1st week, part 2

I think that the last post covers the first couple days. From now on I will try to write fewer mundane details, and focus on the interesting things that we see and do, and make some random observations on living here.

Anyway, we spent the first weekend with Ximo visiting monuments and restaurants (Chaia, for the record, LOVES mussels, Ben is a big fan of all bread) and in general walking around a lot. One important discovery on Saturday was that Ben, Chaia, and Andee had their first ever limón granizados, a drink somewhere between a slush puppy and lemonade. I have found them to be the best thing to cut through the heat, and I think that everyone agrees with me. 2 Euros for a granizado seems more than I remember from my youth, but then that was 25 years ago.

Speaking of the heat, Zaragoza is HOT during the summer. Although we are in a river valley (the Ebro river is one of the largest rivers in Spain, although it's not much wider than the Androscoggin is in Bethel), the heat is tremendous here, and I'm told it doesn't rain here. It is really dry (I think we saw a few really high cirrus clouds 2 days ago) and has averaged about 95 degrees every day in the middle of the day. THIS is why the siesta was invented; it's too hot to work, play, walk, shop, be anywhere but in front of a fan. Fortunately there is a nearly constant breeze here (not so nice at 2pm when the temp is at it's highest) so evenings are pretty pleasant. Because of the heat, people go outside much later than at home, and you can expect to see little kids playing in the park at 10:00 at night (2 of them were ours).

Two more things that happened this week were that we had a really nice lunch with Alejandro, and we went for the first time to one of the municipal pools in ZAZ. For those who don't know him, Alejandro is a truly delightful young man who attended Gould Academy 2 years ago through an international study program. He lives in ZAZ and is an engineering student at the university here. He works during the summer at a Vodafone store near our piso (Vodafone is like Verizon, Spanish style). It was great to see him, and he is taking us to a play this Friday to be performed in aragonés, the regional dialect of Aragón (Zaragoza is the capital of Aragón, where Fernando was king during the life of Columbus. His daughter, with Isabel of Castilla, was Catherine of Aragón, first wife of England's Henry VIII. History lesson over.).

Also, we took our first bus ride to one of the local municipal sports complexes to cool off. Much has changed in Spain since we were here in 1998 and everyone had to wear sandals in the pool area ALL THE TIME, and everyone also had to wear elastic bathing caps in the pool. For those of you who can picture us in bathing caps, you know that for me it is unnecessary and for Andee it is impossible. Well, those days are gone, and we didn't have to wear either one. One thing remains: the Spanish tendency to have rules that seem silly to strangers but REALLY IMPORTANT and obvious to Spaniards. Yes, in the pool complex Andee got in trouble. Not once, but twice. I know, Andee's friends and family are laughing now. Andee apparently broke a major pool rule- she wore her sunglasses in the pool. The lifeguard told her off, and then offered to hold the glasses. Then, later, she was sitting on the edge of the kids' pool with Chaia, and AGAIN was approached for wearing her glasses. Just so everyone has it clearly, ANDEE got in trouble, not me.

1st Week

Well, here we are. Let's start with a brief chronology of the trip to our new place:

7/22: We left Boston at about 9:45pm after checking in at about 6:30. We were the only people checking in that early, so dealing with our HUGE bags (plus backpacks, ski bags, guitar, and carry-ons, not to mention 2 kids and THEIR carry-ons) was not really a problem. Every bag weighed in at about 2 pounds under the limit (thank you bathroom scale!) so no extra charge for overweight baggage. While waiting for our flight I read the first chapter of The Fellowship Of The Ring to Ben and Chaia. The flight was nice, movie screen on each seat and ok airline food. I only wish that we all slept more (Ben got the most, at about 4 1/2 hours).
7/23: We arrived in Zurich on time and passed through Passport control quickly ("So how long ARE you staying in Europe?") only to wait for our plane to Madrid (delayed 2 hours, boo..). Finally arrived in Madrid at about 4:00 pm, and Ximo was waiting for us. Ximo is one of my oldest friends, and drove 3 hours from Valencia in a rented vehicle that looks like a laundry truck with ads on the side. We got a snack in the airport (1st café cortado of the year!!) and headed off to Zaragoza.
On the way to ZAZ (that's short for our fair city) we stopped for a walk, and found ourselves in Medinaceli, a little, historical hilltop town with an impressive display of 15th century architecture. Typical of Spain's use of old sites, the palace of the duque de Medinaceli was being used as a museum of modern art (photo above). Very cool contrasts. After our walk we reboarded the S.S. Drycleaner and continued on to ZAZ (Ben and Chaia finally fell asleep at about 8:00).
We arrived in ZAZ at about 10:30 and began asking directions to the part of the city where we will be living until next July. After a couple of people got us to near our street (Ximo is blessed with the ability to ask ANYONE for directions), the next guy simply told us to follow his car, and he drove/directed us for the last several blocks. We even found a place for the laundry truck on our street, about 50 feet from the door!!
OK, up go the bags (it took 2 elevators and most of us walking the stairs), into the apt (which is HUGE, but more on the "piso" in the next post) and quickly down to the street to look for food. We found 2 Turkish restaurants across the street, and feasted on doner kebab. Then the backside of jet lag hit. The kids, excited from the trip and not at all tired (in their "Bethel" world it was only 7pm), stayed up until about 2:30. so did we. Finally some sleep! Until...
7/24: (BTW, my thirty-twelfth birthday)...7:00 I woke up. Really. 7:00 AM. Grrr.... Well, time to begin the unpacking. I unpacked, went for a walk, bought bread, got $$ from an ATM, bought a coffee, and went back to unpack more. At about 10:30 everyone else began to wake up. We unpacked, let the kids play a bit, I went out to get enough food for breakfast, and we ate a bit. Then we took a little walk around, opened a bank account next door, and went to lunch (I swear, all we do here right now is eat, clean up after eating, go shopping so we can eat, and talk about what to eat next).
With a little help, Ben ordered everyone's lunch at a restaurant opposite the Basilica de nuestra señora del Pilar. Good food cheap, and everyone felt pretty good. then back to the piso for a nap (ahh, glorious siesta, how I've missed you...). Later we went shopping for towels, trash bags, and enough groceries to get us started.

OK, that will do for the first entry. More tomorrow (when I will write about the heat, the granizados, aljafería, and more.

July 21, 2009

OK, here we go! Tomorrow we depart for Zaragoza with our 5 HUGE bags, 2 ski bags, and a guitar (not to mention our carry-ons and computer bags). More from Spain (I'll take a picture of our bags tomorrow to scare everyone).