Spring in Europe, the time when Brussels sprouts!

The Grand Place, Brussels.

I couldn't help it.

Apart from the "interesting" experience with Ryanair (in a mid-western way, as in "Hmm, your new jell-o casserole is very interesting), our time in brussels was terrific. Truly terrific. It was green. It was cool. There are parts of Brussels that really remind me of Boston, and that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside as we took the metro around the city. The Belgian version of the "T" even goes both above and below ground, just like the beloved green line of my youth.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, Brussels. While thousands and thousands of people were stranded in lovely locales, like the Frankfurt airport departure lounge, we spent our volcano-imposed vacation in the lovely home of our friends Carmen and Gilbert, and their daughter Elisa. We spent our days exploring different parts of the historical district of Brussels, and our evenings relaxing with friends. We were thankful for our particular plight every single day.

For people who have never been to Brussels, there are a few really important talking points:

• It is the capital of Belgium, and has about 1 million inhabitants.
• It has two official languages: French, and Flemish (the Belgian version of Dutch).
• It is the capital of the European Union and so is filled with gov't functionaries.
• Brussels is famous for three products: Chocolate, lace, and beer.
• We tested notable varieties of two of the above (guess which ones?).

Ben and Chaia discovered very quickly that if you wander into a chocolate store (these are countless in Brussels), sooner or later someone that works there will offer you some of their products. We followed our kids into dozens of chocolate shops.

There is a big difference between drinking beer, and "drinkin' beer" (as my Kansas City family would say). In Brussels I did some of the former. This is not your sit-on-the-couch, drink-beer because-it's-there kind of experience. This is true high quality beer tasting, and Belgium produces some world-class beers. I tried a beer called "Tripel Karmeleit" (Ben called it "Chicken Caramelized") that was truly exceptional. I also tried a beer called (for real) "Delirium Tremens."

It's amazing. Someone, somewhere, called it "the best beer in the world." That, of course, is silly, as beer tastes are broad. It is, though, one of the best I have ever tasted.

Unfortunately the beer stores do not give out free samples. I tried wandering around for a while, just to make sure though.

TAKE IT BACK!!

Has anyone out there flown with Ryanair before?

You know the old adage, "if it seems to good to be true, it probably is?"

Yeah, that's Ryanair.

The four of us flew from Zaragoza (a teeny-weeny airport) direct to Brussels, capital of Belgium and of the European Union, for peanuts. Really, it only cost us 200 Euros round-trip! Think about it: That's 50 Euros per person (about $70) to fly two hours. that includes taxes and landing fees. CHEAP!

Of course, they allow no free checked bags, allow one, strictly-defined carry on per person (if you have a camera, purse, book, whatever beyond your one bag, you can't CARRY it on the plane), and sell all consumables aboard including water. The seats also don't tilt back AT ALL, and there are no seat back pockets (nothing to put in them anyways). There are also no assigned seats. For an extra 10 Euros you can get "priority boarding" which allows you to get on the plane with the other "priority boarders" before the regular schmoes. They don't pre-board kids and babies either.
And if you don't print your own ticket, they charge you 30 Euros to print yours for you.

But hey, $70 round trip to Belgium!!!

Until there is a problem....

Like a volcano.

Who knew?

The day after we arrived in Brussels for a 4-day visit with Ximo's sister Carmen (who I realized I hadn't seen since I was in high school...as a student), the Brynjolfsson volcano sneezed ash all over northern Europe. I know it isn't really called that, but it's the only Icelandic word I know and, as an aside, was the longest word I could spell in first grade. Just ask my best friend at the time, Alan Brynjolfsson.

So our return flight was cancelled. No problem, right? Hundreds of thousands of people stranded, flights cancelled, all one has to do is to re-book the flight.

Hello, Ryanair.
Hello, Ryanair?
Hmm.........

Ryanair has a special customer service number to call if you need to talk to a person (call me crazy, but...). Oh yeah, to call costs 1 Euro PER MINUTE. Not that it matters, because for four days they didn't answer the phone.

I thought about going to the airport, but it was closed. So no one from Ryanair was there to see me either.

