Tag Archives: Rota

New Year’s Eve in Spain!

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Every country has its own traditions and Spain has some pretty fun ones.

New Year’s Eve is no exception and this is one of the Spanish traditions that you can do in your own home!

If you are in Spain on New Year’s Eve you will find pretty much everyone in a square or plaza hanging out with friends and eating and drinking.  When the clock strikes 12 everyone eats 12 grapes (ideally one for every strike!) and you will have luck all year long.  The grapes here are crazy big and generally have seeds, but you’ll see cans of grapes (conveniently 12 grapes!) for sale that are smaller and easier to eat.

This started one year (many many years ago) with a bigger than normal grape harvest.  The farmers couldn’t get rid of their grapes so they  basically started the tradition! A great way to get rid of the grapes and the start of a fun tradition.

We are generally boring and stay home with the kids because its a bit insane to be out with the kids (although it’s pretty normal to see kids running around that late anyways) but we like to have our grapes at home anyway.  Thankfully I can get some smaller grapes from the commissary so we can actually eat them!

 

Cell Phones in Spain

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Here is a little informative post for anyone who stumbles onto this blog looking for information about living in Spain, specifically on Naval Station Rota (NavSta Rota).

Pretty much everyone here uses prepaid cell phones.  If you have a quad band phone (that is unlocked) you should be able to use it here. We accumulated cell phones quite a bit while stateside so we had a few to choose from, our blackberry works just fine.

The cell phone company of choice is Movistar, they have a small store in the Navy Exchange where you can go purchase a SIM card that includes some minutes. The SIM card is either $20 or 20 Euro, I forget.

If you don’t have a phone that will work here they sell phones in the store as well, you can get a pretty basic phone with SIM for $30-40.  They don’t have a huge selection, I don’t think there are too many phones with camera or any smartphones there to choose from.

After that you just have to keep going back to put money onto your phone, the minutes go pretty quick and you can’t let your balance sit at zero for more than a month or your number will expire.  We’ve never had a problem with the service, its worked great all over Europe.

Pretty much everyone goes through cell phone withdrawal when they get here. I didn’t have my own phone for the first two years, we had a cell phone for the house which we pretty much only took with us if we were going for a drive in case of an emergency.  To go from having unlimited talking and texting to having to pay for every single call or text sucked! I know there are plans available but I believe you need to have a Spanish bank account to get one. I don’t know anyone with a plan so I can’t give details.

 

On Hoarding Seasonal Creamer…

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I live on a military base in Spain.  As far as grocery stores go, we have the commissary on the base and numerous Spanish grocery stores off base.  While we do shop at groceries stores off base sometimes (the produce, booze and meat selection is better) it starts to get pretty pricey when you have to pay for everything in Euro.

So for the most part we shop at our commissary. The selection is okay as long as you don’t start getting too adventurous in you cooking.  Its nice, we can get our American brands, which is especially nice around the holidays.

One problem is that seasonal items go quickly, REALLY quickly. So when I FINALLY saw the holiday creamers on the shelf yesterday (doing my third ‘one last thing’ Thanksgiving shop) I grabbed 6. Three pumpkin and three sugar cookie.  Plus I have two vanilla toffee that we just started getting in stock. Also three quarts of eggnog.

I have a problem. The family will drink the eggnog no problem, in fact my kids will drink it with lunch if I let them.  However, I am the only coffee drinker in my house and now have a shit load of coffee creamer that isn’t going to last forever.  So I have been doing what any rational person would do, I am drinking about 8 cups of coffee a day.

Should keep me motivated for all that cooking I am about to do today!

Date night!

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So tonight is my belated birthday/anniversary dinner out with my husband… I think I finally decided to go out to Bar Jamon.  I’ll have to take some pictures of what I end up ordering.

Took one of my friends to the mall today, Las Dunas in Sanlucar.  I LOVE that mall, H&M, Sfera, Zara, Casa and 100 Montaditos, my favorite sandwich place ever!  Picked up some new fall stuff, some 10 euro jeans at H&M, managed not to just buy a crapload of stuff for the kids like I usually do.  For anyone moving to Rota, don’t worry that you won’t have anywhere to shop. Between Las Dunas, El Paseo and Area Sur mall (all within 20 minutes) you are set. Plus if you want to drive a little further out you can hit El Corte Ingles which is a department store similar to Macy’s.

Tried not to buy TOO much winter stuff since hopefully this will be my last winter for awhile! I actually don’t ever really like to wear winter clothes. Not a huge fan of long sleeves or sweaters. I generally wear short sleeves and then layer!  I really wanted to buy some flat leather boots but all the ones I found were around 130 Euro which translates to a hell of a lot of dollars. Ouch. I’ll have to put them on my Christmas list!

Off to get ready so I can go pick up the sitter, while I LOVE my sitter I really really wish she could drive!

It’s mah Birfday!

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Well it was yesterday anyway… Had to work all day and was planning on going out to eat for dinner but by the time I got home I was rethinking it.  M had football practice and wasn’t going to get home until 7, by the time we all got ready it would be 8ish then maybe to the restaurant at 8:30. While most restaurants in Spain don’t even open for dinner until 8, I didn’t want to have the kids out too late on a school night.  It is not uncommon to see kids in restaurants and bars until 10 or even 11. Our kids love it but only on the weekend!

So I rescheduled my birthday dinner for this weekend, and actually turned it into a birthday/anniversary dinner (our anniversary is tomorrow) and got a sitter.  I am really looking forward to going out, not sure whether or we are going to go to Bar Jamon or Los Argentinos… we haven’t made it to either one. Los Argentinos is closed on Mondays and that always ends up being the day we try to eat there! Bar Jamon is traditional Spanish food, with some of the best paella around… Los Argentinos is an Argentinian steak place that is supposed to have great meat.

My kids are already coloring pictures for the babysitter… O had been begging me to have her come babysit a couple of weeks ago. I guess mommy and daddy need more date nights!

NO more procrastinating, I have a ton of homework to do and I can’t put it off any longer!

Monday Monday

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After a thrilling three-day weekend full of lots of relaxing on the couch, homework and a no-getting-out-of-it trip to the commissary (seriously there was NO meat left in my freezer) Monday is here.

Today is actually my big sister’s birthday, mine is tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Steph! We are six years and one day apart. My daughter teased her relentlessly about getting a senior discount now. Wishing I was back home with her to help celebrate but I just have to send my birthday wishes via Skype instead! I honestly can’t imagine living here and doing this overseas thing WITHOUT the internet! How did people do it?!

I’m also a little sad because the last of my group of close friends is moving away tomorrow.  We had the BEST group of girlfriends and they have all moved away one by one! I have never lived on a military base before and even though I did move a lot as a kid this is just different! I never really thought I was going to make friends here, I have a terrible military wife stereotype.  Was I wrong! We had such a wonderful time celebrating birthdays, babies, holidays and just hanging out together drinking coffee while the kids play.  We really got lucky with our group of friends, we all clicked so well and so did our kids.  I’ve made more friends but haven’t gotten those close ones again, when you are a ‘short-timer’ its hard to put the effort into new friendships! Terrible I know!

After almost 3 1/2 years here I do love the fact that I can go to the commissary or soccer practice or the school and run into people I know.  This is a small base and you end up knowing most people by face if not by name!

Should be a slow week, no big plans so far… three-day week for the kids this week AND next week due to parent/teacher conferences and then Thanksgiving. They don’t know how good they have it!