It is Christmas Day and I am sitting in our apartment as the sun shines in and the cold north wind from the Pyrenees howls outside. It has been a very different but lovely Christmas for us here in Spain. Some of you may know we were planning on being in Ireland with friends for Christmas but due to work issues for Anatolijus we needed to rebook that trip so will be spending from Dec 30 –Jan 4th with Gwen and Monty in Greystones. At first we were very disappointed and in the end everything has worked out for the best, more on that later. Christmas Eve was a quiet day with Anatolijus getting home from work at 3:30pm and we enjoyed a lovely candlelight dinner of marinated roasted pork and a spectacular red wine. The part that has been missing is being apart of any community activities, carol singing etc.., just as I was really feeling this Grace and Tessa appeared in the kitchen with red ´song books´ and began singing all our favourite Christmas carols. It warmed my heart and all of a sudden it really felt like Christmas had come. This is the first time it has been just the four of us and, although quieter, it has felt special and has been a bonding time. We are thinking of all our friends and family in Canada and elsewhere and wish you a very merry Christmas.
The Container is coming! The Container is coming!
The other big event this week is that after sitting in customs in Valencia for 3 weeks we were notified that our container would be delivered to us at 10:00am Thursday Dec 23rd. The big hold up was that all of Anatolijus´ identification and documentation are under his Lithuanian EU passport. This has been very helpful for his work status, getting a Spanish ID card etc…, however the problem was that they wanted to charge us tax on our belongings because it was a Lithuanian importing a container from Canada into Spain. It took some convincing to prove that for the past 14 years Anatolijus has lived in Canada and is a citizen. The timing of this wasn’t ideal, however it was great confirmation that our trip to Ireland would have been ill timed. The two men unloading the truck took 2 hours to get all our belongings into the apartment and everything has arrived in good shape. It is strange to see all our things again and although we gave away lots and put more in storage we are still unpacking things and wondering why we brought it. This ´downsizing´ has felt great and in fact living with a few basics these last 5 weeks has been very refreshing.
We bought a Picasso!!!!
Yes it is true: our family is the proud owner of a Picasso, not the ones you hang on the wall but a lovely new 2011 Citroen Picasso C3 car! In an earlier blog Anatolijus described our experience with our car shopping, but we are happy to report that the salesperson at Citroen was very helpful and we were able to get the car two days after having to return our rental vehicle. One advantage of Anatolijus´ client being Barclay’s bank is there is a bank right out at his office and he now has a personal banker. Just as with everything in Spain, it takes lots of signatures and stamps to get things done, and, given nobody knows our Canadian history, companies are not prepared to provide discounts based on your past. For example, insurance quotes for the car ranged from 1K to 1.5K € per year! Fortunately a coworker of Anatolijus, who just returned to Spain after working in Britain for years, was able to hook us up with his insurance provider and with a translation of our ICBC good driver reports we were able to get a 50% discount, which was wonderful. As a side note, one evening Anatolijus and I were looking at the ICBC website wondering how we could get a hold of our good drivers discount info, and saw there was a number to call. We called and talked to Michael who was very helpful and friendly and he emailed us the info as we spoke (no stamps and signatures required!) – what great customer service and all from our apartment in Zaragoza.
Our Spanish Niños
On November 30th both Grace and Tessa began school at Colegio Jesus Maria El-Salvador. Tessa is in Infantile 2 and her wonderful teacher is Marta. She has made some good friends already and, aside from a very difficult first day, is settling in much better than we could have imagined. She gets lots of hugs and Spanish kisses and somehow she has responded to all of this very positively. Her class did a Christmas presentation for all the parents and with 40 strangers in the room Tessa was very uncomfortable, but, to her credit, she stayed apart of the circle and if you looked closely you could see her saying the Spanish words. Since then she hasn’t stopped singing the Spanish songs at home and it is wonderful to hear.
Grace is in Primaria 2 and also has a very special teacher Paloma. The children in the class have welcomed Grace with open arms and when she arrives 3-4 girls come running to greet her. On the first day the English teacher was there to greet her and in class Grace got to show where she was from and how she traveled to Spain. It is hard for her to not be able to communicate very much but playing doesn’t seem to need words. On the last day of school Grace’s class along with the other primary classes did presentations for each other. Grace’s class dressed up like pirates and did a song and dance routine. Again it has been wonderful to hear her singing her song in Spanish and practicing the dancing. Grace still misses her friends and says she would prefer to be in Canada and yet is doing a marvelous job at adapting and opening to new experiences. The schedule for the girls for the first week was to go to school 9-12:30pm and then come home. They then started going 9-12:30pm come home for lunch and then go back from 3:30-5:00pm. All the other children stay for the whole day having a hot lunch, extra-curricular activities and play time. In January the girls will try to stay for a full day 1-2 times a week. The school is a semi-private Jesuit-Catholic school that is well respected for offering excellent education and we have been totally impressed with the teachers, admin and curriculum. The school is a 20 min walk so the girls and I are enjoying this new experience. The thing we were most concerned about in moving to Spain was how the girls would feel and especially what would happen with school, so we are thrilled that they are happy and are having such a positive experience.
