Fri, 27 Oct 2000 19:00:24 GMT
Hola amigos! 

As previously reported, we have managed to start the next phase of this trip by dropping anchor for 3 months here in Spain.  We leased a great flat in a small town a few kilometers up the coast from Malaga, on the Costa del Sol. 

After several days of stopping in every real estate office in town, we lucked out on a beautiful place overlooking the town plaza, with a southern view over the Mediterranean.  The town is called La Cala del Moral, literally "morality cove" (I think). The flat was previously rented by a Canadian fellow and his Spanish wife who run a wonderful rib joint called California Grill in nearby Rincon de la Victoria.  We do have enough space to host short term visitors, so get in touch if it sounds interesting. 

Weīre keeping a list of the places weīve stayed, and we are currently in our sixtieth since we started moving around Nov 16, 1999.  After so much moving, it certainly feels good to unpack our bags to the VERY bottom. It is amazing the things you find after so much travel...strange coins, dirt from heaven knows where, receipts you canīt read, and clothes that REALLY need a good cleaning. Believe it or not, it is also refreshing to us to perform domestic duties such as cleaning, moving furniture to our liking, dusting, cooking, etc. 

We are finding Spain a very friendly place.  Avoiding tourist centers has allowed us to interact with non english speaking Spaniards, and we rarely meet unfriendly people.  Ironically, one of the few people who was NOT very friendly is the fellow running the tourist information office in nearby Rincon de la Victoria.  Most everything we see is thoroughly westernized, the clothing, food, available consumer products, etc.  Housing is quite meditteranean, lots of concrete and bricks and white paint and narrow streets and absolute lack of easy parking. 

The U.S. dollar is at all time highs against the peseta, making day to days costs seem very reasonable, and noticably less than, say, Germany or Italy. 

One item of discussion for us is to try and understand why Spain is not visited more by folks from the US.  It is clean, inexpensive, varied in many ways, full of history, has varied climates, has great food and music and more.  We have a suspicion that many Americans may think Spain is very similar to Mexico since both share the spanish language.  We have found Mexico to be an emerging third world country, while Spain is very much a mature European first world country.  They are indeed very different!  Perhaps it is that when Americans want to go to a spanish speaking country, Mexico is so close that they head there.  And when planning a European vacation, they would tend to head towards other places than Spain since another Spanish speaking country is just south of the border.  In any case, we love Spain so far, and highly recommend it. 

We have a long list of excursions to do in the area, including seeing Gibraltar and its rock, Seville, Granada, Morocco in northern Africa, and more. 

We took the kids to see a bullfight - the last of the season - in Malaga.  They were fascinated, and so were we.  It is not something that we will probably ever do again as it goes against some of our beliefs, but it is a large part of Spanish culture and the pagentry and ceremony were worth seeing.  We were staying in the hotel that the matadors stayed in and the kids had their picture taken with one of them.  The kids were really thrilled.  The outfits that the matadors wear are gorgeous and most of those guys really wear their clothes well and have very good posture! (Bonnie said that:) 

Jessica and Nathan started in a local preschool last week and so far so good even though it is totally Spanish speaking.  They are fitting in well and look forward to going each day, which is fun to see.  Hopefully and probably they will pick up some of the language (and be able to teach us!) 
Ky and I have the time that they are in school (5 hours a day/5 days per week) to take Spanish lessons, get reaquainted after almost a year without much time alone, and to do a bit of local sightseeing together at some things that are not so interesting to the kids. 

We are slowly adapting to the local schedule.  Late starts are common, followed by lunch during the siesta time (approx 2-5), then a dinner later in the evening.  We have managed to strech out dinner time until 7:30 or 8 so far, but most local folks donīt even think about food until much later.  Most stores close from 2:30-5.  Almost everything is closed on Sundays. 

Our e-mail address remains the same.  Our temporary mailing (and visiting!) address is: 
C/ SAN VALENTIN N 9, 4-A 
2970 LA CALA DEL MORAL 
MALAGA, SPAIN 
We have a phone here also: 
(International prefix)+(Spain prefix)+657244871 
There is a voice mailbox if we donīt answer. 

The contact info is valid until the middle of January, 2001. 

Now, you may ask, what on earth are the Coffeys going to do in January.  Excellent question.  When you figure it out, please let us know!  Seriously, we have the last (trans Atlantic) leg of our around the world Star Alliance tix in hand, and they expire mid January.  However, our house near Seattle is rented out to some wonderful renters, and they will most likely stay until early summer at least. 

Options are: 
1) use the tickets, fly to the US, and travel in North America or Mexico until our renters move. 
2) stay in Spain until summer, buy new tickets and fly back later after the winter rains have subsided. 

or, 
if you have other ideas, please let us know.  Whoever comes up with the best suggestion gets some free nights stay in La Cala Del Moral. (You can obviously get those even if you don't have the best idea, but we'd love to hear some of the doozies that you're bound to be able to come up with for us!) 

Take care, 
Travel often, 
Stay in touch, 
Adios, 

The Spanish Coffeys 
Ky Bonnie Jessica Nathan