" Jingle bell, Jingle bell, Jingle all the way......home

I am here in Europe, south of Spain, Andalucia, Malaga... Antequera, zooming in on our street, our apartment, our bedroom. Listening to music! Typing on a ‘my’ wooden desk, typing .........my.................. last blog for this year about our Christmas in Antequera.

Christmas tree

Jingle bell, Jingle bell

Jingle all the way....home

Oh what fun it is to fly

To my own bed all the way, Yaay !!!

The last week and days we wanted to make sure we enjoyed every minute of it so it was packed with fun things and saying goodbye to everyone and everything.

We saw the huge chocolate ‘Belen’ (Christmas scene with manger) in Rute with Jesus, the cow, donkeys and the whole village made of chocolate.

yummy !! all made of chocolate

The Belen was displayed in a chocolate factory which also had a store full of chocolate and sweets. We bought some nice chocolate for our Christmas dinner on Noche Buena (Christmas Eve).

Here in Spain the evening before Christmas is the most important and all the family will join to have a special dinner.

We were invited to go for dinner with our neighbours from upstairs Pepe, Marie Paz, Pachi and Javier.

Mary Paz prepared a very nice dinner with special starters from Antequera and Andalucia and we made the dessert...well the desserts. Mom and I made 5 different dishes. We made Meringues with fruits and icecream from South Africa, apple pie and boterkoek (butter cake) from Holland and from Spain we bought special almond cake made by the nuns of the convent of Antequera and of course the chocolates which we bought the other day in Rute. I made small flags of the different countries and stuck them on the different desserts. It was a Fiesta!!!!

PRESENTS

Christmas eve dinner while watching
 president of Spain talk about crisis

The evening went past very fast and at 24.00 hours we had to run to be in time for the church which had a special Christmas service with a choir and music.

dad's present from me

After a few hours of sleep it was time for breakfast and ...PRESENTS!!!!!! This year we only made creative presents and recycled materials, like we did with our Christmas tree. I made special earrings from recycled t-bags for dad (not because he has to wear them, but  he always wants to give them away as souvenir). This whole year I had made a travel diary in which I collected small tokens of every country we went to. I made it secretly so mum would not see. The travel diary I gave as a present to mum who was very emotional when she saw it. I gave to Steven a cleaning kit for his dirty electronics. I got a super cool, colourful head phone and Christmas stockings and from Steven a blue diary for 2013!!!!!!!!!

In the afternoon we were invited to join a traditional Spanish lunch with the family of Rocio and Miguel in the campo/country side. After the Paella we danced the flamenco and listened to her dad playing the Spanish guitar.

The next day I did not feel so well since I had a stomach ache because of all the good food and most of all the delicious Lindt chocolate which I eat out of the Christmas tree. I had not been ill the whole trip and I felt much better when mom put me on the couch and made me tea with honey and an apple.

Watching the olives filtered

The last last last visit we did was the Hojiblanca olive-oil factory just outside Antequera. This time of the year (November-december-january) the many olives in Andalucia need to be plucked and either put into tins to eat for tapas or squeezed so the olive oil comes out and is put into bottles. Pepe and Mary Paz have their own olive (aceitunas) plantation and they bring their olives to the cooperation which takes care of the olive oil production. It was very interesting to see how the many trucks came in full of olives. It went into a large sift and from there the leaves where separated from the olives and then the olives where mauled till the oil came out. It went from tank to tank to make sure the water was taken out and finally the oil was ready to go into bottles. The best olive oil is called Extra Virgin. I always thought there were green olives and black olives, but actually there are only green olives and when you leave these too long on the tree they turn black. 

Gourmet ting 

3 days to go and starting to  clean the apartment, packing,  but most of all throwing a lot away(Christmas tree, dad’s yoghurt collection, my temporarily art displays. In the evening we had a bye bye gourmet with our Dutch friends Esther, Mireille and David.

 

On Saturday it was the last time to see Rocio, Miguel, Marga, Candela, Jose, Marga, Thamy and Edna. On our way home we past a bar and started chatting to a friendly customer who all of a sudden started singing to us the flamenco.

 After finishing packing on Sunday we visited one of the 33 churches in Antequera for a beautiful concert with a very large choir and very professional musicians.  It was a perfect last day in Antequera.

We are now “ready” to leave our home in Antequera and go back to our real home in South Africa. At 13:00 in the air with Swiss Airlines to Switzerland and then transit for 6 hours and then at 22:00 in the air to South Africa.

The last Spanish tradition we will do is to eat 12 grapes at midnight the 1^st of January 2013. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!

1 YEAR, 366 DAYS (2012 was a leap year) 52 WEEKS, 24 HOURS where has the time been?????????? It is hard to imagine that we have been away for so long.

Buying hot chest nuts

It is really difficult to stop writing and not letting you know our experiences in Cape Town so I will try to keep on writing every month , but this is not a  promise. Please do keep on checking and if I am too busy with school to write I will of course let you all know on my blog!

Please email me if you still want me to keep on writing next year: loesjelindiwe@gmail.com

South African Afrikaans: Dankie

Argentina: gracias

Singapore: Thank You

Australia: Thank You

China: 谢谢

Russian: спасибо

Ukraine: Спасибі

Poland: dziękuję

Germany: Danke

France: merci

Belgium: Dankje Wel or Merci

London: Thank You

Greece: σας ευχαριστώ

Italy: grazie

Monaco: Merci

Spain: Gracias

Anyway, thank you so,so,so,so,so,so,so,so,so MUCH for following my blog and reading, commenting and being part of our travels! Some of my followers said that I should print my blog out and make it into a book! Ill think about it!!!!

Loes Lindiwe Kreeftenberg and the rest of the Kreefts