Which leaves the web site. www.ryanair.com is so complicated that I swear I once got to a page with nothing but a picture of the Minotaur, and to get back to the homepage I had to rip the battery out of my computer. The website told me, in very clear terms, that I had to change my flight because it had been "volcanoed." no problem.

Except that on Ryanair, once you print your tickets you can no longer change your flight. The page I ended up on told me to click on the "change flights" button on the left side of the page.

There were no buttons of any kind on the left side of the page.

Eventually I gave up, figured that "some day I'll find someone that actually works for Ryanair and get this part fixed" (even thinking this now makes me giggle a little), and I booked a brand new flight.

Which also got "volcanoed."

Unfortunately the "other flight," in addition to being cancelled, cost 240 Euros one-way. Funny how that works. In the end we found, at the last minute, a flight to a different city in Spain (Girona), and after 4 extra days in Brussels (which, by the way, were wonderful and I'll write about them TOMORROW) we flew out of northern Europe and back to Spain. Then allwe had was a 7-hour train ride home.

RENFE, the Spanish train company, lets you take as many bags as you want.

And their offices are staffed with real, smiling people.

Who will talk to you for free.

One-a-day, plus photo.

Here goes:

After Semana Santa (which is really "10-days Santa") life got more or less back to normal. that is to say, we didn't have school Monday (still Semana Santa), I don't teach on tuesday, and on Wednesday I went to Madrid with Pat to get her (and our suitcase full of ski boots, helmets, pants, etc.) on the flight back to the US. I also spent the rest of the day engaged in a couple of my favorite pursuits this year: Museum visiting and eating. I engaged in the former at the Joaquín Sorolla museum/house, and the latter at an Indian restaurant (FINALLY, some spicy food!). Sorolla was Spain's best known impressionist painter, and since he hailed from Valencia, most of his best work deals with the Mediterranean sun on the beach. His home in Madrid was converted into a museum displaying his best works along with some original furniture and Sorolla's ceramic collection. At 3 Euros, well worth the trip.

Image courtesy of: http://www.canvaz.com/sorolla/joaquin-sorolla-bastida-023.jpg

After returning to Zaragoza, I had 2 days of classes, a weekend (Ben's soccer game, of course), and 2 more days of classes, then we departed for Belgium. That goes in tomorrow's blog, Justyne.

April showers bring visitors and "Semana Santa"

A number of things have kept me from posting recently, including visitors and volcanos (or is it "volcanoes?"). I'll try and remember the past month, giving some special attention to Holy Week here in Zaragoza.

After Pat's sister Paula departed for the US we entered our week of "descanso" or "vacaciones," SYA's spring break. Pat did a time-share exchange for a week in an apartment on the Mediterranean coast, between Barcelona and Valencia, in a town called Alcocéber (or Alcossebre, if you are speaking Catalán, the language spoken commonly along the northern Mediterranean coast of Spain). We were in a cute, little apartment in a HUUUUUGE apartment complex (well, huge by my Bethel, Maine standards). The apartment had a giant balcony (sweet) and a couple of swimming pools, and was a 5-minute walk from a really nice beach.

Now the Twilight Zone-like part: The beach was empty. As in, there were usually enywhere from 10-20 people at any time on the whole beach. The water? Clean, nice little waves, not super-cold.
There were only two swimmers in the sea all week: Ben, and Chaia.

Apparently "beach weather" in Spain only means "super-hot, too-crowded-to-see-the-water, between-June 15-and-September 15 weather." At least that's what it said on the sign next to the giant, empty swimming pool: Open June 15-Sept. 15, 10AM-8PM. Now, I'm no cold weather swmmer. I don't even like to go in the ocean off of Maine in the heat of summer. but C'MON!! It was in the mid-sixties while we were in Alcossebre, and sunny. The swimming pool was as empty as the beach, which was as empty as the condo complex.

We were early. So we enjoyed something rare and special: An empty, sunny, kinda-sorta-warm beach.

We also took a couple of day trips to Peñíscola and Valencia. Peñíscola is a beach town that also has a waterfront mini-mountain, crowned with a castle built by the Knights Templar. It was also the temporary home of one of the Popes, at a time when there were actually two Popes at the same time (it's true, look it up- "Antipope Benedict XIII").

