As you all know, and as I keep reminding you, I will be turning 39+1 (oh what the hell, the big 40) very soon. Well, every day I look at myself in the mirrow and I can see the small (some big) changes that my face and body have gone through, throughout the years…and it isn’t until you see pcitures of yourself that you truly begin to really notice the change.

Well, on Sunday a very talented photographer friend took some pictures of me in a park and well you can Click Here to see some of the results…For those of you who haven’t seen me in a while, you will probably notice the changes more than I and for those who see me everyday, well..Same old me…

I actually like the way they came out and I’m starting to accept my age better and better everyday. By the time Oct 1st rolls around I will have gotten a grip on the situation.

Bella learns how to crawl, check, learns how to walk, check, learns how to ride a bicycle, check, and now we can say bella learns how to swim, check!! Yes, a 15 day intensive swimming course and she is ready to go… Isabella is a very quick learner and our neighbors joke around that if the Olympics were not next month she could have easily entered and won a medal..hahaha, other predict she will be walking on water by the end of the summer.. But for now we are just happy she knows how to swim.

She is very scared of the water (we think, it’s the only thing she is afraid of), so it took her longer to let go and get swimming, but her fears are slowly going away, so let’s see what she will do next week!!.. Above is a quick video of her new achievement..

This weekend was a nonstop party for me.. With the announcement of my new drivers license my friends decided we needed to celebrate (any excuse for a girls night out) so on Friday night, the girls and I went out to dinner and a night of dancing around town..We got home early well.. very early for Spain just before 4 am.. We left when people were just starting to party.. Put it this way we finished having dinner at 1 am…

On Saturday night we were invited to the David Bustamante concert. Most of you probably don’t know who he is and I didn’t either but I found out he was the 4th runner up of the very first Operacion Triunfo contest, Spain’s version of American Idol. Matt’s friend is a friend of his and his guitar player Pablo Padilla . We hung out with Pablo backstage before the concert and briefly met David Bustamante, a very nice down to earth guy. The concert was in a little town called Novelda, a very small little town, but the concert was great, it started at 1 am (yes, we are in Spain, everything starts a little later than usual..) and we were home around 4 am…

Sunday, I was exahausted and just hung out in the pool making sure Isabella didn’t drown!! She just learnt how to swim and is a little too brave.. I will share that story tomorrow…..

Finally, it is over!!!! I just got back from the driver part of the Spanish drivers license and I passed!!! It was an ordeal just like the one to pass the written part. And after several driving classes I was ready for the final test.

I had to meet my driving teacher at 7:15 am in our “autoescuela” and from there 4 of us were on our way to the dreaded test. An argentinian guy who had already failed one time, a guy about my age that already had driven for a while but never got around to getting his drivers license and a 18 year old kid. We all packed in the car and headed towards the examination area. On the way the teacher reminding us of all we had to do, the rotondas, stop signs, etc…

Once there, we were surrounded by about 20 or more “autoescuelas’ with their corresponding students. We got off the car and had to wait for the examiners to come..We were all praying we got a good one because passing this test is a little knowing how to drive, a little luck and who is giving you the test. We got lucky and got a young guy who seemed nice.

I was then told that I would go first! I got in the car, my teacher next to me, the examiner behind with the guy who had been driving for a while but didn’t have his license yet. He said, get comfortable and when you are ready go.. I put on my seatbelt, checked all the mirrors, adjusted my seat and started the car. I had to back up and there were people everywhere from the other auto escuelas but I was on my way. I took a deep breath and said to myself “you can do this”. He made me turn right, then left, I passed a stop sign, he then asked me to parallel park where ever I wanted but there was no space so he told me to go into a parking lot and park there, luckily the parking lot was front parking so I went straight in.. He then said, ok thank you next!!!! I said “what, that is it?”, “Do you want more, he asked”, “No, thank you I replied”. But I thought to myself, what did I do so bad that its over…It could not be this easy…he filled in a paper and gave it to my teacher. I switched seats with the other guy and my teacher looked at me through the rear view mirror and gave me a thumbs up. I couldn’t believe it.

