Day tripping to Vejer de la Frontera

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Reb

Our Fleet and Family Support Center offers tons of great information and help as well as FREE or low cost trips. Sometimes I just don’t feel like driving or navigating a strange city and will hop along for a ride.

We did this for a quick day trip to Vejer de la Frontera, one of Spain’s famous pueblos blancos, or white villages. Vejer is located about an hour from Rota (by bus – a bit faster by car).

Thankfully both kids remembered to pack a DS…

Vejer is situated on top of a hill and has beautiful views of the Spanish countryside.

M took this picture and was very proud of it!

Look at them so happy and full of energy. Just wait.

Because Vejer is on the top of a hill there is a lot of walking up and down hills. A LOT of walking up and down hills. It was a great workout, my calves were feeling it the next day.

Most of the streets looked very similar to this one...

Vejer has a much smaller version of Pamplona’s running of the bulls. The town installs gates at all of these anchor points along the main streets and creates a running path for the bulls. As military we are forbidden from participating in any running of the bull activity. Darn it, now I guess I have to skip it!

And now for a little Spanish history: The Moors conquered most of Spain a thousand or so years ago… they held it for 400 years and then the Christians pushed them out. This area of Spain was one of the last holdouts for the Moors and you will see MANY Moorish style castles (and the prettiest one of all, The Alhambra) in the region. It also explains the second half of many of the towns names – the ‘de la frontera’ which means ‘the border’. These towns were all along the border between the two groups. Vejer de la Frontera actually had a very peaceful couple of hundred years where the Muslims, Jews and Christians all lived together in peace. See! It can be done!

One of the outer castle walls...

: The ‘new’ part of the town.

: Manuel Aleman (Manuel the German) our WONDERFUL tour guide!

: Original stone floor inside of the castle, one of the few things that remain.

: Garden inside the upper area of the castle.

: Someone is getting tired and hungry!

: A famous Vejer view.

: Inside the ‘old’ cathedral. It still isn’t completed and has a Moorish tile bell tower (from when it was a mosque!) and a Star of David over the entrance!

: Pretty stained glass light

: M had to photobomb because O REFUSED to share a shot!

: Vejer’s Plaza de Espana

Vejer has a Plaza de Espana that is reminiscent of Sevilla’s. They used some of the same tiles that are present in the larger Plaza de Espana in Sevilla. This plaza is also where they finish their running of the bulls (MUCH smaller than Pamplona!)

And after a full day of walking I promised the kiddos some treats so we backtracked really quickly to a bakery before we caught the bus back home. It was pretty hard to choose but they picked out some yummy stuff, perfect with a cup of coffee!

These CRAZY caterpillars!

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Reb

One of the nuisance animals in southern Spain is a caterpillar.

Not just any caterpillar.

We have one in particular called the Processional Pine Caterpillar. Now this may come as a surprise but they live in pine trees (shocker!). The processional part of their of name is where it gets interesting. The walk all together lined up in a little (or rather long) line.

It’s pretty interesting actually, they only come out during this time of year so you know when to look for them. The funny thing is this I’ve lived here for 3 1/2 years and this was the first spring that I actually saw them!

Now as cool as they look the problem is that their little hairs cause lots of problems in people and pets if they are touched (or eaten by your dog!) They are super irritating and I’ve heard of people having them in a jar in the house and the hair still irritating their eyes. They are bad news, health wise!

Also if your dog gets the hairs in their mouth it can actually cause the tongue tissue to die! Crazy! Thankfully we have NO pine trees near our house, just palm trees with their own sets of problems!

If you happen to see any of these caterpillars, look but PLEASE don’t touch!

Our ghetto dog park…

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Reb

We don’t have a dog park on our base. There is one off base but my Spanish isn’t good enough if there were some kind of incident with my dog.

So while we have tried to get the powers that be to built a dog park (never gonna happen) we just have decided to randomly take over a softball field that isn’t being used. (what are we going to do when softball season starts!?!)

We always follow the rules

Bowser was in heaven!

M had fun loving on all the puppies!

I love this dog!

