Tuesday September 13th "Break; Champions"

My long silence over, I thought it was time to update this portion of my site. First of all I was sick of an April date staring at me every time I logged onto the site. Second of all I needed some time off from updating my life on this page. Seeing as I couldn't even keep up with it all myself for a few months...well, it's hard to update what's going on for me when I barely had time to reflect. And I seriously needed a break in between work and other events. Since I have last updated some of the following things have happened, all of which I plan to write about at some point:

• My mother and step-father have come and gone after a 4 month stay. We moved them in around late February and then out in late June. We were welcomed back to the world of signing leases, setting up utilities, and furnishing an apartment. And then we dismantled and disconnected everything! Add to this the sadness you feel after being used to having family live just down the street and it was physically and emotionally tiring. We had a wonderful time and met many visitors - almost every week we found ourselves in El Rinconcillo giving someone a tour!
• Betis won the Copa del Rey and qualified for Champions League. The first match is tonight versus Liverpool, and we can hardly wait. Then matches against Chelsea and Anderlecht should make the season interesting.
• After many months of waiting I received my official tarjeta de residente. Funny how I kept thinking it was all over only to show up at the offices in Plaza de España to learn there was another step involved. Patience was the lesson learned, and I should have known better than to think it would be easy.
• Lanzarote! A brief break took us to the Canary Islands, Lanzarote to be specific. We spent 5 days and nights there and learned we needed a few more. A total disconnect on a small island was perfect. I hope to post these pictures as well as add some information on my side trips section in the coming month.
• North Carolina! We spent another 72 hours from hell flying from Madrid to Munich to Charlotte. Miss one flight (or rather, suffer from delays) on this journey and you can count on a lot of extra travel time. Stupidly we had purchased a separate ticket to get us closer to Maryland and a family reunion. As this was not connected to our international flight we lost our tickets, had to rebook to another airport at an inflated price and then rent a car to drive 5 hours after a Munich to Charlotte to D.C. flight with a 4 hour layover. Add this to our 12 hour stay in the Madrid airport and you can see just how much fun we had! We spent some time visiting friends, doing taxes, visiting with my lawyer, sorting through a year's worth of mail, moving our grandmother to a new apartment and of course seeing family. We did manage to escape to the beach for a week.
• Wedding: the wedding of my sister-in-law and the many activities surrounding it: clothing required, parties, planning and gifts. And it's not even our wedding! Still, we hope to learn a thing or two before we begin to plan ours for next year.
• Real estate. Beginning a very slow search, we sat back and listened to our friends and their hardships of purchasing a house in a small town outside of Seville. I won't name names - either buyers or their contracted lawyer - but I did learn whom I won't hire to help us out when it comes time to buy. Seriously, we learned a lot, and now that it's over we look forward to visits outside of Seville!

There is certainly more, but life moves on and the past is the past, so on and so forth, blah, blah, blah... My break meant not answering all of the emails to this site I should have. I can only say send them again if you can, and I am working backwards to answer most. Again, tonight is Liverpool and I must run to finish work, eat, take a very short nap, then work, then do a little screaming at the match. Another report is coming tomorrow.