So the weather has changed, cool mornings and nights are here for the time being, and I can now safely venture outside without protecting my
calva infantil (loose translation: my baby-bald head). A number of things have occurred since my last post, including the following highlights:
- I took four students and Ben to Barcelona for Yom Kippur services. Yes, in a city of almost 800,000 people there is not ONE synagogue. We had to take a train 200 miles to go to services. When we got there (surprise, surprise) we discovered that the rabbi was Argentinian and most of the congregants were American. A nice day, a lovely walk down Las Ramblas (a beautiful pedestrian street that cuts through the middle of the oldest parts of Barcelona, filled with cafés and street artists), and great "Dad-Ben time."
- My bicycle was stolen. Honestly, how many people get robbed twice in one month? It was locked up to a bike rack in one of the ritziest, busiest areas of Zaragoza in the middle of the day. And every Spaniard that heard about it said exactly the same thing: "Must have been foreigners." Okaaay.....
- Andee's twin sister Maria came for a visit. I picked her up the day after Yom Kippur in Barcelona (yup, another train trip for me) and we traveled together back to "ZAZ". Maria is a terrific guest, and we had a really good time visiting "our fair city" as well as a day trip to a small town about 15 miles away famous for its ceramics.
I thought it would be interesting (for me, at least) to come up with a few things that made it great to be in Zaragoza, and a few things I miss from home. So here they are, starting with the things that make me say "Ahhhh...Bethel..."
- Hot wings. This may seem trivial, but those of you that REALLY know me know that I have a serious wing addiction. Anyone who knows Spain knows that spicy food is right out here. I mean, seriously, there is pretty much NOTHING picante in the whole country. I'm going to have to start inventing my own hot sauces; wings I can get easily. Now where can I find hot spices to make my sauce? Hmm....
- Fall foliage. This is my favorite time of year, when the days are warm and breezy, and the nights begin to approach frost. the Mahoosuc mountains are spectacular during October, and I miss it a lot right now. Zaragoza, on the other hand, is in one of the dryest places I've ever lived. In spite of the river valley we live in, there are almost no trees surrounding the city. We happen to live in a part of town where the side streets are lined with trees, but it's not the same.
- ..and..
- Ben (& Jerry). Ouch. Spain does have Ice Cream, and it's not bad, but it's not Vermont's best. I have found a couple of places that sell Ben & Jerry's ice cream, but it costs about 6 1/2 Euros for a pint. For you Americans, that's 9 DOLLARS a pint!!! And they only seem to have weird flavors (sorry, I'm an ice cream purist- give me vanilla or give me death), and Cherry Garcia is not one of them.
- Both of our sofas. This is a little thing, but the sofa in our apartment is REEEELY old, and mushy, and puke-green. It is so uncomfortable that for the 1st couple of weeks we just sat on the floor rather than sit on the sofa (or its matching puke-green-and equally-uncomfortable chairs). Our sofas in Bethel are the ultimate nap-spaces, and I miss them, and my naps on them. The only positive thing I can say about the chairs and sofa is that it was really fun to watch them, from six stories up, get stuffed into the back of a compacting garbage truck (our new sofa from IKEA gets delivered today).
- American football. I knew that I would miss watching the Patriots this year, I just never realized how much. Last weekend Andee and I were so desperate that we hired a babysitter and went out to the one Irish tavern in Zaragoza that shows occasional NFL games. This is how desperate we were:
- We watched the 49ers play the Vikings
- We watched the game sitting in upright bar chairs
- We watched the whole game without sound. Anyway, Brett Favre's desperation toss into the endzone for the game-winning touchdown mad it all worth it.
I'll finish this blog entry with some things that are great about living here:
- Coffee. Apart from the Mouse & Bean, there is no Spanish-quality coffee in Bethel. Here, you can get really fantastic coffee everywhere. Truck stops on the highway have the same gazillion-dollar espresso machines that M&B has. American coffee is....unavailable here.
- Architecture. Zaragoza proudly displays buildings and partial buildings from Roman, Visigothic, Moorish, Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical periods. The Gothic cathedral and the Neoclassical Basilica are national treasures.
- Schedule. Now, this is probably unfair, as you can see by looking at my previous blogs, but I love the fact that Ben and Chaia get on the school bus at 9:05. they get to sleep until 8:15, and everyone wakes up much happier and better rested. Also, lunch is at about 2:00 or so, and it's the big meal of the day (leaving good quality losing-weight tie for the rest of the day). Evening meal is at 9:00, and Ben and Chaia are in bed by 9:30.
- Shopping carts. No joke, the fact that you insert 1 Euro into the cart to unlock it, and when you re-lock it into the other carts you get your Euro back. It really keeps people from leaving carts around the parking lot, or from stealing them outright. I guess if you want a cart badly enough, you'll pay the Euro and run with it.
- Tapas. This is probably the best part. Almost everywhere, you can get small quantities of really good food cheap. If you're not super-hungry, you get 1 or 2 with a glass of wine or beer (yes, beer and wine with LUNCH!! How civilized!). If you're hungry, you get to try/sample a number of goodies. One of these days, I'll devote a blog completely to tapas.
- Faculty meetings. I'm treading on dangerous ground here, because I didn't want to compare jobs. Here, I'm a part-time worker. At Gould, I live the life. HOWEVER: Faculty meetings here begin as most faculty meetings do in American boarding schools, with tapas and wine. Wait, what? Yes, Spanish faculty here wouldn't DREAM of a meeting without food and libations first. Oh Dan........... Wine and cheese in Ordway? Who's in?