All the dogs got along great except for one little scuffle between two boys that ended up with a cut lip. There were 4 boxers there which was a lot of fun!

It’s the little things {lilies & long weekends}

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Reb

My beautiful Valentine’s Day flowers are opening up and look (and smell) FANTASTIC. Seriously our WHOLE house smells like flowers. Why is it that every time I have fresh flowers in the house I always vow to make more of an effort to buy them more often and I never do!

We are also looking forward to this nice long three day weekend.

Monday we are scheduled to have a power outage for almost the entire day. They need to do some repair work on a utility pole and it will leaving the housing section of the base with no power. Seriously what the heck would I do all day? Clean? Yuck! So I am taking the kids on a field trip to Vejer de la Frontera. Should be a fun quick trip!

Linking up with Lindsey from Hello Hue!

It’s the little things {spicy & sweet}

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Reb

Wrapping up a fun week and just wanted to recap some of the little things that made my week!

First off I did a little Valentine’s decorating, I found this cute printable online. I love all of the holiday subway art that is free online… I have a frame by my front door and I am planning on just replacing the image according to the holiday/season!

Also found a cute ceramic white heart bowl and filled it with peanut butter m&m’s (terrible, terrible idea, I can’t leave them alone)

I also picked up these super adorable votive holders… I have some red candles in there for the holiday (Yankee Mackintosh) but I think they may find their way into my bathroom when I’m done with them on the entryway table.

Next up a little hot sauce making! My husband has a habanero habit that was supplied for quite awhile by pepper plant that was growing peppers constantly. We stuck them in the freezer for a rainy day (or a cold winter’s day). He generally will eat them straight up (I’ll stick them whole into a pot of rice so they cook without making everything else spicy) but also loves hot sauce. He had ordered some but half of the bottles broke en route so we wanted to try a homemade recipe.

Out comes a bag of frozen peppers: Chopped of the stem and added them to some cooked carrots, onions, garlic and lime juice.

*For the love of God, make sure you do NOT get any of the juice on your fingers. It does NOT wash off and you will regret it when you rub your eye an hour later… I learned my lesson the hard way a few years ago*

Everything gets tossed in the blender. I left the seeds in for heat, but if I had a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth I would have strained this to get any remaining chunks out.

The finished product! It’s very orange and apparently VERY spicy!

My daughter did also decide to start puking right before her basketball skills assessment this morning… And daddy had taken her. This happened in the gym. On the bleacher. And on the basketball court. Honey, I am so sorry you were on parenting duty this morning and had to deal with it on your own!

Linking up with Lindsey from Hello Hue!

Plaza de Espana, Sevilla, Spain

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Reb

When my mom came for a visit in September one of our day trips was to Seville or Sevilla (seh-vee-ya). Sevilla is only about an hour or so from Rota and makes for a great day trip. I had been wanted to go to the Plaza de Espana for ages and we finally got the chance to go! I tell you, nothing gets you out and about like having people visit you!

Oh this is one of my favorite places… I had no idea how beautiful this building was going to be or how HUGE it was!

Here is some background information on the plaza in case you were interested.

We're here!

We happened to go at a perfect time, there weren’t many people there and we had the chance to take one million pictures!

Even the light posts are beautiful!

There is a little moat/river/waterway between the plaza and the building and you can rent a rowboat for a few Euro… I highly recommend this, it is a LOT of fun…

We're on a boat!

Oh this girl... she kills me.

Photobomb! He did this about 20 times... I forgive him because he is adorable.

I liked hanging out in the shade under the bridges. It was REALLY hot...

The bridges all had different tile work. So pretty!

Not pictured on our boat ride… constant fighting about WHO got to hold the oars and help row… also complaining about how hot it was and were we done yet…

Time to cool off with some ice cream...

One of the things I love about Spain and Europe in general is how they assume you are not an idiot. See the railing above? A child could easily fall into the water. But guess what, they assume you will be watching your children!

(See also: German Zoo missing fences with only plastic strung from post to post, hotel in the Canaries with open window on the fourth floor with no screen or bars, alligator farm with minimal safety measures. Gotta love it)