Category: Language studies

Inspiration from West

Already three weeks have passed since the last post that got a somewhat sudden end as I collapsed of tiredness. Thank you who gave me some really positive reactions on this post – I will be writing more about my childhood and background.

Meanwhile we have been travelling to the beautiful “city of tolerance and divercity” San Fransisco with plenty of good restaurants and sourdough bred AND Las Vegas – a crazy place where you always find something new and inspiring.  This vacation trip was planned and booked a long time ago with good friends. Even if our building is a priority right now I am happy I did this trip as I really enjoyed the time and came back with new energy and inspiration. In Las Vegas most things are exaggerated in one or another way – evertything is huge: hotels, streets, fountains, food portions, galleries, casinos, toilets, shows, even people – and the inspiration comes more from the euphoric feeling when walking around and admiring insane decorations than from actual ideas that could be used in a home. On the contrary, I realise how important it is to keep the base of our home simple, accent can be added with furniture, lights, textiles, paintings and other exchangable items instead.

 

The worst jet lag seems to be over and my brain starts working normally again. I am thinking about different solutions – currently for the bathrooms – in the house. The tiling work has already started so now all bathroom fittings need to be ordered so that electricity for lamps, switches, towel dryers etc can be installed at right places. We would not want to cause delays due to us not beeing here. Of course we got some photo updates from our builders during the trip but it was really exciting to see the progress with own eyes. The sunny roof terrace in terracotta colours, matching the roofs in our view, is ready and I am really pleased with the outcome. I’m sure many would have kept the grey neutral terrace (that the previous owner did) but for me it looked really boring. The pool is cleaned and is going to be tested for possible leakage before we start to rebuild it.

 

Also in the heart of the house, the livingroom/kitchen area it looks much different now. As soon as the tiling work is finished I will post some photos!

Maybe you wonder how it is going with my Spanish? Not very well, unfortunately. There are far too much visions, ideas and choices in my head now and no space left for new words… But I try to understand what people say on the streets and always choose a Spanish radio channel when driving the car. And I’m happy when I recognise words I would not have understood a month ago.

Now I’m going to bed and hopefully fall asleep – if not I will grab a book or an interior design magazine and my eyes will close in a minute! Buenos noches.

Pleasures and duties

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In the end of February finally our girls Clara and Elsa came to visit us! It was such a pleasure to have the whole family including Uzanna gathered here in Spain! As we love good food, we spent considerable time at different restaurants tasting spanish food in differnt forms (literally). Wonderful happy days together!

The girls were excited of course to see the house and the possibilities there – even if everything still looks like a big mess for anyone not initiated in the secrets of construction technology – and delays. Luckily the new windows arrived just a day before and gave the living room area the lift it needed. We had also an inspection team on visit – also they seemed happy about the progress made so far!

 

I have always wondered how that kind of huge sliding doors can be transported and installed – must be almost impossible to lift these. Now having seen the process with own eyes I realise that almost everything is possible… The secret was that the frames were installed first and when the thick window glasses arrived they were quite simply fit in the frames! Of course for that at least six strong men were needed.

 

While the builders are busy with completing differnt tasks in casa Alegria, me and Per have been around looking for ideas for kitchen, bathrooms and furniture. We have decided the material for floors so the tiling work can start as soon as the floors are prepared with heating system.

To fill up the empty holes in my daily routines including morning and afternoon walks with Uzanna, planning and visiting building and furniture stores (which are closed between 13:30 and 16 for siesta), I decided to take a 3-week intensive course in Spanish. I would not say I regret the decision but I now clearly remember the feeling of going to school with homework not properly done… Luckily my teacher is very understanding and sweet and I really enjoy the lessons. I already start to get some feeling for the language but at the same time I realize how much different it is to learn a new language at an age of 55. Last time I was in my twenties. Patience is what I (and my teachers) need.