There is only one company on this base that we are allowed to use for our home telephone or internet. We have been waiting since December for our internet to be hooked up. It costs us well over $100 just for the installation, plus the monthly fee of $45 per month, plus the fee for the ADSL modem.

And we can’t get our internet hooked up because the LAST people who lived in our house didn’t pay THEIR bill. Can someone on the internet please explain to me why the former tenants’ irresponsibility is affecting my ability to get a paid service?

I call one number, they tell me to call another; I call that number, they yell at me for calling because they cannot help me, and tell me to call the other number back. I call the other number back and they say there is nothing they can do for me. I call customer service, and they can’t do anything because they’re not actually Telefonica, they just are there so we can pay our bill on base.

One thing I have noticed about Spain is that there seems to be no concept whatsoever of customer service. And it really pisses me off.

I was tagged in October and just saw it a couple of days ago…here’s a meme I was tagged on by Erin.

1) Shampoo and Conditioner - No preference. Whichever smells good and I’m in the mood to buy.

2) Soap - See above

3) Colors - Yes

4) Soda - Diet Coke, Sprite Zero, Root beer! and Dr. Pepper

5) Foods - I just love food.

6) Movie - Wizard of Oz…always brings back memories

7) Band - Dave Matthews Band and Blues Traveler

Disney Character - I am not a Disniac.

9) Actor - My favorite to look at? Brad Pitt. But I really like Anthony Hopkins for serious roles and Robin Williams for comedies.

10) Actress - Gwyneth Paltrow

11) Video Games - Asterix and Obelix Kick Buttix

12) Chuzzle

13) Store - Target

14) Alcohol - Baileys

15) Number - 1

16) Car -

17) Book - Harry Potter series

18) T.V. Show - House, The Biggest Loser

19) Website - Google.com and Dooce.com

20) Condiment - Sour cream

21) Fruit - Oranges, strawberries, bananas

22) Vegetable - Corn (on the cob)

23) Restaurant - Hmm, I love going out to eat. The Olive Garden is the place I always went to when I wanted an easy and cheap “let’s go out” restaurant. Perlan in Iceland was the best food and experience I had at a restaurant. And last week we went to a place in El Puerto de Santa Maria, just a tiny little pub, and had an awesome meal. I loved that place!

24) Blogger - Dooce.

25) Place - The Westfjörds of Iceland. Time stands still there.

The living room/dining area is done, the front entranceway is done, Anja’s room is done. Isak’s room is, for the most part, done now - I’m going to paint the bottom third of the wall green with a camouflage border, but the big wall is done - what a project! I was up til 5:30am this morning finishing it so it would be done Isak got home from a sleepover.

Preparing the wall to be camouflaged:

In the process of painting:

My companion in the wee hours of the morning:

Isak loves it!

I want to get one of those camouflage nets that has the leaves and stuff in it to put on his ceiling, and hopefully I’ll be able to find some camouflage bedding online…Isak loves camouflage and this room is going to be so much fun for him and his friends to play in!

Anja singing Avril Lavigne:

“Ah-ah, ah-ah, so much for my happy new year.”

Alas, I have no pictures. Don’t blame me, blame the fact that I used a camera with a card that I don’t have a card reader for, so I have several pictures stuck inside it. It reminds me of a commercial I saw a year or two ago for a printer, but I digress…

This week we have been in ICRCOC. The Navy has abbreviations for everything. You think the internet is bad with its LOL and its ROTFL and its ROTFLOLPIMP and its PIMPDADDIES, but you haven’t seen nuthin’ til you’ve seen the Navy work the alphabet. I work at the RLSO, which is the TSO and the SJA combining forces; we work in the same building as the NLSO and across from PSD, a bit far from the NCTAMS, down the street from NEMOC, a bit away from the MCSFCO, but in the same parking lot as NFCU. Yeah, so ICRCOC is the Intercultural Relations something or something (comething or comething?) and it’s the course that everyone has to attend when arriving in Spain. Usually you go the week after you fly in; in my case, my nose was shoved onto the (somewhat slow-moving) grindstone and this week was the first chance I got to attend.

