Feeling Rejected

The poor bunny got left home today on accident!!! :( I swear FR it wasn't intentional!!! I love you!! How did you hop out of the purse into my other bag??

Today I woke up and hopped outside like I have the past three mornings to catch some morning sun in my sexy eency weency black bikini. We decided to drive to Ronda which according to the map was about an hour away. We grabbed our clothes - and jackets too this time - and hopped into the car. Oh, sorry about the hopping FR. No pun intended... :-/

It was a gorgeous drive!! Beautiful windy roads. It reminded me of the drive to Big Bear Lake. It was very windy and very pretty. We stopped a few times. Dad is going to LOVE it here! This the golf capital of Spain and there are tremendous courses here and even greater views of them. We ended up in Ronda right on schedule. And yes, we stopped to get Pim's. MmmMMMMmMm.

We walked around a shopped the local venues. It definitely felt as if we had stepped into a time capsule. Not only were the buildings traditionally old, but it also was so interesting that it was only an hour away from Marbella which is heavily populated with high class and much more so industrialized. I bought a present for my parents and we bought an illustrated book about Southern Andalusia. Really pretty.

My favorite was / is most certainly walking onto the turn where you can view the Puerto Nuevo or "New Bridge" in Ronda. I feasted my eyes upon this huge bridge built with stone during a time period where there was no electricity. It does not matter how many times you see it in a movie or read about it. When it is there, staring back at you with so much strength and confidence and security, you wonder what has changed? How is it that they were able to construct this and make it last with no computers, no machinery to lift, no technology but their bare hands and minds? It really was breath taking for me. As I rounded the corner and walked down a bit, I began to hear a Spanish guitar playing some jazz. It was funny - I felt like I was then in a movie, in slow motion, turning the corner and hearing the man play me a tune. And then, when I was still holding in tears a flock of doves came swooping down and made circles in and around and over and under the bridge tunnel. It was spectacular. I literally felt as if peace and calm were flying into my heart and the feelings I had built up by myself of self-doubt and fear and worry were being replaced. Funny how I could literally feel years being changed by the perspective of this view. I was seeing in front of me how small I am compared to the size of the world and it's goings on, and then even more importantly, what one can accomplish with unabashed tenacity. A final breeze kissed my face and I knew it was the perfect moment.

Isn't it interesting that there were people next to me taking the same pictures and yet having a completely different experience? And I will never see them again, in my life but they were there when I went through something.

We grabbed some lunch in a little alley that we realized was Little Italy. The food was delicious enough and I was able to have Ham & Melon (hi Dad!). It was the best of any Ham & Melons I had EVER had; that makes it best out of two! I had fish & chips and finished with the ever popular Tiramisu and cappucino.

We walked back to the car and headed home. It was a peaceful drive. A great day.

I went out for a drive tonight. The stick shift is beginning to feel good. Power in my feet and hands. Feels like.... a boat or something. I don't know. Anyway, its great practice for me for my white Porsche Carerra. Mmmm.

Its a good life.

Love you, night.
Jojo MF Diggs!!!! :)

The trip.

Ooga Booga

The place where IT happened

Green Eggs & Ham & Melon

Little editing I did...

Active Bullring in Ronda

The view from a local school yard. Can you imagine this being your every day life?

Church

I just love this picture. Spanish tyle.

Free Romer

The big triumph for today: I made it into our steep hilled, tiny entrance, 9 second window opening gate today on the first try with a stick shift!! Woohoo!!

I took the car and went to Marina Banus today. It felt so good to be by myself. I sat on the rocks peninsula stretched out into the ocean and thought about life. Spent about 3 hours out today just walking around and being me. It felt really good. I think it's the first time I've felt a little independence since I've been here. The car thing has been a little stressful. Probably sounds so silly. Probably is silly. Just feels weird. Today was great, though. It was nice weather, too. Bought a stripey shirt, had some veggies at our kebap place and read a few pages in a book by Victoria Osteen.

Came home and cooked a great dinner for both of us; steak with vinegar and spices, new potatoes, and corn. Ate, watched a movie (Woa!) “A Good Year.” I liked it. Great message. It opened my eyes.

Life is good.

Night!

Freaking Ridonkulous!!

Today was amazing! I woke up at 10am of my own accord to a beautiful sunny day in Spain.

