Cartagena, Spain was a beautiful city. In addition to the amazing and rich Roman history, the city today is just beautiful. It was exceptionally clean, which we noticed immediately and kept noticing. The street cleaners were out at the crack of dawn to sweep and wash all the streets in the city centre. And there were constantly cleaning crews all […]
Our time in Oria and in Spain (for now) has come to an end. Compared to Portugal, the Spanish lifestyle was definitely more challenging to adapt to. Our hosts concurred and did mention that it took them a good year when they moved to Spain from the UK to adjust to that lifestyle. For example, almost every store in town […]
In Oria, we are mainly in a small town and rural area. One of the main features of living in such a place is the cats and dogs everywhere! Here at Shepherd’s Rest, they alone have three cats – Patsy, Livvy, and Evie – as well as four dogs – Taffy, Saffron, Lucky, and Ivy. The girls are completely obsessed […]
The Spanish lifestyle (combined with the Spanish heat and lack of AC) has been a real struggle for Jon and me to adjust to. We are trying our best because it is important to us to live authentically in each place we visit and live temporarily. But it’s been hard here! Everything is closed from 2 p.m. until around 6 […]
This is a term we had never heard until January 2023 when another mom at the girls’ school told us what we were planning to do sounded like worldschooling. She told me to check out the Facebook group. Not being much of a Facebook user, it took me a couple of weeks to do so, but the information in that […]
We have managed to start up a weekly tradition here on Sundays. The girls look forward to Sundays the most, and say it’s the “best day ever!”. We get up and head up the big, steep hill up towards the cathedral. When we get to the top of the hill, there’s a little café. We stop there so Jon and […]
Here in Oria, there is a little shop for everything. Sometimes for multiple somethings. We go to the grocers to buy most things, including wine and beer. But you aren’t going to find fresh baked bread. For that, you go to the local bakery. You aren’t going to find much for fresh or frozen meat at the grocers. For that, […]
Daily hikes have been more of a challenge in Oria due to the heat, but on Monday, Katia and I woke up bright and early (if you consider 07:30 early) to tackle the mountain up to Castillo De Oria (Castle of Oria). It was also a good reason to have a daddy-daughter day while Micheka and Emmeline spent some time […]
We have been adjusting to a much different lifestyle here in Oria, Spain compared to our lifestyle in Tabuado, Portugal. Both locations are great, but for different reasons and in different ways. While we were spending time alone, just the four of us in Portugal, here we are in a very social worldschooling community. We wanted a place for the […]
Already arrived in Destination #2: Oria, Spain. After our fun, exploratory day in the Douro Region, we stopped in Bragança, Portugal on August 1 for a few hours to check out the old castle/citadel and the walls that surrounded the original small town. The castle is now a military museum, and all four of us learned a lot about medieval […]