It’s kind of nice attending; there is a lot of good information given out and Sr. Martin, the instructor, cracks me up. He’s been doing this for something like 30 or 40 years, and is so soft spoken and gentle, but is always saying the funniest things. The first two days were spent in the classroom, getting information about the base; the next two days were spent on field trips. We went into Rota the first day and had lunch - my first time trying paella, though it was a scaled-down version since it was just a starter course. B and I both had sea bass and I was more than a little bit put off by the taste, and not too thrilled with the preparation of it. But it was a good experience, and we got to go to a gorgeous church (photos to come when I get another card reader!) and a castle that used to belong to the Moors that was built in the 1400s, I think? We also visited a fish market and drove around in a GIGANTIC BUS on ittybittystreets - I couldn’t allow myself to watch or I would’ve most certainly had an anxiety attack.

Today’s field trip was to Jerez (Hereth) for breakfast - thick thick thick, bitter hot chocolate and churros!, and then walking around in the cold and yucky rain, then a store-mall-thing (here you can go to a mall but it’s only one store, kind of like going to a very large Macy’s that is its own store, but also with half the store as a discount store, but it’s still the same store…yeah.) and then Puerto de Santa Maria for lunch. We were given free time to find our own place for lunch, with a couple of ideas of where to go - ideas like Chinese and Mexican. Now, don’t get me wrong - I love Chinese food and I love Mexican food, but I am in Spain and I wanted to get some REAL Spanish food. We tagged along with Sr. Martin to a local bar - definitely not the kind of place you would find a tourist, which was perfect for what we were looking for. Sr. Martin ordered everything, and we just ate what was brought out.

And what was brought out, I am still surprised I ate. First was the tapas - Spain is famous for its tapas, which are appetizers, only not quite like American appetizers. We got a plate of olives (my second time eating olives in as many days - I actually quite like them! They’re green, and they have pits and stems and they’re ugly and you’d never find them in America, and they are SO GOOD.), a bowl of bread (which we were explained was not eaten before the meal, ever), quickly followed by three small dishes: one with beef and french fries, one with cuttlefish, and one with squid.

I squirm at the thought of squid. I get the heeby-jeebies at the thought of anything with tentacles. Yet here I was, with a steaming plate of tentacles, another of orange squid. Oh, well, when in Rome Spain! Gulp…I took a small taste of the cuttlefish (which looks very much like octopus and is in the same family) and - gasp - I liked it! I really liked it. Next was the squid, which despite the fact that I surprised myself by liking the cuttlefish, I was perhaps even more wary of this plate, but - gasp - I liked that too!

After our tapas (and a beer - Cruzcampo cerveza), we were brought a dish of garlic shrimp cooked in olive oil - absolutely delicious. Last was a salad of tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and PURPLE TENTACLES OF OCTOPUS, drizzled with oil and sherry vinegar. And, guess what? I liked that too!

I have been very surprised at how much I have liked the food here. I highly, highly doubt I will be preparing these kinds of things in my own kitchen, but I really look forward to going out again and having some of the local food.

Our tab for 6 beers, 3 plates of tapas, a plate of garlic shrimp and the octopus salad? 21.50€ (about $26), plus a 1€ tip. What a steal.

P.S. €€€€€ I am so cool €€€€€

I have almost finished the living room, save for re-doing the ceiling trim on two of the walls…long story, but I should be able to do that tonight or tomorrow hopefully. I am so happy with the colors, they’re so soft and warm and cozy and inviting, just perfect. When I opened the blue to show B, he just looked at me, and then said, “That’s a little metrosexual, isn’t it?” In the can it looked baby blue, but when it went up and dried, it was a nice steely blue, which was just what I had picked from the paint chip. Even B liked it when it was finished.

