January 2018, New Year, New Phone!

Fountain installed in 1844, Plaza de la Magdalena, Muse Caliope

I'll tell you now, the pictures in this post have no real relationship to the writing, all parts of the same fountain.

I bought an iPhone SE and love it! Gold in colour to match the MacBook, well I don’t know why but might as well match. Exciting for me and with a year’s worth of nagging, not really, but urging from Ryan to get into this century. Since this is an Apple product I am adapting to it’s features easier. My tech friend Gary in Canada, you will be proud of me! Reading the manual and it can do everything and more my MacBook can, real power in a bitty machine. Ryan and Angela are coming over for lunch tomorrow and giving me help setting it up, least I can do is feed them for the favour. 

He looks bored!

Menu for lunch morphed from enchiladas, due to my failed making of the sauce, I used paprika powder instead of chile powder, one taste after about an hour’s work and didn't like it so, if I don’t, who will? Dumped and lesson learned they are not the same peppers. Now instead of Tex-Mex theme, we decided lamb kebobs would be good with tabouli salad. Being Saturday I didn’t want to brave El Corte so went to our local grocers. Well, one learns to be very flexible when shopping in the small stores. Butcher didn’t have lamb, bought chicken, veg shop’s parsley looked like road kill but I was able to salvage enough of it, no bulgar for the salad, used couscous instead. It all worked out, luckily, just not what I had planned. Ryan also said he makes “killer” enchiladas so mine may have not been to his taste anyway.

Ryan’s patience with me and my fumbling fingers on the phone was epic! He also installed WhatsApp on it which is a cost free SMS or text messaging version which now I’ve added Rocio to and Erwin texted me from Ottawa since he likes to use it here. Bought a Moshi cover for it mostly because I don’t have a good place to keep it scratch free in my purse. Discovered another reason after the cover was installed, Lexi had swept it off the table and it survived! Moshi is a company I was unfamiliar with but looking on their website, www.moshi.com they have high quality products and with very limited options at El Corte, I am pleased with what I bought.

Under the bowl

Elevator and heating broke all at once. I used the elevator while the heat was on and it toasted the connection, no fire thank goodness, just a shut down of both, breaker cut in. Our friend and electrician Pepe is out of town for three weeks in Dubai and Copenhagen but he contacts Juan Luis heating/air conditioning person who installed our unit last year. Long story short, heating now works, elevator not, and I am sure it is a simple fix, my attempts, turning off the power, etc, haven’t worked. I have decided to make a Pepe job jar, my Dad did that with my ex-husband when he wasn’t my ex. Small jobs that can be done and not forgotten between visits. 

Tuesday was almost as busy as our usual Wednesdays this week, I had a mani/pedi done by Maria Jose and am now more confident of her skills and instrument sanitation. Then a meeting at Kakure with Ivan and Shane to catch up after the Christmas season. Had a great lunch, food is always good there.

Wednesday, and it’s Angel and Rocio day but I decide to take the hour while Bruce has his massage and go to the Museo de Bellas Artes to view the Murillo exhibit that is on until April 1st. http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/museos/MBASE/index.jsp?redirect=S2_1_3_1.jsp&noticias=3815 The impetus was an email from Jeffrey and Adrienne in Freiburg saying they wanted to see it and also wanted to escape the cold weather in Freiburg right now. The exhibit was absolutely wonderful and while I didn’t know much about Murillo before going (he’s a local Sevillano) I really enjoyed the works showcased. They are very large for one thing, colourful, and depicted people in a realistic manner, far ahead of his time I think. I brought back a small notebook for Rocio with print of mother and child on the cover done by him, and give aways of a postcard and book mark. We are communicating a bit better now over coffee when she gets here. Today I thought I would get away without the coffee but asked and she wanted one, okay, all good, and it does give us a bit of social time together, she corrects my accent. 

Bottom, I like the shells.

Coming back from a mini shop and we see Ryan and Angela at Granado so stop into chat with them. Mama Pepe and friend Mercedes are also there, hugging, kissing on both cheeks occur as usual. Mercedes now greets me as a friend as well. 

Did a major shop again and bought another pair of slippers. Frankly those I showed you in a previous post weren’t working for me, these have more support for the footsies and I don’t walk with a shuffling gait which is bad for my back.

Finally we took the C5 bus around the inner city with the goal of going to Linoyfino for the shirts I wear. I hadn’t eaten and Das Brot was next door, supposedly a German bakery, I thought it would be great to get a bretzel, well they had fake ones, but no real ones, had a horrible muffin instead. 

The LinoyFino shop was supposed to be open but nada, closed. So we got the bus again to come back, it only goes one way round, a couple and teenager got on board soon after we boarded and they were loud. The husband appeared drunk, the noise coming from them, the bouncing over cobblestones, and the heat got to Bruce so we got off in the touristic neighbourhood, one we recognized and walked home. He said as he got off the bus, I am never going on that again! The shaking, heat, noise, the second driver had the radio on really loud with someone yelling, not pleasant! 

I find all public transport that way, either really great or terrible, depending on circumstance, luckily it’s ratio is usually to the good. The ramp didn’t work properly, there was an arm sticking out from the driver’s seat into the aisle that got in the way of Bruce parking in the designated spot. The driver stopped without a bus stop, or missed pick ups at bus stops. Bruce says the whole thing was second rate, I agree this trip was. My two previous trips on this bus have been much better, crowded sometimes but better. The route is a really good way to see other parts of Sevilla, small neighbourhoods and tourist areas both. Upshot, I’ll be taking it again, fare is €1.40 per trip, cheap enough, but I’ll be going on my own and meeting Bruce at the destination.

Art market again being Sunday, Liz, the archeologist is quite animated today, she’s usually an understated calm person. She’s planning a solo bicycle tour around the Neckar river in Germany for June/July this year. She does like Germany, having lived in Freiburg for a dig and is familiar with the area, she also appears to be a bit of a loner. Doing her research now, she will drive to Heidelberg and bike from there. Wow! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neckar Adventurous woman and it will be so wonderful to hear about her experiences. I’m almost proud, even though we don’t know each other well.

I met another lady Sunday at the art market. We’ve talked before but I introduced myself to her, she is from Thailand, came here to study, fell in love with a Spaniard and stayed. She told me her Thai name which I repeated to her and promptly forgot, my bad, her English name is Olivia. She is talented in my opinion in different mediums.

Tuesday 23rd and there has been a major earthquake in Alaska with tsunami warnings all along the coast, since many people who live on the coast read this, I’m sure you were aware of it. I watched the news until it was lifted and sighed with relief! 

Pepe was here to help us out from his “job jar”, elevator is now fixed, luckily the elevator fellow was very close by and came within five minutes, a quick fix as suspected. Pepe put in a new bulb over the staircase which I would have had to climb over the railing to do, adjusted our window blinds to get more natural light in, couldn’t fix the bathroom light, off to buy a new one tomorrow. He showed us pictures of Dubai, what an incredible place that is, buildings so tall and the mosque is beautiful! He also went zip lining there and was provided with a camera on his helmet to record the experience, Wow! 

That's all for now folks! Cheers, Bev, Bruce and Lexi Cat