Today is the first day of November. What did we get up to in the month of October?
October seems to be a transition month for weather. In the
beginning of the month the day’s high temps were in the 80s, by the end of the
month they were low to mid 70s. We had some rain (not a lot, but in the summer
there is almost none). Early mornings have dipped into the upper 50s. A couple
of weeks ago I noted the digital display at the beach showing the water
temperature to be 24 C (that’s 75 F).
Spainguru.es is a website with lots of information about
moving to Spain. We have referred to it for information a many times in the
past. They have recently started organizing meet-ups and the first one in the
Alicante area was on October 1st. They are going to be on the first Thursday
of the month going forward. We signed up for the first one which was held in a
bar in the center of the city. About 15 people had signed up to go but only 5 (including
us) showed up. This was ok however as the other three people were very nice; we
got along well and talked for a couple of hours. It turns out that one couple (Chris
and Steve) live about a mile north of us along the coast, and the other person,
Paul (who came to the meet up without his husband), lives in the building
almost directly across the street from us. We are all in our 60s (me for 15
more days) and retired. Chris (nurse) and Steve (software engineer) are from
South Carolina but originally Ohio. Paul (who I believe has a PhD and worked in
health care administration) and David are from Washington state. All are
stridently anti-MAGA. I mentioned in a
previous post that we had started taking Spanish classes at a school called
Proyecto Español. When we went to the meet-up we had just finishing our second
week. Coincidentally we learned that Paul had signed up at the same school and
was set to start the following week. Thus, we have seen him just about every
day. The next meet up is this Thursday
but we won’t be able to go (I’ll explain below). Also, Chris and Steve are back
in the US tying up some loose ends before they return so they won’t be able to
go. Paul is going to represent.
One important task we set for October was getting flu and
COVID shots. Last year we got flu shots at a private clinic in Alicante but they
don’t give COVID shots. We hadn’t had one since we left the US. They don’t give
immunizations in the doctor’s offices. They don’t give them at pharmacies.
Turns out Paul was on the same mission and learned that both flu shots and
COVID shots were available at the public health clinics and you didn’t have to
be part of the public health system to get them. We went to inquire and were
given appointments 2 days later; easy-peasy.
There were two important holidays here in October. October 9
(Friday) was the Day of the Valencian Community (of which Alicante is a part)
and the following Monday, October 12, was the National Day of Spain. This made
for a double long weekend for some. The National Day of Spain commemorates Christopher
Columbus’s (or Cristóbal Colón as he is known here) arrival in the Americas.
You will recall that though he wasn’t Spanish, he was sponsored by Spain’s
Catholic Monarchs (Fernando and Isabel). His tomb is in Seville.
The town adjacent to us, El Campello, has an annual festival
coincident with these holidays called the Fiestas de Moros y Cristianos (Moors
and Christians Festival). At dawn on October 12 they hold a re-enactment of the
16th century arrival of Moorish pirate ships with mock battles.
In a previous post we talked about the process of getting a
Spanish driver’s license. We both took the theory test in January – Dennis passed,
but Maureen did not (only allowed 3 incorrect answers out of 30 and they can be
tricky!). Well, Maureen re-took the exam on October 23rd, and
passed! Now we both need to work on
taking some practice driving with an instructor (just to learn what the tester’s
expectations are), then take the driving test.
We are off on a trip to Sicily this week. It is our first trip
with a group tour – Overseas Adventure Travel. Owen has taken a couple of trips
with them so we thought we’d try it. We’re used to planning and scheduling
everything ourselves so this will be quite different for us. It’s a relatively small
group – 15 people, mostly from NH, MA, or ME, but three from Michigan. We leave on Wednesday this week (thus missing
the meet-up on Thursday), flying to Barcelona in the afternoon. We stay over in
Barcelona for the night, and then fly to Palermo, Sicily, the next morning.
We’ll keep you posted
¡Salud!
