Ronda, Spain, Spanish, Themes, and Everything Else

From time to time you get distracted by other things and wander off on a tangent like I've done for the last week, and since a blog is meant to be a personal journey I haven't been too worried about updating it. Although when I logged in this morning I found a couple of comments and a few emails wondering where I am and what I'm doing. So, for those people, I'm OK.

The countryside in Southern Spain has become quite green recently, the rains back in early February really helped and over the last few days we've had some more, so as you can see it isn't all desert like at the moment. In fact we're really starting to love the look of the countryside here, the rocks are starting to become friends, and the more you see them or walk over them the more you realize how attractive they are.

Many of the peaks around these parts are limestone which is what gives them that really sharp angular look. Being limestone the rock is a light grey, almost silver in the harsh afternoon sun. Places where there have been rock falls are the most interesting though, that exposes a lovely orange colored rock that turns a wonderful shade of shimmering orange at sunset.

These rocky fall areas are also where you get to see some of the most beautiful little mountain gardens. What happens is that a bunch of rocks fall and splinter into many smaller rocks and of course the small amount of top soil somehow manages to find its way to the top within these crevices. Read More

I'm having a bit of trouble getting my regular feed to work in Google Reader, it has been working, but my latest post about feral cats in Spain didn't get through and hitting the refresh button on Google Reader isn't working.

Strangely, Feedburner, BlogCatalog and Technorati have all been able to pick up my site feed quite happily and are displaying my latest post. So the only conclusion is that Google Reader is letting me down. Is anyone else having the same problem?

Isn't she cute, our little gatita? See, you've learned a new Spanish word, gatita is kitten, and we know she's female because the word ends with 'a', if she was a boy we'd say gatito; if you suddenly find yourself with an entire litter of kittens you'd say gatitos, cool heh?

This little lady isn't actually ours, nor are we hers yet, she's one of the feral cats that live in the vicinity but my other half, bless her, is determined to convert this little one into a regular domesticated cat who sits in your lap and purrs.

Feral cats in Spain are tolerated in ways they never would be in other places, Spaniards have a love hate relationship with them; they love the fact the cats hunt mice and rats, they hate having them around, many are quite happy to see them starve.

Not my other half, she feels sick to the stomach when she sees a feral cat looking all ragged and beaten up and would probably stand for local government on a cat lovers ticket if she could speak more Spanish! Read More

You really need to see this photo large, go ahead, click it, isn't that one of the most spectacular looking lizards you've ever seen?

I've been trying to photograph one of these for about a week or so, I found a small nest of them in the heart of Ronda in the garden overlooking the Puente Nuevo but we've had to go to the garden everyday for the last week just to get one photo, and I must say I was very proud of myself for finally getting this.

My little friend here is about 15cm long and this picture was taken from about 1 meter away, I couldn't get any closer, and I've had to crop about 60% of the photo. Sorry about the lack of focus on the rocks above the lizard, unfortunately he was about to run away from me and I just had to snap real fast. From what I've been able to research it seems this is a Podarcis hispanicus "morphotype 2", otherwise known as a Spanish (Iberian) Wall Lizard.

There are times I just wish I was 21 again, which sadly seems so long ago these days. You see I've been afflicted with the dreaded grey hair that creeps on as the years pass. I looked in the mirror today and noticed a few more since the last time I looked, but now its really getting quite noticeable.

If any of you have grey hair, do you remember that feeling of finally realizing that youth is now a thing of the past, that you're heading towards middle age, did any of you resort to hair dye to fix the problem? This is where I'm at now. Do I color, or just pretend it doesn't bother me?

I'm lucky that I tend to keep my hair quite short, number two down the sides, blending to a four at the top, followed by scissor cut across the top, and always razored around around the base for that neat clean cut army style look. Keeping a short cut likes this also means I use gel in my hair quite a lot and this disguises some of the grey, not sure how but it does. Read More

Acinipo is literally a ruin, there is no town left to give any idea of what the place must have been like in Roman times. These days its a hillside with numerous piles of rocks and just three excavations, one of which is what's left of the Ampitheater.

We drove up there yesterday because the sky was a lovely clear blue which doesn't happen here very often. You see being up on the mountains between the Mediterranean and the Iberian plateau the clouds get stuck here and tend to sit quite low meaning we often get really bad haze even though there is no smog. Yesterday then should have been a rare opportunity to get some great snapshots.

Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the reason the sky was so clear was because the wind had turned, so instead of balmy winds of the south, we were not getting freezing cold winds from the north. And Acinipo sits at the top of an escarpment that is as exposed as you can get in these parts. I pity the poor buggers who had to live there a couple of thousand years ago when they didn't have gore-tex or central heating. Read More

This is my list of the top ten Free Learn to Speak Spanish resources available online. Learning Spanish is difficult enough and can be very expensive after books, courses and private tuition have been paid for, so I went hunting for free resources where I could get started. Hopefully this list Free resources will get you started too, and it is my hope that after trying some of these resources you'll understand a few of the basics be better able to choose the right book or course for to continue your study of Spanish. If you like this list please say hi in the comments, Buena suerte aprender español y gracias por visitar mi blog.

10. Free Spanish Phrasebook to download, written by John Slocum of Amerispan, this compact little phrasebook begins with a quick guide to Spanish grammar and then over two pages goes through a comprehensive pronunciation of Spanish sounds. The rest of this 31 page book is devoted to common phrases that any tourist in a Spanish speaking country should know. You will need to register with a valid email address to get the download location but its worth it for this ebook.

9. Free Spanish ebook to download, this free Spanish ebook course available directly from me is the complete version of the popular "Spanish - Romance Language of 417 Million" and includes all three .pdf documents to print and learn Spanish. In total over 85 exercises to learn and practice including vocabulary, grammar, and miscellaneous facts about Spanish and its people. No need to register, simply download. Read More

First things first, most Spaniards don't speak English as a second language, most don't even understand very much. They may have learned some at school or maybe picked up a few words here and there, but they are Spanish first, and if you're in Spain they kinda expect you to speak a bit of their language. In the tourist areas they speak some English but I think it would be fair to say most of them would prefer not to. You see many years of putting up with drunken British tourists has pretty turned them off English even though it is considered the world language.

In fact we've found that speaking German seems more popular in Spain. Other than the expats who live here, a lot of older Spanish men speak some German because a lot of them went to work in Germany after the war, and because of Franco many of them had to stay there until the late 70's. Women are different, most stayed in Spain so didn't learn German although you might find the odd person who speaks some French since that was the main language taught in schools for the baby boomer set.

Italians and portuguese speaking people seem to get by quite easily, most Spaniards I've spoken to have said if an Italian speaks slowly they can understand them although they themselves will reply in Spanish. Portuguese is different, and sounds different, but again with a little patience you could be understood.

However, if you only speak English, you're going to struggle to get by. Expats quickly get to know the local shops, banks and restaurants where some English is spoken. Get to know the Union Jack, regardless of which English speaking country you're from, it may be the only indication in the window or behind the counter that someone there will understand some English. Read More