Monday update

I am a bit behind in posting, partly because I am now sharing the chromebook with Bean. When we went to the Costa Tropical two weekends ago, we unfortunately left Bean's tablet behind on the bus! It turned out that when we arrived, instead of there being a bus station, it was just a bus stop at the side of the road and we had to embark quickly. Bean had fallen asleep so he also had to wake up, get his bearings and things and get off the bus. It wasn't until early evening that we realized it had been left on the bus. Bean was very sad about this and shed a few tears. We were in a British pub at this point, waiting for our evening bus home (since there isn't a bus station!) and the very nice owner tried to help us track it from her tablet, but I don't have the tracking option on for the tablet. I then found the bus company's address and drafted an email from my phone reporting that we had lost it. My email kept freezing though and I decided to restart my phone [lesson coming here...]. I restarted my phone, and discovered that I needed the code that the phone company had used to set up the phone, the one that they said I wouldn't ever need again, a different code than the regular one I use to sign into my phone. I did not have this code, and our return bus tickets were now locked on my phone. Once again, I approached the very nice pub owner and explained the situation. She suggested that we could log onto my email account using her laptop and could print the tickets off on her printer and this is what we did. Thus, another stress filled, frustrating attempt to communicate in my basic Spanish with the bus driver was avoided.

Just this past weekend, a message arrived from the bus company saying they had found the tablet!! We were both so excited and took a cab out to the station to pick it up yesterday, but when we got there we saw that although it was very similar, it wasn't ours. Bean was amazingly accepting of this. So proud of that. We then went to McDonald's which was likely just as exciting to Bean as the prospect of getting his tablet back was. There are a few Burger King's around and about, but this is the first McD's we have come across. Yes, I try to steer him away from them as much as possible, but sometimes you just have to appreciate them for what they are: a hot tea, free wifi and a happy child.

On another note, I started private Spanish lessons today! I contacted two different schools that were within close range of the bus stop in Granada, and ended up with one I am happy with. It was a bit scary to hand over my credit card for 20 hours of private lessons with a teacher I hadn't met. Many years ago I took one-on-one Spanish lessons for two weeks, four hours per day, and the teacher I had for the first week was an angry and bitter person. So much of the conversation we had was her seeking validation for this anger. By the end of the week she even invited me to have lunch with her at her apartment and I had to find a graceful way of getting out of it, which I did thankfully. Anyway, I was just a bit nervous about who I would get for a teacher but I took the leap and the young woman I had today was nothing like that other lady. She is lovely and I am appreciating this chance to learn from a native. It is a bit like having a cultural advisor at the same time, and someone to ask all the questions that it is nicer to hear about from a living human and not just google.