Well, we are back. The holiday is over and the heat, sunshine and sangria are well behind us now. What a fantastic time we had!! Spain was hot, dry, hassely, noisy, beautiful, peaceful, friendly and hostile all in one package.
Fuengirola on the Costa Del Sol is home to over 52,000 Brits looking for a new life in the sun.
Meeting up with some of our family there after 4 1/2 years was great and to witness their new lives in a foreign country was very interesting. One of the biggest hurdles was the language. At least moving to New Zealand we didn't have this problem and it really brings it home how much of a barrier a foreign language can be when living, not holidaying in a foreign country. Things like sorting out your telephone connection can be a major headache and everyday occurrences such as trying to tell the checkout girl in the supermarket that the juice she charged 3 euros for should only be 80 cents as it was on special offer just end up leaving you feeling exhausted and frustrated as you hand over your 3 euros. Its at times like these when I realise how pitiful my knowledge of the Spanish language is. These constant daily events of normal life result in the expat community rallying together to help each other out which leads to the fact that you are a British person living in Spain rather than a British person living with the Spanish people.
Fuengirola town was a small fishing village which succumbed to huge tourism development but quite a lot of the original village still survives if you look for it. The narrow streets and pretty church squares are there in amongst the bars and high rise hotels.
A relatively short drive in to the foot hills of the Sierra Nevada took us to Mijas and Frigialana which are 2 traditional white Spanish towns. They are spectacularly beautiful, peaceful and soaked in history with steep stepped streets built into the mountain side only wide enough for a donkey. We relished in taking in the architecture and atmosphere which is lacking in New Zealand.
One day we had a trip to Gibraltar which is of course still British. Seeing the monkeys that live there for real was a treat especially for Georgia!
One of the thrills for the expats though, is to go to Morrison's supermarket and Marks and Spencer's for 'English things', neither of which had any appeal for me. But again I think this has something to do with living in a totally foreign country.
Spain has a lot of appeal, beautiful scenery, lively people, excellent weather plus family living there and we were very sad to leave but we left with mixed emotions because its not as if we were returning to an ugly country. New Zealand is beautiful and peaceful and to be honest the constant noise and hassle in the main towns in Spain was very tiring. But New Zealand is so far away....
2 comments:
Glad you had a nice time, the photos are lovely. Of course we know Spain well, its one of those standard destinations all Brits holiday in I think.
We have some friends who moved to Spain. They built a farm and lived off the land, they never really needed to deal with the locals. But then one of them became very ill (with a brain tumor) and the barrier became vast. They had such trouble and have now returned to live in the UK.
I hope you really had a winderful 'holiday' and made sure you treated it as such! xx
yes it was lovely and it did give us the chance to check that Spain wasnt the place for us really. We looked at it with New Zealand eyes rather than English eyes if you see what I mean! Seeing family was great though and we have all made a much more determined effort to keep in touch now!
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