it a little better. And then they showed off their Casio watches and explained that they are cool because they aren't.  Apparently Casio watches are the across-the-pond version of an ironic t-shirt or drinking PBR. Ahh, cultural exchange. 

Saturday was gorgeous and sunny. We ran some errands, had lunch in Rota, and stopped to take a peek at the beach and boardwalk. 

Then we went home and enjoyed some time by the pool.

Chloe caught up on current events while working on her tan.

Thanks to the mild weather (and no thanks to our brown thumbs), the garden is still looking great with lots of flowers blooming.

The warm weather combined with the holiday weekend meant lots of people went downtown on Saturday night, including us. We met up with a friend and met a couple new friends for a tapas hop. One of our fave places was featuring some Mexican small plate specials. Enchiladas + tamales + rioja + amigos = perfecto! (If you live in Rota or Puerto - go to Antojitos!)

Yesterday we got productive around the house. We finished repainting the vintage dresser that we use as an entry table.  

It was originally white, then green, and now it is gray London Grey. 

 Meghann got festive and arranged some little pumpkins that we found at the commissary. Sorry, Martha, that's all we've got. Can't even find any decorative gourds - fall fail.

Graham installed a paper lantern lampshade over the bare bulb that was hanging above our patio table (sorry, no "before" photo, but we figured if you've got the internet, you know what a light bulb looks like). Luckily, no electrical knowledge was needed and Ikea was kind enough to include these very thorough step-by-no-other-steps directions. 

And probably the most important thing we have done lately - we both voted! Graham is the base Voting Assistance Officer so he would like to say, in his best public service announcement voice "Please exercise your freedom by voting." 

It was a busy, still summery but almost fall, productive and fun weekend. Of course, there was still time for a siesta. 

Weekend Getaway in Portugal

We haven't even posted about our trip to Marrakech yet (best.bloggers.ever), but we went to Portugal for an impromptu (booked the hotel on Thursday night) weekend trip and wanted to share some pictures. It was a great getaway that didn't need much planning. The small town of Luz is a little over 3 hours away by car, we could walk everywhere once we were there, and there wasn't much else to do besides relax on our balcony, go to the beach, sit by the pool, and choose which restaurant we wanted to go to for dinner. 

Thirsty Jueves: Rebujito

Last Friday, we went down to the beach to enjoy the sunset with some beverages and snacks.

We packed up the ingredients to make rebujitos - the unofficially official beverage of feria, but also a refreshing drink for summer.

The most important ingredient (there are only 2, unless you count ice) is manzanilla. Manzanilla is a type of sherry - let's stop right there. We know what you're thinking. Gross, the stuff that you keep in the kitchen and hardly ever use, unless you're from Maryland and you put it in your cream of crab soup. Unrelated note: Marylanders are weird and particular when it comes to crab products. 

But that is not Spanish sherry and definitely not manzanilla. Manzanilla is a dry sherry and can only be made in the town of Sanlucar de Barrameda, home of the beach horse races. Because it is produced so close to the sea, people say that there is a faint salty taste to it. And more importantly, it's delicious. 

Happy Spaniversary!

One year ago today, exactly 2 weeks after our wedding day, we landed in Spain to start this 3 year* adventure.

We were driven from Maryland to Philly, then flew from Philly to Frankfurt to Madrid, and finally made the 6 hour drive from Madrid to our new hometown of El Puerto de Santa Maria. All of this with 6 bags and our tiny dog, Chloe. When we arrived we were tired, jetlagged, and a little smelly (just being honest here), but we were excited! Meghann checked out the casa, which she had only seen in pictures and some flip video, and then we went down to the playa to catch the sunset and see the Atlantic from the other side.

First dia in Spain.

Off to the races!

Tomorrow is the running of the Belmont Stakes and I'll Have Another, the horse that won in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, could be the first Triple Crown winner in 34 years. We normally watch the races (Graham's parents even have an annual Derby Party and we had a Preakness Party last year) but due to the time difference and traveling, we weren't able to watch the previous 2 races this year. 

Update: Turns out there will be no Triple Crown contender after all, I'll Have Another was scratched due to an injury. 

We did go to some races here in España last summer. During 2 weeks in August there are horse races on the beach in Sanlucar de Barrameda, which is a town just north of Puerto. Despite the casual atmosphere of the playa, the races are a big event. The horses are both local and from various European countries, and there are cash prizes for the winners. The first time we went, we watched from the beach, while enjoying some tintos de verano with friends.

Fin de semana snaps

We hope you all had a fantastic fin de semana! Here's what our weekend looked like, according to Meghann's iPhone and Instagram:

Luna de miel in Mauritius

We were together for over 5 years before Graham proposed and we were engaged for a year and a half. We joke that we don't like to rush into things. So, maybe it makes sense that it took us almost 10 months to go on our honeymoon. With the move, getting settled in Puerto, exploring our corner of Spain, several other vacations, and trips home to the States, our first 6 months overseas went by in a flash. And then familia and amigos started making plans to visit (awesome!) which made us realize that if we didn't plan a honeymoon soon, we probably wouldn't go on one before our first anniversary.

South Africa, Turkey, and the Maldives were all runners-up, but after lots of deliberation, and googling, and tripadvisoring, we discovered Maradiva Villas Resort in Mauritius. Mauritius is a small, tropical island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, near Madagascar, known for its playas. And the villas at Maradiva were exactly what we were looking for.