The Zoco Market

On Sunday morning we usually spend an hour or two at the Zoco market, a huge open-air bazaar or mercado that is only a couple miles from our house in Montebello. It's not exactly true that you can buy anything there, but you can buy an awful lot of different things. There are hundreds of stalls in a dozen or more aisles, selling various types of clothing (outer and inner), books, DVDs, ceramics, hardware supplies, kitchen utensils and cleaning supplies, window glazing, outdoor furniture, indoor furniture, flowers and plants, personal care items, and food.

Oh, the food! Vegetables and fruits, locally grown. Two weeks ago every fruit stall suddenly had figs, and that was how I learned that figs were in season (and they were gone the next week). Frutos secos (nuts), where I usually get the whole almonds I add to my morning cereal. Olives. Beans. Spices. Cheeses and more varieties of embutidos (sausages) than I knew existed. Bread. Cakes and pastries. Roast chicken on a spit, and paella, to take home with you in case you don't feel like making Sunday dinner. And it wouldn't be a market, or Spain, if there weren't lots of places to sit down and enjoy something to drink and eat on the spot.

We usually drive, because who knows what we might have to carry home? But this morning we decided we needed some walking exercise, so for the first time, we struck out on the short walk to the entrance of our urbanization, then down the country road going parallel to the highway, around the highway exit roundabout bringing cars from north and south, and up the path to the huge parking lot. It only took us twenty minutes from our door to the spot where we usually park the car, and then another five minutes through the lot to one of the entrances to the market, where hawkers were busy as usual, offering free day trips to a blanket factory somewhere in the area--"no purchase necessary."

After walking for a half hour in the sun we were ready for our ritual visit to the Danish pølsevogn at the back of the market. In addition to the traditional Danish hot dog, with all the trimmings, this hot dog stand also offers a fresh copy of today's Extra Bladet newspaper to read while you devour the dog and sip the Carlsberg.

Thus refreshed we made quick work of our shopping. Johannes found two DVDs to watch this week, and also a loaf of pan gallego, a delicious crusty bread that we had enjoyed for the first time as the base of a tostada in Alicante a couple weeks ago. I picked up fresh green beans and apples that I need for the Mediterranean salad and American apple cake I'm planning to make for overnight visitors this week. And then we decided to treat our visitors, and us, to a Danish pastry wienerbrød stang for breakfast, and shouldn't we also reward the man who consistently offers us delicious sharp bits of cheddar cheese each week--which we gladly accept but decline to purchase huge chunks of, for cholesterol reasons? Yes, we left the market with a five euro chunk of cheddar for our English friends, and for us.

By now we had enough to carry, so we headed out, stopping only to buy the Sunday El País, a former daily staple but now, due to rising newspaper prices and the lack of a corner kiosk, an occasional treat. The trip home took twice as long as the walk to the market. By 11:30 it is really hot and sunny, and we had to stop at Monty's, our local air-conditioned bar, for an agua con gas and café con leche to help us make the last few blocks to our house on Tomillo street.

Spanish Efficiency

Since I've shared my frustration about going through trámites over the past few weeks, I thought I should let you know that some things go right, and fairly quickly.

Two weeks ago, we discovered a water leak in our underbuild, also known as the half-cellar underneath the house. Careful investigation revealed that it probably came from a leak in water pipes going underneath the floor tiling in the main floor bathroom. This sent panic into my heart, as we had already met another couple in this development who had a similar problem with their main floor bathroom. The repairman that their insurance company sent in managed to dig up and destroy every single one of the floor tiles in the bathroom before finding that the problem was at the very entrance to the room. After some time, they got their leak fixed and the floor tiles replaced--albeit not with the same type of tiles that had been installed when the house was built eight years ago--but the water had not been connected some months later. I really didn't want my entire bathroom floor dug up, and I certainly didn't want a non-functioning bathroom for months on end.

We contacted our insurance company, and last week a young repairman came to determine the cause of our problem. He announced immediately that it was probably a leak in the pipes underneath the floor at the door to the bathroom. He drilled and made a horrible racket, but he found the leak and repaired it, and only destroyed two tiles in the process. This week, another repairman showed up to replace the tiles. We had already scouted out an acceptable near-match for the sea green mist tiles on the floor, but he had found a better one. He also drilled and made a horrible racket, but when he was done, the two tiles were in place and you might not notice, as you walk into the bathroom, that they are slightly different from the rest of the floor.

