Torrevieja and grandparents!
(I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the really, really slow internet access in the lobby, which refused to work for me earlier... I'm typing this on dad's small enotebook in the room (not wifi, but a land cable), and this keyboard is so cramped that I keep typing the wrong thing. Think of each ten keystrokes having at least two errors to correct, and you can get a sense of how long it's taken to type this post.)
Other than that, the last few days have been much more slowly paced and relaxing than pretty much any that I've experienced since the first week of January. I have no papers or research projects hanging over my head as I did during the school semester, or even umpteen tourist sites to see and rush to as in Barcelona.
Torrevieja is a lovely coastal town that was apparently once a little fishing village, but has increased in size dramatically even in the last 24 years that grandad and Clare have been living here. The houses are mostly new, but they've taken their cue, architecturally, from the past and so aren't modern monstrosities like I often see in Edmonton and other Western North American cities. Space is still at a premium no matter where you are in Europe, it seems, and so the vast majority of the houses here do NOT have huge, useless front lawns separating them from the world, but have the equivalent of paved front patios, usually with a low wall, where socializing takes place, often with passersby. I love the look, and will post photos at some point.
We're here visiting my mum's father, who is British. I don't ever remember meeting him before, though apparently he and Clare visited Canada when I was seven. Mum's dad has a noticeably different accent from mum, who, after living in Canada for over 20 years, sounds half Canadian and half something else: perhaps from her childhood in Brighton or her education in London. Grandad's is more of a warm, working class Manchester accent. I love it. I think Clare's is a faded Welsh accent, maybe. I don't have a very good ear for such things.
I should mention that there have been a few awkward moments because grandad ran away from his first wife (my biological maternal grandmother, who still lives near Manchester) to be with Clare, the night before my mum's last final exam on one of the sciences in her final year of high school. Mum failed it, but was allowed to retake it... and passed, which wasn't the point. Anyway, grandad divorced his first wife to marry Clare.
Now grandad is a bit ill with cancer. He's lost all of his hair from chemo, and can't walk very far, but he's very cheerful and wonderful to talk to. Clare herself is very nice too. They do seem very much in love, so there is that.
My biological grandmother remarried a nice widower named Stephen many years back, although a few years ago he died as well.
Anyway, we've mostly been walking along or sitting by the sea shore, eating and drinking at little cafés and chatting with grandad and Clare. Having been living here on a pension for the last two decades, they know all of the places with good but cheap foods. :)
We only found out from Clare (who speaks better Spanish than her husband, and indeed also tutors other anglophones living here in Spanish) after we'd gone swimming yesterday that the name of the beach we chose, La Mata, came from the Spanish verb for "to kill" ("matar") because of the number of drownings that have occurred there over the years. This morning, when we went swimming there again, I nearly got sucked out to sea by an undertow and was saved by a hunky Spanish lifeguard. We're safe and sound, but I think I'll stick to wading, suntanning and reading on the beach for now. ;) Doesn't change the fact that the beach is beautiful, though!
Anyway, may not update until Madrid. Talk to you all later! :)
Other than that, the last few days have been much more slowly paced and relaxing than pretty much any that I've experienced since the first week of January. I have no papers or research projects hanging over my head as I did during the school semester, or even umpteen tourist sites to see and rush to as in Barcelona.
Torrevieja is a lovely coastal town that was apparently once a little fishing village, but has increased in size dramatically even in the last 24 years that grandad and Clare have been living here. The houses are mostly new, but they've taken their cue, architecturally, from the past and so aren't modern monstrosities like I often see in Edmonton and other Western North American cities. Space is still at a premium no matter where you are in Europe, it seems, and so the vast majority of the houses here do NOT have huge, useless front lawns separating them from the world, but have the equivalent of paved front patios, usually with a low wall, where socializing takes place, often with passersby. I love the look, and will post photos at some point.
We're here visiting my mum's father, who is British. I don't ever remember meeting him before, though apparently he and Clare visited Canada when I was seven. Mum's dad has a noticeably different accent from mum, who, after living in Canada for over 20 years, sounds half Canadian and half something else: perhaps from her childhood in Brighton or her education in London. Grandad's is more of a warm, working class Manchester accent. I love it. I think Clare's is a faded Welsh accent, maybe. I don't have a very good ear for such things.
I should mention that there have been a few awkward moments because grandad ran away from his first wife (my biological maternal grandmother, who still lives near Manchester) to be with Clare, the night before my mum's last final exam on one of the sciences in her final year of high school. Mum failed it, but was allowed to retake it... and passed, which wasn't the point. Anyway, grandad divorced his first wife to marry Clare.
Now grandad is a bit ill with cancer. He's lost all of his hair from chemo, and can't walk very far, but he's very cheerful and wonderful to talk to. Clare herself is very nice too. They do seem very much in love, so there is that.
My biological grandmother remarried a nice widower named Stephen many years back, although a few years ago he died as well.
Anyway, we've mostly been walking along or sitting by the sea shore, eating and drinking at little cafés and chatting with grandad and Clare. Having been living here on a pension for the last two decades, they know all of the places with good but cheap foods. :)
We only found out from Clare (who speaks better Spanish than her husband, and indeed also tutors other anglophones living here in Spanish) after we'd gone swimming yesterday that the name of the beach we chose, La Mata, came from the Spanish verb for "to kill" ("matar") because of the number of drownings that have occurred there over the years. This morning, when we went swimming there again, I nearly got sucked out to sea by an undertow and was saved by a hunky Spanish lifeguard. We're safe and sound, but I think I'll stick to wading, suntanning and reading on the beach for now. ;) Doesn't change the fact that the beach is beautiful, though!
Anyway, may not update until Madrid. Talk to you all later! :)