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It’s been a very long time since I wrote an entry on this website. If you think all I did was just lie down waiting for a walk and dinner, you could not be more wrong!

I’ve been busy getting to know the doggies in the neighborhood and a few humans. I’ve been studying the lifestyle of Spanish dogs and now living the vida loca! So I hope you understand why I haven’t been spending a lot of time in cyberworld.

I hope to write more starting today though as J2 & A2 are very insistent that I do something about this website or they won’t pay for the fees next year ( What??? Delete my life out of cyberspace just like that???? )

So just to get you, my dear fans, updated about my life, here’s a summary:

• I’ve met two wonderful ladies down in the gorge: Marcie & Rita.
  They live with Alex, J2’s friend and they’re the feistiest dogs I’ve met in a long time. Rita is actually from Thailand and went through the same harrowing experience as me of having to get on a plane to get to Spain. Marcie used to belong to a not-so-nice man before Alex took her in.

  They’re the fastest dogs on the face of the planet and Rita herself is almost half a goat. She can go up the gorge using only her four paws. What a show-off, I tell you. I’m often tempted to follow her just to see what it’s like up there, but I have a better sense of responsibility than most dogs, so I don’t stray too far from J2 & A2 (Don’t listen to them if they tell you it’s because I’m too fat to do it. Because I can if I wanted to)

  Marcie’s a whole different act. She’s half a fish. She enjoys bathing in the river and I love fooling around with her.

  Anyway, despite these strange habits, I love them both. I love running and playing with them when we walk in the gorge – and that’s always more fun than just trying to walk as slow as possible because A2’s short legs keep her 50 meters behind.

• I’ve also become friends with 2 half-human- half dogs
  I’m not so sure what they are but they’re hardly human. There names are Luca & Clement. They’re nowhere as big as most humans I’ve seen and Clement even walks on all fours! Can you believe that? Luca has the energy of a dog and sorts of likes me, I think. I’m not allowed to play rough with them though which is annoying.

  I would really like to play with them more often. But A2 is so uptight when it comes to those two.

  “Thomas, no jumping at Luca!”
  “Thomas, don’t lick Clement’s face!”
  “Thomas, Thomas, Thomas!”

  It’s not like I’m any bigger than them. Besides, what damage could I possibly do? Me? Cute, lovable and fun???

  Ok…Ok. So I did jump at Luca once in Bermejales lake and he fell right down on his butt..

  Everyone went stir-crazy!

  I thought it was very funny. And I bet little Luca thought exactly the same thing just before he decided to cry instead.

• J2 & A2 have finally become disciples of Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer. Long story. All hogwash. I’ll tell you more about it in another entry. Really spoilt my fun.

That’s all for now, peeps. I’m off to migrate to the gorge!

Minus 0 degrees In Sunny Andalucia?You Bet!!!!

Cold — that’s what winter in Alhama De Granda was like — both inside and outside our apartment. They might as well have left me to sleep on the balcony and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

Surprisingly enough, the cold made me realize that I can work as one of those contortionists you see on tv. At the height of winter in the freezing cold, I could actually curl myself into a tiny ball with my tail covering my very very cold and delicate nose (No pics I’m afraid as A2 has become very very lazy lately)

Our apartment, as great as it is, is just not designed for the bitingly cold winter of  Alhama de Granada. Oh no! We do have a couple of oil radiators but these we used exclusively for the living room. Leave that room and you find yourself in Husky Land – and this includes the bedroom where I spend 8 hours every night.

Okay… okay, winter wasn’t really all that bad. As Carmen, our neighbor says, “It was a bit too warm for winter.” I wanted to disagree but A2 says that some weather bureau did say it was Spain’s warmest winter in 40 years — that wasn’t of any consolation to me at all while my nose and as* were quickly turning into icebergs as I ate dinner in the kitchen.

To be fair though, we did get a fair bit of warmish weather. There were still a lot of sunny days and blue skies which never failed to brighten our days.

Anyway, as you can see from this blog, I haven’t done much to this website in the past 3 months.  My paws have been too cold to work the mouse and the computer keyboard. This doesn’t mean it’s been an uneventful winter though.

So in the next few days, expect my blog entries to be an update about all the things that’s happened to our lives this past winter in Alhama De Granada. Grrr woffooooooof grrrr

Yippee…Yippeee…Yippee… I finally have my bed…

After 3 months, lots of waiting and a million email-exchanges between our mover and A2, we finally have our stuff.

