Number Two!

So there is a second one!  It took me nearly two weeks, but here I am, writing again.

I've been working a lot since I last wrote, today is my first day off in 11 days.  So today was the first day I cleaned the house properly in nearly two weeks.  The fridge is empty apart from a couple of onions and a tub of butter.  And the only laundry I'm doing at the moment are work clothes.

But I'm not complaining!  I'm in Fuerteventura afterall, the sun shines every day and life is good.  I go to work in a little restaurant, earn my wages and come home.  There are hardly any bills to pay, no long commute to work, and work itself isn't stressful (apart from when 100 people all walk in at the same time to watch the X Facor!)...

Me and my boyfriend did venture into Corralejo two nights ago to check out the entertainment on offer.  We had a half decent night, although that was mainly down to the fact that we can make our own fun out of most situations.  Firstly we went into a bar, which offered a quiz.  We were given 10 minutes to write down as many answers as we could think of to a particular question, only to have the entertainer give away about half of them to everyone else as "clues" before the quiz had finished.  If we were the competative types, there may have been trouble!  But we laughed that off (we came second by the way!).  The drinks were a very good price.  We gave the bar and the entertainment 4 out of 10.

Then we passed by another bar showing a drag show.  The bar itself was very nicely decorated, lots of TVs dotted around for when the sport is on, and the drinks were reasonably priced.  The show was OK for holiday makers, including children.  But it's hard not to compare comedy drag shows to the high standard of those in Gran Canaria.  When the drag show finished at about 11pm, nothing was said about further entertainment, so we assumed the night was over for that bar and left shortly afterwards.  We gave the bar 6 out of 10.  By this point we were feeling like undercover bar critics!

We continued to walk along the main strip and were approached by quite a nice PR asking if we would like to come in to see the second half of a live band playing rock music.  I, in particular, like live music so we went in, found a good table at the front and ordered a couple of drinks, which were a fair bit more expensive than the other places.  But the music was very good so we don't mind paying for good entertainment.  There was a fairly good atmosphere in the bar and we left feeling like we'd had a good time!  At the end of the night we gave the bar 7 out of 10.  We thought it was a bit too dark!!

By this point we'd had our fun, we did have a look from the outside at one or two other places which were recommended to us, but they looked like any other karaoke bar that you would find in a holiday destination.  We had a very tasty kebab and went back to our 30 euro a night hotel.

The next day we wandered along the strip again and into the old town.  It was nice to see the pretty beaches and the quirky little backstreet bars in the daylight.  All in all, we liked Corralejo, but we don't feel like we are missing out by not living there.  We have what we need in Caleta.  We both have nice jobs, nice friends and enough bars, restaurants and shops here to keep us occupied.  We wont be leaving any time soon.

Although we will be looking at Jandia in a week or two to see what that's all about.  No doubt I'll be updating our scores out of 10 for the bars we visit!

Number One

This is the first time I have started anything like this.  It's more of a journal than a blog.  Something of my life at the moment, living the dream, to look back on in years to come.  Who knows?  Knowing me, this will probably be the one and only time I log on to this website, I lose motivation very quickly to keep this kind of thing up.

I spent the last 2 and a half years living in Gran Canaria.  I now live next door in Fuerteventura and have done for the past 5 weeks.  Hense the username, Canarybird.  Bird as in the actual Canary bird, I don't think of myself as a "bird".

I like it in Fuerteventura, it's very different in a lot of ways but also very similar to Gran Canaria, which I loved, most of the time!  Fuerteventura (FV) is a lot calmer, slower, older and civilised.  There's a sense of community and people seem to have been living here a long time, not like in Gran Canaria (GC), where most of the ex pats are generally younger and only stay for the Summer or a year or two.  So if a lot of British people have been here for many years and have chosen to have their families here, it can't be a bad place.  I'm giving it a go, no complaints at the moment.

I live with my boyfriend of 2 years.  Like all couples, we've had our ups and downs, but this is an "up" time, we finally have our own place after only ever sharing with friends, families and strangers!  We like our new life on a new island and we are discovering it together.  There are difficult things about living abroad.  First thing is obviously being away from the family and friends, missing nieces and nephews grow up, missing special occasions and not being part of stories that will be passed down the generations.  Other negative things include missing familiar food, shopping, going to the cinema, good TV and driving on safe roads.  More in depth details to follow when I incur a moment that I can't buy shoes in my size or fancy a KFC that I can't have - or probably more often than those, nearly get hit by a Spanish driver going all the way round a rounabout in the outside lane!

Of course, there are many more positives than negatives (why would I be here otherwise?), the weather, the simple way of life, the minimal cost of living...  The list goes on.

But for now, I'm going to continue to sit in a bar with WiFi, while I download all the episodes of Celebrity Juice that I can't watch on Spanish TV.  Plus I have to get up early(ish) tomorrow for my waitressing job in a restaurant by the sea.

So it's "adios" for now!  I'll write again soon - maybe...