Terry was still asleep so I slapped on my eency weency bikini and headed to the balcony where two warm green lounge chairs and a view of the ocean awaited me. Mmm. 30 minutes later I heard Terry stirring. We decided to travel to Tarifa today since it was nice. Tarifa is about an hour and a half away, recommended to us by friends, due it being known for its large waves and beautiful beaches. We decided to cook some chicken curry and rice for a beachy lunch. I threw on my denim mini jumper and some cute boots, Terry hopped into her camisole and shorts – we looked so cute! :) I grabbed the water and my bag that has speakers, Terry grabbed the ipod and the food. We were off!

It was a really gorgeous drive – once we figured out where we were going. TomTom (the GPS with a Brit accent) really didn't know what was going on. We realized what we knew is that the ocean needed to be on the left and we drove down the Motorway – 120 km/hr. We stopped and got some Pim's, which I am addicted to.

The view was amazing. It was hard for me to take pictures since I was driving a stick shift and trying to roll down the windows. We had on a/c. Too much multi-tasking.

So, as I said I was driving. Obviously the Motorway is not challenging. Get into 5th gear – you're golden. I had to drive in the city – not too bad. I had to parallel park – maybe. Parallel park on a hill - okay now you're pushing it. So, the time came. There was a bit of a slope, but I surprisingly pulled through and parked the car into a spot. I had to reverse twice. It was a clean job. I looked over at Terry with much pride and she said “Now you've done one of the hardest things you'll have to do.” With a big chester grin on my face my foot became disconnected from my brain and let go of the brake... and that would be us hitting the car in front of us. Huhm. Not too much damage. Just the license plate. Still funny, though. How do you say Murphy's Law in Espanol??
After making fun of me for a bit we opened the car door and WHOOOSH!! The wind hit us! It was definitely NOT the same weather as Marbella. Can you say 11degrees Celsius? That's about 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Not feeling so cute in my jumper anymore. But! No fear because the beach was going to be beautiful, and at least I had on my boots!! Thank goodness for the boots! My rock, my salvation!!Sooooo, we started to walk down to the beach, where it was even windier. We found out that Tarifa was also known as Wind Surf Beach. You can see the pictures of kites – there were probably 30 kite surfers out there. It was really cool to watch. As Terry got stuck trying to light a cigarette in 25 mph winds I continued to stroll down the beach, appreciating the huge waves, my scarf, the sun, my pockets, the sand, my boots. As I continued to stroll, I looked to my right to see that there was a big puddle of water on the beach, completely separate from the ocean. I thought to myself “Hmm, that's weird.”

So I continued to walk and appreciate the scenery. The next thing I know, I look down and I am now “stranded on an island.” The water has dribbled up all around me from the waves slowly washing upon shore. How could this happen to someone? Wouldn't they notice? Yes, you notice the wave is coming. And then you realize it's going to puddle anywhere you walk because of the dips in the sand. Well, I just lost it. I thought this was one of the funniest things that has ever happened to me. I'm sitting there throwing a fit, hands in my lap, bent over howling on the beach by myself. Such a scene. One of the surfers who was at the edge of the water most undoubtedly thought I was a few crayons short of a box, but I didn't care; I was rolling. Here is this white girl in Spain in a little denim jumper in boots at a notoriously winded beach stranded in a puddle on shore. There was just no getting out of it – the shit was funny. Anyway, unless I waited until the water evaporated I was going to have to tread through 3 inches of ocean water in shmooshy sand in boots. Jojo, why didn't you just take off your boots and walk barefoot? 11 degrees Celsius – that's why. Anyway, it didn't matter. This moment was priceless. So hilarious. I am still laughing. That is why you see the picture of sandy mudded boots. My souvenir for life. I will never put those on and not think about being stranded on an island.

We walked around for a bit and headed back up to the car after only about 45 minutes. We ate our beach lunch in the car and drove over to the cliff that you can see in the photos. It is the “Southest” point of Europa. We were able to drive half way up it and see the boats leaving for Africa. On one side is the Meditteranean, the other is the Atlantic. The difference in color was literally a light jade to a deep, dark purplish turquoise. So interesting to see the calm waters on one side of the rockas and then these HUGE waves. Anyway, that is Africa in the background. So cool. 10Km away. “Hey guys, I'm headed to Africa today I'll be back later.” Woa! I'll definitely be going to Tangier in Morocco when my parents come on the 8th of April.

So, we headed home, stopped so I could take a picture of the donkey and one of Gibraltar. Got back into town and stopped at a grocery store to grab some yummies. We found a movie that has English! :) Terry said she thought she might die without TV in English for one more day.
Tomorrow we are going to call a local place that offers cave repelling. I think that sounds like so much fun. Hopefully not as cold, and I definitely won't be wearing a skirt to it. Maybe my beach boots though. Who else can say they have beach boots? I am unique.

