The Great Wall begins its ascent

Woke up this morning and headed straight for the coffee. This is becoming rather habitual I think, but it's a nice start to the day at the very least. Cup in hand I walked over to The Alamo in my pajamas to see what was going on. The workers started building the wall today, so I wanted to see if they actually came in spite of the cold weather – they did! I was shocked.

Had some more coffee that Marianne made, then kind of puttered around looking lost, and generally getting in the way for ten minutes or so before heading back home to get dressed. Paddy came back from his walk with Una and we decided to drive into Sahagun to pick up some things, check email, and see if Paddy's green ink pad had arrived. I went to the Cafe Zentral while Paddy did the shopping. Still no word from Jeremy about that phone I have here. I really hope I can use it, but if I don't hear from him in a day or so I'm going to have to track him down on his cell. Concerning things more entertaining, Rebekah joined a popular online social group, which I'm sure all you college-goers know what I'm talking about. I'm glad she's finding things to do Stateside. (Can't wait to get you back in Spain though Reb! I know Paddy misses you a bunch too.)

After Internet-ing for my alloted half hour I walked over to Lupa to meet Paddy in the check out line, bagged up our things and we headed back to the car. I was looking through the El Pais he'd left in the car from yesterday and discovered there are Sodoku puzzles in each issue. Score, something in the Spanish newspapers that isn't foreign to me–well, I guess they are literally, but I was excited nonetheless. We got back and James showed up with his laptop and a 280GB external hard drive, asking me to transfer music from my iPod. Luckily the iPod rip program installed on his laptop without a hitch, so transferring the 12,000 some odd tracks was much faster than Windows would have allowed. James was so amazed by the fact that I had my own little room too. He also gave me a copy of this program called PortableApps, which will allow me to download email to Thunderbird saved on my travel drive. That's a blessing, as Google can make such a mess of my messages sometimes. I'd heard of the program before, but it had slipped my mind as something I should download before I left home.

Paddy had some beans cooking that he whirled into a soup for our lunch. Paddy makes really excellent soups, seemingly out of nothing sometimes. After eating I hunkered down with a couple Sodokus I'd torn out of older issues of the paper and went to work on them. Got bored with that after three or four of them so I decided to start writing a letter to Hannah. She doesn't have Internet access at home, so I figured there'd be a better chance of her getting her actual mail than checking email on a regular basis! I think it was the longest letter I've written since coming here. Guess I just had a lot to say, ha ha. I miss seeing her late nights and going to Denny's for coffee and our regular talks. (Edit: I miss the rest of you too, so I don't want to hear any crap!)

Paddy went up to have a siesta after we ate and Sebastien went back over to The Alamo. The plumber came back and actually hooked the lines up to the main street line. Things are really happening over there today. I listened to some more of my book, Paddy got up and went over to some town meeting that is held on Tuesdays. I gathered up some wood so we could make a fire and then Una and I took a short stroll over to see The Great Wall, and wandered up around the bodegas and back home.

After Paddy came back he started on dinner which was really excellent. Some ground meat cooked with red peppers and some salsa along with spinach and curry rice. It was a unique combination of Indian meets TexMex, but was very good. After our meal I finished my letter to Hannah which I'll mail tomorrow, and now I'm ready to hit the sack. Huttah.