Yippee!!! Can’t get over it.

So it’s a good day. There were lots of boxes around the house and papers strewn all over the floor. J2 and I had fun playing with the papers.

Our Andalucian apartment is now filled with stuff which we were so used to when we were in Ha Noi. The same posters, pictures, knick-knacks, and a bookshelf full of books.

J2 is ecstatic! His thousand and one books are finally here as well as his hundreds of DVD’s.

A2 finally has her warm weather clothes. Perhaps, I won’t hear her complain about how cold it is anymore. I’m crossing my fingers!

J1 just sent an article in the Olive Press Newspaper mentioning that the plans for a golf course to be built in Alhama De Granada has been curtailed. Apparently, the members of the Alhama De Granada board have opposed it.

As they should.

According to the article, “a great deal of land near the Sierra de Alhama, Tejeda and Almijara National Parks would be lost if the plan went ahead.”

This move could mean that tourism in Alhama De Granada will not take off as quickly as the mayor had hoped. Bad news for some, but it’s also good to know that some people are concerned enough to preserve Alhama’s natural environment.

With Alhama becoming the next big thing in Granada, I think it’s important for the powers that be to make sure it doesn’t turn into just another tourist dump.

Sustainable development, people…..sustainable development!

—ooooo—————-oooooooo———-ooooooo

For those of you who are thinking to spend their holidays in Alhama De Granada, here are some things you can do during your stay here.

1. Walk down the gorge to the little lake.
2. Walk the narrow streets of Alhama. Go to the tourist office in the ayuntamiento and ask for a map. The nice ladies in the office speak a little English.
3. Have tapas in one of the restaurants. Sit at the bar and look like you’re one of the locals
4. Join a photography class (A2 just met someone who’s holding photography tours around Alhama, we will give you the details soon)
5. Sit in one of the Plazas and watch people.
6. Go swimming in one of the outdoor swimming pools. One in Piscina Pato Loco and the other in the Balneario (summer season)
7. Go for a swim in the lake. Or go boating, horseback riding, camping..
8. Take a long walk in the nearby national park.

Can’t Stop Talking About The Weather In Andalucia

A2 still can’t stop going on and on about the weather in Alhama De Granada. I can’t think of a day when she wasn’t talking about it.

I guess when you come from a country that has pretty much the same weather the whole year, the changes of the seasons never cease to surprise you. It’s not that she doesn’t like it. She seems to look forward to the snow as much as I do.

She just can’t stop talking about it.

The weather in Alhama De Granada is a bit funny though and living in a house that is not insulated for the cold, doesn’t make things better. (Sure we were very happy during the summer when it was scorching hot outside and cool inside, but it’s a totally different story in the winter).

It’s been sunny these past few days. So we can stay out in the balcony and be warm. But once we go back inside the house, it’s like being in a freezer. I love it! but I heard that A2’s blood is thin which supposedly means her body’s just not made for the cold weather.

Oh well, she can just wrap herself in bundles of clothes and she’ll be fine (and that’s with the heater on!)

If you want to know the weather forecast in Alhama De Granada for the week, just go to the homepage. Remember though that the temperature listed is for the day. It gets very cold at night. It has dropped to 5 degrees Celsius this week.

2 New Restaurants In Alhama De Granada

We were just told that 2 new “special’ restaurants have opened in Alhama. One is a pizza place called Al Dente and another place in Caicin not far from Alhama De Granada.

We’ve heard good reviews so far, so we’re looking forward to trying them out (unfortunately, many of the restaurants don’t allow dogs inside during the winter so I might not be able to go…bummer!)

The pizza in Al Dente is supposedly very good— like real pizza, whatever that means. J2 & A2 are excited about it, so I bet they’ll try it anytime this week.

They looked for the place today hoping to have lunch, but it’s closed on Sundays. It took them a looong time to look for the place. They say it could do better in another location. But they still plan to go there soon. If the food turns out great, then they’ll just disregard the fact that it’s located at the edge of town surrounded by big bodegas.

The restaurant in Caicin on the other hand, is apparently a very special place to go to. Like oasis in the dessert. Don’t know if that’s possible, but from everyone’s description this seems to be what it’s like. It’s a restaurant that’s out of place in the countryside — it’s the same as a deli that you’ll find in the streets of London or Paris!!! We should go there soon and see for ourselves.