We have arrived!

Well, we've arrived in Marbella and things have been good so far! We're not too jetlagged (though I didn't get to bed until 2am last night and slept until noon today, but you can be the judge of whether that's normal or not).

We don't yet have internet at the apartment, plus we're not sure if we will at all for the time we're here, so right now we're at an internet café around the corner.

First off, the location! We're in a really great spot. A huge thanks to my friend Matt for helping us land a place and being an enormous help in our transition to Marbella! The apartment turned out to be at least as good as the photos we saw of it, plus it's located just south of the city center and directly on the central beach, Playa de la Venus. We have a sofa bed, so by all means, come visit! We're on the third floor, facing west, so we can see the sea and some more developments down the beach. We're only a couple minutes walk from old town (our taxi from the bus station in the north of town actually took us past the old Islamic city walls) and we've walked all through the old town and about 10-15 minutes east and west along the beaches to explore -- down to a hospital on the east and a supermarket/cinema/small mall on the west.

And speaking of supermarket, we decided to eat in last night (we had brunch at a tapas place in old town), so we stocked up on some basic groceries with two small trips to the store. The store was interesting in that we had to do a bit of translation to figure out what things were. (Aside: just for anyone who hasn't heard, both Michelle and I took French in school, not Spanish like every other kid in the US, so Spanish is still pretty new to us.) After struggling through "washing up liquid" (dish soap) and the like, we managed to grab mostly normal things, except for our pasta sauce which struck us as kind of odd, but ended up being quite tasty, if very plain.

On the topic of language, we've been trying to use our limited Spanish skills and at least make an effort. I'm very much looking forward to getting better and eager to learn another language, even if only on a limited basis. Two things to look out for, though, if you're ever getting a place in another country -- the actual contract and, if you have a furnished place, the inventory. It's not that I didn't think that they would be in Spanish, but it just did not cross my mind that we would run into them, I guess. The contract was easy enough -- simple terms, plus our realtor knew limited English and could explain simple things like "no sublet" in words we could understand. For the inventory, though, we had to sign on the spot when we got into the apartment, and unfortunately the list was only in Spanish. We went through the major items -- TV, couch, fridge, oven, microwave, range, coffee pot, etc., but I'm hoping to go through the rest like cups, plates, etc. before tomorrow so we can raise an issue if anything is missing. Our travel Spanish guide was not too much help in this regard ("One plastic fountain"... We have a fountain? Oh, must mean this water pitcher.) Of course, our book has all kinds of useful words that we'll run into, most of which did not help us with the inventory, like moat (foso), sexy (sexy), guilty (culpable), and rectum (recto). What kind of trip are you on when those words are useful to you?

Well, that's about all for now. I've embedded some photos above, but if you want to check out the sets we've uploaded so far, we have:

Moving out of DC
Arrival in Marbella
First day in Marbella