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Imagine this, you are living in Abu Dhabi but desire more of a rural life. You have never been to Spain and you don’t know Spanish, would you purchase an old house, without a roof, in a rural spot in Andalusia, Spain? That’s exactly what Sabina Ostrowska and Robert Ryan did. It took a year and half to renovate the house, which included the addition of two guest suites that they rent out under the name “Cortijo Berruguilla.” Although the couple is very busy with their airbnb and running an English language school, they love their life amongst the olive groves in rural southern Spain. Find out more about living in the Spanish countryside, on Episode 62 of Retire There with Gil & Gene.
Sabina Ostrowska’s delightful memoir of the trials and tribulations of purchasing and renovating a fixer-upper, in rural Andalusia, is The Crinkle Crankle Wall: Our First Year in Andalusia. Since the release of this podcast episode, Sabina has come out with her second book in the series. It is titled A Hoopoe on the Nispero Tree: Our Andalusian Adventure Continues (New Life in Andalusia Book 2).
Sabina and Robert’s two highly rated guest suites, known as Cortijo Berruguilla, each contain one king bed, one pull-out sofa, a kitchen and one bath. The house also has a pool which is available from May through September. The guest suites may be rented out via Airbnb.com and Booking.com.
Author
Sabina Ostrowska was born and raised in Poland. She earned an undergraduate degree from Warsaw University in Poland, a master's degree in the Netherlands at Nijmegen University, and a doctorate from Exeter University in the UK. For the majority of her career, she worked as an English teacher, or EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher. She taught high school in Sweden; and primary, secondary, and tertiary levels in the United Arab Emirates. Her last job was a senior lecturer at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.
In 2014, she and her husband left Abu Dhabi and became self-employed. They have a small guest house in the middle of the olive groves outside Montefrio. For our audience, Montefrio is a municipality in the province of Granada, which is one of 8 provinces within Andalusia. Andalusia, by the way, has a population of 8.5 Million.
The couple owns a language school in a nearby town of Alcala la Real. Sabina is also a writer and has written textbooks for Cambridge University Press and other non-fiction books. Her book The Crinkle Crankle Wall is the first in a series depicting the couple’s adventures of trying to start a new life among the olive groves in rural Andalusia.
While Sabina’s main hobby is writing non-fiction, she also enjoys long walks and photographing nature. Additionally, she loves art and used to oil paint, but she doesn't have much time for that anymore.
Robert Ryan was born in Liverpool, UK, and raised in South Africa. He attended boarding school in (“Bloomfountane”) Bloemfontein in South Africa, and then studied linguistics at Lund University in Sweden. And has a PhD in linguistics from (“Linaise”) Linnaeus University in Sweden.
Earlier in his career, Robert worked as a university lecturer, and later as an assistant professor at universities in Sweden and the United Arab Emirates.
Since Abu Dhabi, like Sabina, Robert has been self-employed working as a translator, editor, and proof-reader of academic texts. In his spare time, he uses his carpentry and woodworking skills to make simple furniture. He's also been learning the piano and other musical instruments.
