Robyn.Bowles.es

Yesterday marked one year of living in Spain. Today Samuel and I went into the city to go to “El Rastro.” It is a huge street market held every Sunday – full of clothes, hats, jewelry, CDs, DVDs, baskets. . . even kitchen sinks! We’ve known of it for almost a year – though it took us this long to experience it.

It was VERY crowded – a haven for pickpockets who, according to the tourist books, actually often try to sell what they’ve just stolen at one of many tables lined up along the side streets. We saw one such “shady” stand full of used cameras, CD players and other “gently used” items.

One week from tomorrow we will head home! I have to admit that the last week has been a little boring. I hate to say I’m bored, because there is always a lot to do – but I’m a little tired of spending my days reading, watching TV and swimming. . . whoa – I better take that back! Most people would LOVE to be able to spend days of just that! Don’t get me wrong – I’m very thankful for it! It sure beats running all over the city to teach, but it’s also been lonely. I think also as we near our departure date, we’re getting very anxious to go home! We chose the 16th as our departure date because it was the first day of lowered ticket prices; but I wish we could have gone home earlier. I look forward to the full schedule we have of seeing friends and family and helping out wherever we can while we’re there.

The past couple weeks have also been challenging because Samuel has been without his computer. That has made life hard for him because he does have A LOT of work to do and hasn’t been able to do it. A hinge on his computer broke in May and three weeks ago he finally felt like he was at a point in his work that he could take a break for a few days and send it in. We never expected it would take so long to get fixed. He’s spent hours on the phone with Tech Support in Ireland and in the U.S. trying to figure out what is taking so long and why he’s told something different each time he calls. In the last call we made on Friday we were told that Apple is awaiting a part from Thailand that apparently hasn’t even been manufactured yet!! If they can’t guarantee that it will be returned to us repaired by Friday (a long shot), we’re going to have to cancel the work order and hope they’ll send it back to us unrepaired! It’s been really hard for Samuel because that will have been four weeks of wasted time. Not to mention the additional time it will take when he does send it in again.

It’s hard to find a lesson in all this. The hardest part about it for me is that we’ve let other people down – he’s had some contracted work that he fully intended to complete before we left; but now he’ll have no time to do so. I just hope that they will be forgiving. At least we’ve learned for future reference to make sure the repair center has what is needed before sending the computer (if that’s possible!)

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