I was contacted by a few people in the past few days that found out I was in Spain through YouTube or friends or something that will be setting up workshops in Madrid, Barcelona, and Switzerland before I leave to go back to LA. Very excited about that, and will keep you posted when things are booked solid.

It's a good life.

Enjoy the pictures. Night.

Entering Tarifa, Africa in the background...

Kite Surfers!

Stranded on an island...

Makes for muddy boots...

Me in my "cute" jumper...

"Southest" point of Europa

Boats to Africa...

Rapunzel's house maybe?

Mediterranean Sea

thats a cop car

soooo cute

Gibraltar

sunset from my balcony

Saturday 28th 2009

My apologies for not writing yesterday. There was really nothing to write, I was going to post a small blog but then my computer crashed late night. So, here's my one for yesterday for those of you who MUST know. Mainly, I taught for 6 hours. The dance scene here is non-existent so we are not only building the dance studio but we are building/selling the whole concept of dance, as well. The great part about that is that I am working with a lot of beginners. This is not LA level dancing by any means. Sometimes teaching beginners can be more challenging because the teacher is required to make the dances attainable and somehow still “cool.” Making choreography likable is much easier to do with out restrictions emotionally or physically. I do miss the challenges of my body that I have in LA, but there are new challenges here. Working with kids, being patient, and learning how to let go and remembering how to just have fun without thinking of it as a career. I am being refreshed and becoming more independent in my decreasing need for approval in my artistic expression. Sounds easy. Isn't. For me. Anyway, since it was the close of the first dance week I sat a few of them down post-class and asked how they were feeling. I had similar responses; they felt safe here, they felt like they could be themselves, and they felt like they were finding themselves. One girl cried and told me a story. I cried with her, because I remember feeling all the same things. It feels so amazing to make a difference in someone's life, especially one so immediate. I have a few projects (dancers) I'll be working on and helping build. I really love the kids here. They aren't exposed, but they are open. They have my heart, already. Also, I did an eency teency bit of shopping (2 jeans, 2 shirts, earrings and a eency teency bikini.) We left the studio club and went out to the local mall in La Canada. I don't have the little Spanish n on my keyboard, but its Can-ya-dah. Anywho, big fabulous mall. Folks I'll say this – be grateful about your Ben n Jerry's ice cream. We went to get some after our food court dinner, and it is 8Euro per pint. That means you're looking at about $9.50 for a pint. HOWEVER, they do have something called 1 Brownie Cheesecake (why the 1?) and that my friends is Freaking Ridiculous. Why aren't they selling this in the States?? Are they selling it? Did I miss it? Lastly, I got all dressed up to go out and the club I went to was closed. That's right, folks - closed. What club is closed on a Saturday night? Don't they know I squeezed into Spanish jeans and drove a stick shift at night for this?? How rude. So, I decided to do a little personal photo shoot. I'll spare you the details, but this one turned out okay.... Well.... look at that. I guess I did have something to write. Shrug.

Fly Roller (again!)

so worth 13 Euro!

this bird looks really sad to me... :(

this guy looks fierce!

free bird!

definitely have time to think here....

life is growing everywhere!!!

make it a bud light.

ya, he's a Fly Rollah again!

I woke up at 9:30am today!! Woohooooo!! I practiced getting into 1st on the neighborhood hills for a bit (didn't fare too well. 8 out of 15. not ready for spain plains yet.)

We headed towards Malaga to try to catch the Falcon show that was recommended to us by the pequeno English speaking Spanish woman. She informed us that if you take Exit 222 you will see many, many signs that will direct you towards the cable cars. However, this was not the case for us.

The area - Benalmadena was packed! In my week here I haven't seen this many people total. It was like driving in New York with spanish signs and smaller roads. I can not emphasize enough that Spain is not industrialized in many areas the way that we are used to. Driving no es bueno!! Very scary! And I wasn't even driving.

We arrive late, so we missed out on the Falcon presentation. There was a market when we parked that we hoped to haggle with when we returned but they were long since on ciesta by the time we got back. We'll have to go back. It was packed with tents and what looked like some yummy fruits and cute jewelries!!

The cable ride was really beautiful as you can see from the pictures. At the top of the lift there's a path to the right you can walk down and see Eagles and Falcons. The trainer did a wooden fur trick thingy where a falcon schwoops down and grabs a piece of raw meat tied to the back of it. Kinda crazy. On the left there's a path to grab a bite to eat and stare at the view. One of the birds must've gotten discombobulated and ended up on the counter next to the draft spouts. I got a cheese pizza. I think he's on a liquid diet.