The other guy started to drive and got so nervous his car clonked out, then when he went to parallel park he hit a tree behind us, and when the examiner gave him another try he just couldn’t get it in and he failed. We went back and we got off and the other two got in. At that point I was pretty sure I had passed but until I heard it from my teacher I wouldn’t believe it. When the other two came back, I found out that I had indeed passed as well as the other two and that the examiner said to my teacher when I got out of the car and the other two went in..“It will be hard for me to pass people after seeing that girl drive she raised the level”...He did ask me when I sat in the back with him..”Have you driven before?”..

And so, I’m a legal driver.. I must thank my teacher for her patience with me and all the good wishes and prayers of my friends and family.. My neighbor last night gave me a printed stamp of a saint and told me to say the prayer written on it before doing the test and to place it in my back pocket and that he will help me. She said all I needed to do in return is go to his church in Valencia and light a candle.. and so when I found out I had passed, I called her and said “We are going to Valencia”.

I know need to wait for about a month to actually receive my drivers license, but in the meantime I could drive with a photo copy of the passed exam..I also have to place a big “L” on the back of my car for a year letting people know I’m a new driver and to be careful with me and can’t drive over 80 kilometers per hour.… And so ends my drivers license experience, that I think has been one of the most stressful situations in my life..

photo flckr by gwen

 
This entire week we have been having the weirdest weather ever for July..raining and “cold” (ok, cold for me, for others its “nice”, “refreshing”"nippy”). Anyway, it feels like those days right before the summer is ending and the fall is comming, where your kids dread going back to school and when you dread driving them around like a taxi driver to all their activities, birthday parties… and I started to think to myself, Oh my God, it’s mid July already!! Time is really flying by..

Before we know it , we are back in the routine of things….so I say, STOP what you are doing and enjoy the summer, enjoy your kids… Have fun in the sun and forget about everything for a little while.. Where are you going on vacation this year??

photo flckr by lovechild 

Ok, so I have very weird friends that send me all sorts of things.. This one I thought was very funny!! All you need to do is to go to oneplus and answer a couple of quesions and you will be able to know how many cannibals your body could feed! hahaha, I could feed 9 how about you??

Ok, so I have a couple of geeky teckie friends who come up with all sorts of neat things. This one was sent from an ex co worker who is always thinking of something new… I actually think this was a work project. Click HERE and enjoy!!!

Anyway, for those of you who don’t speak Spanish all you need to do is enter two names…. and the rest you will see..

As you all know I passed the written part of the Spanish Drivers license part but now comes the driving part. By law you need to take driving classes even if you know how to drive. You must drive a car provided by your “auto escuela” with a teacher that has control over all the pedals in case you F**& up!

I started 3 days a go and let me tell you lots of fun..Not only are almost all cars here stick shift but probably 99% of the auto escuelas only offer stick shift cars.. Thank god that I do know how to drive a stick since my first car (for those of  you who know me for a while could remember the “slutmobile” (and many of you know why) was a stick… anyway, the driving classes are shared with another student one drives half the class, in our case one drives into Alicante from Playa San Juan where we are and the other drives back.

For those of you who have never been to Europe, I must explain that the streets here are not as wide as in the states…there are certain streets where your car barely fits and where sometimes you must tuck in your rear view mirror because you will hit another car… having said that.. you could imagine just how much fun, I’m having..the teacher is very nice but she lets you know what you are doing wrong  time and time again…

Imagine driving in a city you barely know, some are one way streets with no signage, others so narrow (well I already explained above), while the teacher is telling you turn right here (and it’s a one way street where you can’t go in, she does this to see if you are paying attention), then she is reminding you, look in the rear view mirror, down shift, you are too close to the sidewalk, you forgot the turn signal, your shifting wrong, heel on the floor, you didn’t get on the right lane to go into rotondas (yes, rotondas, there are millions of them here and you need to know from which lane to get in and out, always reminds me of the Chevy Chase movie European Vacation when they are in France in a huge rotonda and it takes him all night long to get out of it, going round and round in circles…..

Ok, so what do you think? My teacher thinks I might be ready for the test mid July, I will let you know so you could all pray for me….

photos flickr by

dcphotolibrary 

autoescuelagong 

bakauatas