Anja’s bedroom was a complete PITA but so worth it. I went through almost two full rolls of masking tape for it, because I decided to do something a little different with the walls. With the structure of the room, I really like how the lines are with the colors. And rather than painting it solid, I used a wet sponge and painted the whole room that way. It gave it a really nice texture and looks a lot more fun than a boring solid wall.

Any guesses of how much longer til I fall off the ladder??

Oh, and Tamara - we started on the weekend, and this week I’m in Indoc so we’re out early…I came home at lunch today since we had an hour and a half and finished the green in Anja’s room, and then started as soon as we got home at 3:15 with finishing her room. I wouldn’t have had the time or the energy if I was working my regular job for regular hours!

I’ve been sick for the last week or so and it all settled in my nose a couple of days ago. I’ve taken to sleeping on the couch the last 2 nights, which I can do now that my couch is more than 16″ long, propped up by a big pillow and snuggled cozily into a warm and fuzzy blanket. The first night I slept like a baby, waking up to scream for a bottle only once and I didn’t even wet my diaper. I attributed my sound sleeping to the fact that I wasn’t laying flat where all the snot in all of Spain was hanging out in my left sinus. Or my right, if I turned over. Unfortunately, last night it didn’t matter and I was up several times but since I fell asleep at 7:30pm, I accumulated enough sleep by 8:30am to get a decent amount of rest.

Our morning started out with gernastics, and while the kids were running, jumping, and generally not paying any attention to structured activity, B and I checked out some racquetball equipment and got ourselves a good workout. Alas, I lost both games, and my dearly beloved husband got his first good look at me attempting to engage in an activity involving a ball and an object designed to hit said ball, which included seeing me swing with all my might to hit a ball, only to miss completely, or running into a wall, or just standing there stupidly as the ball whizzed by my head. But it was fun, or funny, depending on which side of the racquet you were on.

After gernastics, we bought Isak some dapper new shoes: silver and black and encouraging of stomping rather than walking with their fancy light up sides. Next was a stop at the home store where the toys are as well as the exercise equipment, furniture, and lawn mowers. It’s really quite logical the way the stores are laid out, don’t you think?

We got a gift for Isak’s schoolmate’s birthday party, and then we got a bike. For me. Because making an ass out of myself once in a day just isn’t enough. It is a nice little bike, with a helmet and some riding gloves and a very bright orange reflective vest since it’s obviously very easy to miss the chubby 5′11″ girl with the bright red helmet wobbly riding on the side of the road.

And then, since The World’s Smallest Mid Sized Car doesn’t fit a gallon of milk in it, much less a full sized bicycle, I had to ride it home. I hadn’t ridden a bicycle since I was probably 17 years old, save for that one time I rode B’s in Iceland and the wind blew me over into a ditch. And let’s not even discuss the state of my physical fitness, or rather the non-state, or the fact that I had to stop four times for water and I felt like I was having a stroke halfway there, either that or an alien was trying to invade the earth via a vein in the top of my skull.

To finish our day, we decided we would paint. I finally went to the paint store yesterday and bought the supplies, and when we got home and my blood pressure was down to only 1000/850, we started taping off everything and then, painting.

I am SO EXCITED. I bought a pretty shade of beige for the living room, but it was too dark so we had to mix white with it, which was a complete pain in the rear, but it ended up just the perfect shade. We’re doing one accent wall blue. Then I bought a light pink and a very pale yellowish green for Anja’s bedroom, and I’m going to sponge paint her room tomorrow. For Isak, he picked out a dark olive green, and he doesn’t know it yet but we’re going to paint the vaulted wall to look like camouflage. He is going to just love that.

I haven’t figured out what color to paint the entrance, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be some shade of orange to complement the paintings we have coming in our shipment; I also haven’t figured out what to do in our bedroom yet. I don’t even really have an idea of where to start in there.

For the first time since becoming a grown up, I have been able to paint my house pretty colors, to personalize it instead of having sterile white walls, to paint something that doesn’t show boogers quite as much as hospital white. It’s about time.