Headed down the hill and had a much easier time getting out - no reversing out of a wrong way driving situation with people standing and driving in front of you this time.

Taught classes - they were great. Came home, made supper - peppers, onions, zucchini and potatoes with Vinegar, salt, sugar. Very yum.

Miss you all! Night!

Fright Rider

Today was eventful to say the least. I'll have to keep it short due to the fact that its 12:30am (AGAIN) and I need to start trying to readjust my body schedule.

First, I learned how to drive stick today. Fright Rider was very much bug eyed. FR is a rabbit, so it doesn't say too much that he had white knuckles but you get the point. I did much better today than expected - I only stalled once on a super steep hill. If you saw what I was driving through, you'd pray for an automatic also. I'm not bitter... Second, went down to the beach and took some pictures and touched the Mediterranean Sea. Beautiful beach and beautiful people. Badabing!! :) We also got to walk down by the Marina. Lots of money and wonderful shops and pretty restaurants there. Third, classes today went really great. I love the ways kids learn. When they mess up they make some overly exaggerated body movement, giggle and try again. Can you imagine if adults were able to do that? I think the world would run more smoothly. Lastly, apparently in Spain you are not supposed to park on a curb with a yellow line. You may see 10 other cars there, but they will only be parked there long enough for the cop to see them one time. If the cop sees you twice, away you go. 177Euro and a cab ride later we got our car back. Fun, huh? :)

I'm off to bed. Food today – nothing fancy. We had McDonalds chicken wraps for lunch and home made Fajitas for dinner. Weather was really gorgeous today. Tank tops. We hope to catch a cable ride tomorrow morning.

Night, love you!

P.S. Pictures – Terry thought it was a pilgrim. Pesquera means fish.

Fearless Receptionist

I woke up feeling really lonely and disconnected from my Self today. No one here my age who speaks my language. Haven't been dancing very much, and I don't get to go to classes every day and hear people tell me how great I am. It's hitting me that I have to rely on my Self for just about every ounce of love... I'm also really missing hugs. I did a little meditation. I had (another) amazing chat with Mike Slack last night. So grateful for him. He is one of my spiritual mentors. Great person, great words, great deeds. Anyway, today picked up and actually Teri and I talked more today than since I've been here. That helped, and I'm over my Self a bit, just ya know... sometimes I feel like that.

On the logistic side of things....

We had to go BACK to DMVodophone again today. Apparently the money we had placed onto the internet was actually placed onto the phone, so we ran out of minutes. When I walked into the DMV again today the lady took one look at me and said "Que pasa?" (What happened?) This poor poquito English lady finally got us through it AGAIN (after an hour.) I'm sure I'm easy to remember. I'm the one with the bull ring in my nose, which I'm sure has been made into some sort of Bull Ring/Spanish/Bullfighter joke right in front of me in Spanish. Wish I could've heard it so I could tell you.

After getting that sorted out we went to Sol Mar Car Rental which is out in Malaga - about 30 minutes away at the airport. Stopped at a gas station and I caught this AWESOME picture of the cities edge, city, and ocean. We wanted to see if we could get the car switched to automatic, but they didnt have anything available until April 1st, and then it would be an extra 8E a day. Not sure about that. I might have to be a walking fool, or just suffer through a series of stalling and trying to get into 1st on these steep hills and tiny parking lots. Ech. Just don't want to. Can someone send me a car please?????? (Automatic... with a CD player and a sunroof! A smart car will do!!! Hmm.... White!)

I taught my first set of classes today since the workshop. The students are truly amazing. They did so great. I love them. It's really rewarding. I think dance and the studio will do well here and I'm honored to be a part of the start of it all.

Other than that, we ate at the Kebap place again bc it's right by the studio, and headed home. I noticed this sign because I am most certainly my mothers daughter.
Love you, miss you.

Self portrait

Today has been full of events. We decided to wake up “early” and get a head start on the day. We had lots of errands to run. The internet went down last night a little past midnight. If you know me, then you know I'm pretty addicted to internet, but also Terri's main source of life is the internet. She works on another job from here, so its important that she has it all the time. Plus, she has to keep in contact with her husband, of course, so internet is a must. We also needed to get my name registered on the car, grab lunch, buy some groceries and get some more Euro.