There's something very nice about how the insurance system works in Spain. Something goes wrong. You call the insurance company. They send someone to fix it. You don't have to get estimates from three different service providers; you don't have to pay the repairman; you don't have to subtract the deductible. Since the repairmen are hired by the insurance company, you don't have to fight about the insurance at all, and chances are, the repair person knows the situation as well as or better than you do. Our guy diagnosed the problem as soon as he walked in the door--he had already fixed two other similar leaks in our development (not the one at our friends' house--they had a different insurance company).

All we had to do was to be home to let the workmen in, and, after the job was completed, verify by phone that we were satisfied.

The Orange Grove

When we first moved into this house in Montebello, I wrote that I had a view of orange trees from my bathroom window, but there were no oranges on the trees. That was true in June.

Now in August, as you can see on the photograph to the right, there are some oranges on the trees. True, they are not yet orange. I have no idea when they will turn orange, but I'll keep you posted.

The Greatest Sandbox

On most mornings, we head out of the house at about 8:00 to walk to the play area in our Montebello urbanization to get in three or four games of pétanque. The recreation area includes a soccer field (in the foreground to the left), a children's playground with slide and swings, two pétanque lanes, and a handball court. It's all "paved" in fine beige sand.

This morning as we went out the door and locked the gate, Goldie refused to come inside and wait for our return. Oh well, she could wander in our street for awhile, and she could even jump the fence and find a shady place to wait for us to come back an hour later.

We walked the block down the street, and then another block past the orange grove, over to the recreation area. We were just at the point of throwing out the first ball when who should appear but Goldie, who had followed at a discreet distance. She nosed around the pétanque lane, discovered that the red "pig" ball was not some of her dry cat food, occasionally chased one of the metal balls, and wandered off to inspect the other recreation facilities and the adjacent orange trees.

And then, sure enough, she reacted to the largest sandbox she had ever seen and used it just as she would her litter box at home.

The next time Goldie comes with us to pétanque, we'll bring a plastic bag.

Welcome to Montebello

We live in an urbanization (neighborhood development) called Montebello, which means "beautiful hill," and there is indeed a small incline on the street we walk to go up to the neighborhood recycling center. We are part of the municipality called Algorfa, though we are closer to some urbanized parts of the town of Rojales, namely Ciudad Quesada, than to the commercial center of Algorfa. Our mail comes through Ciudad Quesada, and I can see the lights on the Quesada hill from my office window at night. There is talk that our urbanization may be reassigned to Rojales in the future, though I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

There are 177 houses in our urbanization; about 40 of them are holiday homes, and the rest are used as primary, or at least secondary, residences. The area started development nine years ago and was marketed heavily to the British, so we hear mostly English voices while sitting in the sun room, working in the kitchen with the back door open to catch a breeze, or when we stop in at the local bar-cafe after taking the trash and garbage out in the evening. Several houses are for sale now; this reflects the worldwide economic situation that the Spaniards call simply La Crisis, the fact that in recent months the British pound has fallen drastically in relation to the euro (the US dollar managed the same feat much earlier), and a natural generational shift that I have observed marks many retirement communities, whether European or American.

We live on the edge of the urbanization, on Avenida del Tomillo. Tomillo is a variety of thyme. The other avenida surrounding the development is Romero, rosemary. I have looked, but there is no Parsley or Sage. But we do have streets named Olivo, Mimosa, Eucalyptus, and a couple other types of vegetation that I will need to commit to memory on a later walk around the area.

We have a neighborhood swimming pool, two pétanque courts and soccer field, children's play yard, and a couple park areas on one side of the development. At the entrance is the aforementioned bar-cafetería, Monty's, a hairdressing salon, and a locale to rent--there used to be a corner grocery but the proprietor died, I am told. A big five-year project has been started to build a huge shopping center on the road leading to our development. This will be within two kilometers of our entrance and I look forward to not having to get into the car every time I need to go out to buy some little thing. The project is on hold for a time during La Crisis, but we have been assured it will resume when the economy improves.

