Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Long time gone, but really here all the time....

September 5, 2012 Rota, Spain

Well, I certainly have been a delinquent blogger.  Lots of great stuff has happened but I had promised not to publish anything about my personal life to avoid upsets.  But, I'm in a new life now and I'm quite sure that whoever didn't want to know about my life now knows everything necessary.  So I think from this point forward I am going to report on what's really happening.  Anyone who doesn't want to know about it can stop reading right here...

OK, so Ada and I have been living together for a year and 3 months.  Our level of compatability remains miraculous.  We have a lovely 2 story house in the more modern (and quiet) part of Rota.  We selected this house because it had a tiny lawn for the dog and 4-5 bedrooms for visiting family.  OK, so I stole a bedroom to make an office and Ada stole one to have a dressing room, but that still leaves 2 formal bedrooms and a basement room we call the "leonera" (lion's den).  The basement sleeps at least 8 and has it's own kitchen.  So when the kids come to visit (and they do because this is the Beach!) they have their own space. Here's the house:

It's a duplex and the white half is ours.

Since then so many things have happened that it is hard to summarize.  On the flamenco front, I have been playing as the house guitarist for our Peña in Rota and did a show with some of our singers - me among them.  I also am playing guitar for the Peña in Chipiona on Friday evenings, so I get my fill.  I hardly ever go out looking for flamenco anymore.  We have had visits from some pretty impressive artists, who came to visit and ended up singing for hours.  Needless to say, it has been terrific.  Ada participates fully in all this and sometimes when she is washing dishes and thinks she is alone, I hear her singing flamenco.  She grew up in it and even knew Camaron as a 5 year old.

But life is about more than flamenco.  This year, one of the big events was the wedding of Ada's daughter, Adita.  This was a big event and some of our Madrid family came down for it.  We all had to get new clothes for the occasion and I have to show you the pictures of us all dressed up:

Ada and I entering...
Adita and David in our hallway
And the wedding brought out all the relatives that I hadn't met yet, so now I am pretty well known.  It kept us busy for a month, but after that it was time for some vacation...

When I arrived in Europe on the sailboat, part of the fantasy was to continue on into the Med and visit Italy, Greece, and the Adriatic.  That never happened quite as planned, but intentions have a way of manifesting themselves.  It seems Adita is a travel agent and was able to arrange for us a 7 day cruise at ultra-cheap travel agent prices (can't mention).  So we flew from Madrid to Ravenna, Italy and boarded the boat.  Then we left for Venice and spent a day and a night there.  Following days took us to Dubrovnik, Katakolon, Corfu, Santorini, Myconos, and finally Athens.  I like cruising!! Somebody else is responsible for getting us around and my only job is to be charming and keep my glass filled.  We respected the fine tradition of gaining weight on cruises, but the food and drink were all included - and there were lots of opportunities.  When it was time to go ashore, Ada and I found that we preferred not to be part of the herd.  So we created our own adventures.  We walked, rented cars, and on Santorini, rented a motorcycle (that will have future consequences).  Sometimes we joined up with other couples to share car rentals, etc.  So we made some cruising friends. It's not easy to select 1 photo to capture a place, but I'll try:

A canal in Venice
Dubrovnik - a walled medieval city on the Adriatic
Olympus was immense, but this shows a tiny corner of it...
Actually, selecting photos of the cruise is overwhelming -there were so many.  Suffice to say, we had a marvelous time - sort of a honeymoon since it was our first major trip together.  In succeeding chapters, I'll bring us up to date with more current news.  But for now, time for dinner.

If anybody is still reading this thing, it would be nice if you would shoot off an email and tell me your news.


3 comments:

Nettie said...

The photos are so lovely! Glad to see you are blogging again.

Crew of the Solstice said...

Still reading. No news from San Francisco. We're working. Wish we were sailing.
-Shirlee

Buddio said...

Richard, if you are still monitoring this, drop me a line and let me know that all is well.

I was looking at a Sparhawk this afternoon and thought of you. Took me a while to find your site and I see it isn't very active these days.

BTW, your house in Rota looks very similar to the one in Ventura.

Roger Pol