Weather is everything.
It has been interesting to see what means "winter" down here in Andalucia. Especially for a family like us, because of our roots, we know winter as supercold, dark, loads of snow- and very long.
Now after few months, I think this southern spanish winter is like Finnish May and June. Its sometimes chilly, sometimes rainy but mostly warm, gentle and sunny.
And most important- no snow. Snow has never been our cup of tea... we all hated it. Temperatures during daytime never gets ( yet) under +10 and nightime never under +5. Usually its something between +12-18.
BUT!
It does rain, this year especially, it has rained loads. All the northern snowstorms that shut down airports and caused chaos; came here as rain and thunder.
(Reminds me of the years I lived in Holland :D)
This huge amount of rain that we have got, has caused a great deal of problems. Andalucian infrastructure is not made for heavy rain. What we have seen in the news, big cities like Sevilla, Granada, Gordoba have been in serious danger: people have lost their homes because of the waterdamages and floads, streets are shut down and schools closed. Canary Islands have been also pretty bad hit. - Going to be a big bill to repair all that.
so... weather is everything!
Then comes days like today.. Sunny and warm, just amazingly beautiful. You forget all about rain that might have happened couple days ago. Streets are full of people, smiling, laughing, enjoying "la vida".
Sundays here are family days. On summertime, everyone goes to beach. Everyone! and for the entire day. You can see families sitting by the beach still at 9pm in the evening. I find this a lovely tradition. They have chairs and parasols and tables and many baskets of food with them.
- a real family day!
Now when its winter, everyone still goes to the beach. Walks around the paseo, (=beach-road that is many kilometres ) , with no rush anywhere.. enjoys long lunches in the restaurants, sleeps on the beach, reads a book, just sits and chats with friends and family, might pop in to a street market or just do nada - or goes to playparks to see friends.
All life here is outdoors with other people.
And we love that!
Today was amazingly beautiful day gain.. .
Here is some feelings of our Sunny Sunday in Fuengirola, 2nd Jan 2011;
NOW! This IS playpark!
That is FUENGIROLA Folks!
SUN IS HEAVEN!
