feria de jerez

What a fabulous day!

I haven’t been to the Feria de Jerez since May 2005. It is absolutely my most favourite feria, much better than the very famous Feria de Abril in Sevilla. And so yesterday myself, Nog, Jay, Pipocas & Chucky & Kidlet, “R” (another of the ladies) and her visiting friend all converged on Jerez to spend an afternoon at the fair…

casa az blogfriends meet

“Perhaps one day we can have tapas together in real life!”

Thus spake Wandering Coyote in her comment on yesterday’s post. And this got me a-thinkin (always a possibly dangerous activity) which then led to wondering about organising a ‘weekend getaway’ meet here for blogfriends who either live in the EU, or are planning to be in Europe and might be able to also pop over to Sevilla, or who own their own jets . . . whatever!

my second wordpress anniversary!

Gosh, seems like it was just a year ago that I was doing this.

In many ways this second year of casa az was even better than the first. I’ve met even more wonderful people, including two that are threatening planning to visit this summer - nursemyra and daisyfae (eep! Sevilla will never be the same!). I also had a recent visit from hmh and her husband, as well as from my dear friends Sara & Steve who were here last autumn (met on h2g2 but they also show up here from time to time).

So far I’ve been keeping up with the blog 365 challenge, though now that my real life is picking up I don’t know if I’ll manage the whole year. But I’ve actually been enjoying it because it makes me think about my day and then come up with something that happened, or something I came across, that I’d like to share or make a note of here.

Well, just to say that I’m very happy to still be here with you all.

Because it really is you guys that make this all worthwhile.

new external hard drive

It’s my latest gadget!

Met up with “J” yesterday (one of the ladies who do more than lunch) and we ended up over at my place. After a bit of vino and chatting she not only showed me how to organise my new iPod but she also convinced me that getting an external hard drive was much better than trying to back stuff up on CDs.

I mean, remember this post? I have not even attempted backing anything up since then. Just the thought of faffing about trying to find the right CD somewhere within the various boxes and then updating it, and repeating this painfully tedious process over and over again … well, nuff said.

And so after a very late lunch Nog and I went out for a walk to Fnac and I found this baby on special offer - 160 GBs for 70€. And it’s so small, just 12cm x 8 cm x 1.5cm. So I could actually carry around all of SB’s data in my handbag or jacket pocket if I wanted to. This is seriously cool.

Gosh, I just get more geeky every day.

ladies who do more than lunch…

Some of you may recall that back in January I went to my first AWC luncheon - and last month to my second one - at which time I became an official AWC member.

Well, last night there was a ‘new members tapas night’ scheduled and so Pipocas and I thought we should drop in since we are, in fact, new members. We also decided it would be a good idea to meet for pre-drink drinks before the event just in case of … well, whatever. Then awhile later - where had the time gone? - I got a call from Rena (one of the AWC directors) while Pipocas and I were on our second pre-drink drink asking if we were still coming, so we high-tailed it over to the tapas bar that had been chosen for this event, just up the street…

yay! visitors!

My blog pal healingmagichands and her husband Jim are in Sevilla.

I first met hmh on h2g2 almost two years ago and she started her blog here on WordPress shortly after I did. Given her love of photography and writing, the blog format suits her much better than h2g2. I like it better too.

Anyhoo, they arrived in Lisbon early yesterday morning when their cruise boat landed and then drove to Sevilla … got here just in time for a late lunch at Modesto (those are post-lunch photos up there). Then a visit to casa az where they got to meet ‘da boyz’ and afterwards we took a short walk around the centre so that Ellie and Jim could work out where they were and how to get places (important stuff like the supermarket and where to find Mephisto sandals) …

Looking forward to a very nice week. It’s great when friends visit.

six feet under

Thanks to Pipocas I am now addicted to Six Feet Under.

She lent me the first series a couple of weeks ago, which I devoured pretty quickly. Then I picked up series 2 when we met for lunch yesterday (and did another dvd/book swap) at Casa Roman - missed a couple of good photo ops for the tapas blog that I’m still kicking myself about .

Also inadvertently spoiled a couple of upcoming surprises in the series by glancing through that Wiki link. But after getting through a slightly drunken post-lunch recuperation English class yesterday evening I made some Orville’s (hey - new popcorn mule coming in on Sunday!) and watched a couple of episodes. Does anyone else like this series as much as Pipocas and I do?

[Note to self: do not schedule classes after lunches with Pipocas]

tavira

As I mentioned over here, this was quite the spontaneous trip, which was also suddenly extended from an overnight stay to three nights when I found a charming little inn that had a special 3-night offer going. Pipocas and her husband Chucky (not his real name ) really made this trip special by taking Nog & me out for lunch every day and also driving us to places near Tavira that we would have never seen otherwise.

As Chucky is Portuguese he ‘did the honours’ at mealtimes, ordering all the food and drink so that we often didn’t know what was coming until it showed up at the table. This was quite a refreshing change for me since I’m usually the one doing this for friends visiting Sevilla. It was nice to be on the receiving end for a change and be totally taken care of.

Muito obrigada, Pipocas & Chucky!

Here are some of my travel notes on what we saw and did. There are also a few small photos here - if you’d like to see the complete photo album just click here…

~ Tavira photos ~

 

travel journals

I’ve been keeping notes on my trip to Tavira (did the same for Barcelona and Lisbon) and was wondering if anyone else does this. I use these notes to write little accounts of my trips and include some photos. But I don’t remember doing this before I had my blog.

So, who out there keeps travel journals and which has been your most memorable trip?

 

on the road…

[written at 12.30pm yesterday]

Writing to you from the top of a mountain somewhere in the Algarve. Was kidnapped picked-up today by Pipocas and her husband CHUCKY (who doesn’t like having his name mentioned on blogs - this is my revenge ) and driven up a very long and winding mountain road until I thought I was about to lose my brekky.

Nature all over the place. Meh.

Anyhow, just arrived in Cachopo (our destination for some reason) and next to the wee Museo Vivo - where they sell flax products and also show the flax-making process - I found this free internet access place! Interesting combination of high-tech inside with chickens pecking and clucking around outside the window.

Have no idea what the others are up to right now, but I know the Kidlet (P&C’s 4-year-old daughter) wants to have lunch soon so I’d better get going. I think we’re having wild boar.

Nog’s laptop can’t pick up the wifi connection at our inn, which is totally gorgeous and charming, btw, so I might not be around again till Thursday night.

Having a great time so far! Especially as we are being threatened with being taken over here for a cold beer after we get back to Tavira…