New casa tour

Hola! It's Meghann again. Or maybe I should say "hi" instead because I'm stuck in the States, trying to get a Space A flight back to Rota. It's been kind of stressful (Sandy certainly wasn't any help) and I'm just ready to get home to Graham, our sweet perritas Chloe and Cora, and our casa. 

Which made me realize - we never shared nuevo house pics with you all! Well, at least not the pictures of the casa before it turned into a heaping pile of crazy. So here they are, courtesy of all the free tiempo and Wifi (have to pronounce it "WeeFee") I have in the Dover air terminal.

Front door

There is so much lovely tile, starting with the front steps.

Side yard

We absolutely love the garden - the landscaping is gorgeous and shows how much love the homeowners have put into it. Check out our pequeño olivo tree! 

Entry

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. 

Marrakech {Where We Stayed}

In Marrakech, we stayed at the lovely Riad Le Clos des Arts. We would recommend it to anyone - this traditional home turned boutique hotel is absolutely beautiful, full of authentic charm, and within the walls of the Medina. The owners, Massimo and Giorgina, and the staff were exceptionally hospitable, helpful, and kind and we felt incredibly well taken care of. The riad is so calm and peaceful and was the perfect place to come back to after a day of exploring the Medina. It was such a wonderful contrast to the constant sights, sounds, and smells that are right outside the door.

Our luggage was carried to the riad in this wheelbarrow - the only way to get it through the narrow streets.

We were greeted with mint tea and cookies. Then the owners gave us maps to keep and went over the different areas of the Medina. This was so thoughtful and incredibly useful.

On the move!

Taking a little break from posting about Marrakech...

Almost titled this post "big news!" but when you're married and 30, you have to be careful about when you break out that phrase (especially with exclamation points). But we're excited (exclamation points included) because we're on the move. Not out of Spain, just to a new neighborhood and a new house! And it has a pool!

Now, some people might think we have lost our minds, because we are voluntarily moving, which will be the second time in a little over a year, and we just said how settled we were feeling. But we couldn't pass up this house. Our current place was rented by Graham (Meghann was still in the States working and putting the finishing touches on the wedding) and he only had a short amount of time to find a place for us both to move into after the wedding (no pressure). It's been a good house but we definitely feel like the new casa is an upgrade, even though we're actually downsizing. Overall, it's just more our style and a better fit for how we live - less square footage, fewer bedrooms and bathrooms, but a more open floor plan on 2 floors instead of 3. The pool definitely made the decision easier, too. And to be honest, we're just used to moving. In the last 7 years of living together (yeah, we know you can do the math, we've only been married a year - sinners), we've lived in 7 different houses - for us, a house is a temporary thing.

Luckily this move is a little less intense than our Virginia-to-Spain adventure last year and we're doing much of it ourselves (some friends were kind enough to trade their SUV for the Mini for a few days). So, we spent most of the weekend moving as much as we could carry over to the new place, with a couple breaks to lounge by the pool and cool off, of course. 

 For all of you enjoying the start of fall and cooler temperatures and posting about it non-stop on the internet (looking at you, East Coasters) - we might not need to break out scarves and don't have pumpkin flavored everything, but we went swimming. Outside. In late September.

We'll be working on the move for the next 2 weeks and will keep you updated along the way. We promise we'll post more pictures, but here are a couple of snaps for now.

So, what do you think? Are we crazy or crazy-like-a-fox (we know there is some amount of crazy involved)? 

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. 

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.