The shopping mall will replace a cement factory. The orange grove on the opposite side of the urbanization remains, for as long as we are here, I hope.

My Morning View

In our house in Montebello, I begin each day by swinging open the bathroom window to see whether I can see the mountains in the distance. These are not high mountains, nor are they almost within touching distance, as the mountains of New Hampshire's Kinsman Range were from our home in Easton. But I feel very lucky to be able to look out into clear, crisp air, as it has been every day since we moved in, and see mountains at all. Some days it has been hazy in the morning and the range is barely visible to my eyes--in fact, it wasn't until the second day of our life here that I knew there were mountains there at all.

The first thing I see when I look out is the nearby orange grove. There are no oranges on the trees at this time of year, but the local word is that each inhabitant of our community is entitled to one orange per day in season--two if you are pregnant, which is not likely for me or for many of our neighbors. It's wonderful to see and smell the greenery, to hear the birds chirping, and to feel clean air.

Closer in to the window are the sand-colored houses with their red-tiled roofs and white fences surrounding the second-floor sun terraces. A neighbor to the right has a large un-opened parasol on his roof, and I can gauge the wind by seeing how much it flutters in the breeze. Another neighbor on the first line behind the orange grove appears to have a covered jacuzzi taking up much of his terrace, but I've never seen anyone in it nor anywhere else on that second floor. In fact, I've never seen anyone else outside my bathroom window as I stand there each morning and take in the day. It's a wonderfully peaceful way to begin anew each morning.

Goldie's Big Day

It's 7:30 AM and I awoke to the birds chirping two hours ago. We were downstairs early, even before there was full daylight, eating breakfast in the small sunroom/entrance to our house. This was to be Goldie's big day.

We had kept our cat inside for five days so she could adjust to her new home and recover from the terror of moving once again, cracking the windows slightly open to let the smells enter into her unconscious memory but prevent her from squeezing out, and suffering ourselves from lack of fresh air and cross breezes. Yesterday had been particularly terrifying for Goldie, with all the noise of drilling to admit cable and men crawling on the roofs and clattering up and down stairs. Goldie spent yesterday morning cowering in a corner of the downstairs office, well protected by boxes of books and miscellanea.

This morning at 6:30 we slid the glass door wider open than the inch or two that she had been nosing at, and soon she was out the door. Not running and dancing for joy--she stopped on the top step and looked behind, seeming to inquire why we weren't after her to scold her or bring her back in. We sat tight, and she proceeded down the other stair step, then walked over to the yucca plant and sniffed. Soon she proceeded to the pineapple palm, and then she reversed direction and walked around to the other side of the front room and nosed around the plantings there next to the three-person outdoor seating area. The next thing we knew, she had hopped over the greenery to the garden path leading down to a couple houses behind our property. We left her to explore and went about our morning routines.

At 7:00 I heard a loud continuous noise and walked out on the rooftop terrace to investigate. A large piece of vehicular machinery with a flashing yellow light was coming down Avenida del Tomillo. As it got closer, I realized it was washing the street. Ah, perhaps every Wednesday is street-cleaning day. I'll try to remember that next week so we can park the car inside the gate instead of leaving it on the street. The machine and the person driving it didn't seem to mind, however, as they maneuvered around several cars on the street. The dog on the other side of the street didn't appreciate the invasion, though, and who knows what Goldie was thinking about yet more noise?

I went downstairs to see if she had made her return appearance yet. We had left the glass door to the sunroom open, but closed and locked the grating on the front door of the house. (Locks, keys, door and window grills and grating are a major fact of life in Spain--we have four keys to go through just to get into our living room.) I saw Goldie outside the sunroom, sniffing at the bougainvillea. Then I turned my back, asked a question, and went into the kitchen for another cup of coffee. I came out and looked from the living room through the grate and sunroom, and whistled to try to encourage her to come inside. And she appeared, totally unexpectedly, from behind me in the house! She can walk easily through the spaces in the grating.

For coming home promptly, of course, she got a special treat. If she continues to get rewarded each time she goes out and returns, she may soon not be able to fit through the grating.