A Different View

Well, we made it. Move day went smoothly (and it's already almost a week past). Fuengirola welcomed us with fairly miserable, windy, and brutally cold weather (it's gotten down to 3C/38F overnight once, and at worst it's been up to 12C/54F during the day; so, OK, everything is relative). Of course we've been told again and again that it's never like this! The owner of one restaurant was at least honest enough to blame us. Admittedly, we did have some glorious blue sky and sunshine here and there after our first night, but that now seems like a distant memory.

FROM ONE OF OUR BALCONIES IN SEVILLA BEFORE WE LEFT THURSDAY AFTERNOON.

FROM OUR TERRACE IN FUENGIROLA FRIDAY BEFORE THE MISERABLE WEATHER RETURNED.

Thursday is Andalucía Day; lots of businesses will be closed. We still don't have internet hooked up at home. We're expecting that to occur Friday or Saturday. So we checked into a nearby hotel this evening to allow us to relax with our computers and TV while the winds blow outside. We'll stay two nights. The serene Mediterranean Sea looks like Surf City right now. I stood on the terrace at times this afternoon and took pictures of a couple of wind-surfers. The first spent a lot of time on the beach trying to control his sail (which was work enough). The second guy was amazing and surfed back and forth along the coast for a couple of hours.

WIND-SURFER #1 THIS AFTERNOON.

WIND-SURFER #2.
CLICK ON EITHER OF THESE PHOTOS TO SEE THEM BLOW UP.

We left Sevilla on a dreary rainy day and arrived in Fuengirola to much the same. But our views are spectacular, and the apartment is coming together nicely... and we love it. The cats are settling in — and taking over. But they're, so far, afraid to go more than a few feet out onto the terrace. A gull flies overhead or an awning flaps and they're back inside like a flash. Also, it's kind of cold out there.

SUNRISE THIS MORNING FROM THE TERRACE.. SUNSET WASN'T VISIBLE TONIGHT.

We haven't been eating at home yet, but are looking forward to getting settled enough to want to do so in the next few days. Meanwhile, we've discovered several good restaurants — although nothing to compare to Catalina in Sevilla, where we of course had dinner our final night in the city. Lots of photos to come of our final days in Sevilla and our first week in Fuengirola. Our new town has a much larger international community than our old (aka, lots more expats). Americans are rare. But there's a huge population of expats from Finland. And, apparently, they think this is shorts and sandals weather!