We started off this “morning” (aka noon) on first priority – the internet. Anything wireless is monopolized by a company called Vodophone. They basically run things here (poorly.) You have to purchase a wireless modem (just like a punch drive) and a chip. A modem is 50E and then anything after that is per Mb or Gb, depending on if you have a contract or not. If you have a contract its not too bad of pricing, but it requires a local bank account and a 12 month commitment. So, we're doing pre-pay and paying out of our bung-hole. Its 19E for 150mb. That's not a lot in case you don't know. But, if that wasn't so bad, it's obviously frustrating when you're overpaying for something that isn't working. Vodophone at any given time has about two people working the desk and about 14 people waiting in line. Each transaction takes approximately 15-25 minutes. It's basically the DMV of the internet, but in Spanish and without any waiting music or electronic holding numbers.

After our initial 30 minute visit to Vodophone telling us our internet is fixed we returned home (10 minutes away) to make sure they weren't lying. They were lying. So we returned to the store. Another 45 minute transaction later they told us we had to go to another store. We stopped to get lunch and found a fabulous Turkish Kabop place. It's actually the best meal I've had since I got here and the least expensive. The food was fresh, delicious and the service was amazing. We sat outside and gobbled. We also found a really great clothing store that had great prices that I plan to spend too much money at. Back to business now. Headed out to the other Vodophone store. Another V store later we recovered internet and later found a Bull Ring, (not the one in my nose) a grocery store, a fantastic view of the ocean and a toilet. (note: view not from the toilet.) We did a lot! Phew! We bought some yummy pastries (11Euro's worth, 8 of which are mine... oops) and got groceries.

It's interesting how so many things here are different than at home. Vegetables can often come in glass jars, the shopping carts have luggage-esque dragging handles, there's 4 different aisles of cookies. I can't calculate what makes those cookies separated. Also, the grocery stores here are either larger than China or smaller than an apartment. The one we went to today was pretty tiny but it did have massive fruits and vegetables and a very wide selection of cheese and milk which wasn't the case in the Chinese sized store ironically. There were no hanging pigs, either. In the picture you can see a machine where oranges go to die. Here I purchased a 0.5 Liter of freshly squeezed OJ. You toss a few oranges in the top of the swirly machine and it runs it through a spiraling metal tunnel where it hops into a case with a clockwise and counter clockwise wheel. These have small 'buckets' that the orange will drop into. When the orange meets up with the contrary rotating wheel it gets smushed and then sliced into two. Underneath this meeting place it drops into a lower bucket where the two halves sit continuing to get smushed by the rotating wheels. The juice then drops through a small filter and then into another smaller bucket where there is a spout. The contraption is very Pee-Wee's playhouse. I loved it. Farewell concentrate!!

I am speaking Spanish! I can understand a surprising amount of what they're saying, but all I can really retort so far is si, bueno or no. But it's been interesting because I'm not only learning Spanish but also body language because that's a large part of all I have now, too. A guy came up to me today and had a “Dad” moment. He walked up to me and said “Olive-o's?” Now, I was pretty sure that the translation for olives isn't olive-o's but I gathered the old guy was doing the best he could and I pointed to the glass jars. Did he think I worked there? Did he think I was a local? Do I have a lisp?

I took some pictures of the sites as we were driving around and when we'd catch a pretty view I'd make Terri walk over to take pics with me. We're a bit in the country in Marbella. The city is located more in Malaga. But, I talked to Booby Suzy today who was in the Vodophone store and she said life will change dramatically once May hits. She said then there will be parties during the day everywhere, the parties at night go until 6 in the morning, and there will be 10 times as many people circulating around and at the beach. I haven't even touched the ocean yet!

Also, in case you thought bankers hours were ridiculous, here they are open from 8-2 during in season months, and 8-1 during off season. Enough said. Everything lies in perspective!

Lastly, I'm voting to get an automatic car because right now there's nothing more intimidating than learning how to drive a stick in a place where I don't know where I'm going with signs in a language I don't speak with 293 roundabouts per square mile, tiny roads and steep hills. Who wants to do that? So we planned on adding me to the rental car today, but after 8 hours of running errands we headed home to grab dinner, put away groceries, and use our beloved internet. Hopefully tomorrow we can continue to adjust our hours and wake up in what I consider the “real” morning. I teach tomorrow! It'll be the first day of the kick-off week. So excited to dance!

In the pictures:

The one with the driving circle and the massive building behind it – that is a SuperStore containing a grocery store.
You can also see a bull ring, one of the pastries I bought (the tower is a Meringue), the view from the place we ate lunch, another view of the ocean, the weird luggage shopping carts (and Terri) and the massive fruits and veggies, and a few others.

Enjoy!

P.S. Bano is so outdated. If you're cool you say “Donde esta el toilet?” (I'm just making this up because all the signs and Brits say toilet.)