24 November '04, Wednesday. This has been quite a day over all. We went out this morning for a long walk following the coastline. The weather was really very nice today, even though it was still a little windy. Nature is kind of like Seattle is during Spring, that is, the grasses are all green and starting to grow, and the flowers are coming into bloom again. We even came across a crew mowing and trimming a lawn. I know that the first time we were here, it was nice and green and there were flowers blooming, but this is more like the first part of Spring. There is a ton of new construction going on here building condo’s and new hotels. The construction is much different from that at home and even much different than we saw in Mexico. Unlike Mexico, it is almost all concrete “framing” and then the walls are filled in with a brick like product. These bricks are fired clay, about 4x4x8”, and are “honey coned” in structure (otherwise they have about 8 to10 hollow spaces in each brick). Then each side of the brick and framing is covered with a coat of cement or tiles to finish it off. The final results is very becoming. There is no heating system and not too many air conditioners. The hot water system is most always solar. We have solar hot water here and in this weather it is cold in the morning and if the sun is bright enough in the afternoon, it will warm up enough to give you a warm shower till about 6 pm. I don’t always get a shave in, so about every 3rd day I go in for a “Turkish shave” and massage for 4,mil lire ($2.20). Yesterday I was in the living room of our apartment and the light fixture fell out of the ceiling and hit me on the shoulder and then ricocheted onto the floor to break into a thousand pieces. My shoulder still smarts… Louise has just started sneezing and her head is all stuffed, so our guess is this is the start of the “cold season” for us as well. I marked my drinking bottle to try in avert the inevitable. Oh well, it’s just a cold….Louise has dipped into the files we have in “Bumble Bee” and came up with the journal from Bruce and Peg. Every time we re-read this journal we continue to find it very entertaining. I also want to introduce you to another journal (you might want to put this in your favorites) that we have found to be very good…it is the one that Ralph and Susan write. If you remember, they are the couple from just outside Calgary and we met them in Kas. You can find their site at www.cantravel.ca/keith/intro.htm.