Castle, Peñíscola.

We also went to Valencia, about an hour south of us, to visit Ximo (our friend who picked us up in the laundry truck last July). We had a terrific day visiting the historic center of Valencia as well as the VERY modern Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences, in Catalán). A truly terrific day and evening spent in Ximo's company. Here are a couple of shots from that day:

After a few days on the beach, as headed back to Zaragoza for one of Spain's really special events: Semana Santa, or Holy Week. During this time between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, in a number of cities in Spain (although I'm told that Sevilla and Zaragoza are notable places), statues of Jesus are carried through the city by organizations called cofradías, in reenactments of the stations of the cross. Each day various cofradías (origially "brotherhoods," but many members are now women and children) follow different routes through the city, accompanied by drummers, incense-carriers, and women in black. It's very cool pageantry, and tends to shake Americans to their politically-correct cores. It seems that the KKK co-opted the costumes of the cofradías, which pre-date the Klan by several hundred years. It takes a bit of getting used to:

The processions, very LOUD here, I might add, go on throughout the city day and night, as there are probably 25 cofradías in Zaragoza. the other thing I forgot to mention is that they also carry/push large floats of very realistic-looking scenes of the Passion of Christ along with them. the biggest procession of them all happens on viernes Santo (Good Friday), and it's more than 2 hours long as it passes any given point, with all of the brotherhoods (their outfits Do give a whole new spin on the word "brotherHOOD") participating. And, of course, the BIIIG procession came right down our street, right under our window.


It was a loud evening.

Next up: "I don't know where I'm-a gonna go, when the volcano blows."

Time for visitors

Spring is sprung, part 2.

We have “made it” past the winter season. Now, those of you who really know me are scratching their heads, trying to figure out the last sentence. I am a winter-lover, the kind of person who greets winter storm warnings with a warm, fuzzy feeling. I love winter. Winter to me is fireplaces, snowshoeing, lots and lots and lots of skiing, darts, apres-ski gigs, and a world full of white , with more white falling as I watch mesmerized through my living room or classroom windows.

We had none of that here.


Zaragoza is, as I’ve said repeatedly, a very dry place. It gets somewhat cold, and is consistently windy, but that’s about it for winter. It snowed in Zaragoza twice this winter, and the longest that the snow lasted was a few hours. No one has a fireplace. I haven’t played a gig since last June. All of the dart boards that I have found this year (even in the “Irish” pubs) are the hideous electronic kind that I liken to a mirage of an oasis in the desert; the kind that that turns to sand just as you reach down to drink. I have been skiing here this winter, and the skiing has been really great. Ben and I skied at three outstanding Pyrenees ski areas this winter, for a total of 12 days for Ben and 6 for me (Andee and Chaia skied one day too). But six days of skiing for me usually means a week in which I skied both Saturday and Sunday. It was great, but it was a bit of a tease as well.

So winter is over. Hurray! On with spring, and spring brought us a visitor. Frances Soctomah came all the way from Bethel to photograph some of the shmoogly-googly-gillions of churches and castles to be found in and around Zaragoza, for her Senior Point project. I spent a couple of days with her, showing her around to some of my favorite places, visiting some local sights, and going to Jaca and Huesca to see the cathedrals there. While here, and staying with Alejandro’s family, Frances also got to sit in on my classes (I’m sorry she missed the one on abortion, she would have been fascinated).

After Frances left, we got to spent time with some other visitors (we are now entering the final phase of our year in Spain, the part of the year when lots of people come to see us): My mother-in-law and her sister. We couldn’t have asked for more gracious guests, and we took them to all of our favorite tapas haunts, historical sights, and Barcelona. Pat (my mother-in-law) and Paula (her sister) traveled, while here, to Jaca and to Madrid while we finished up our week leading into spring break, otherwise known as Semana Santa (holy week).

THAT week will have to wait for my next entry, but suffice to say for now that it will include a trip to Valencia, and several days on the beach.

Here, to end, is a photo of one of the manymanymanyMANY Holy Thursday processions in Zaragoza:

Hmmmmm........

Spring has sprung!

Before I get to the recap of the past few weeks, I have to tell everyone what I'm doing right now. As in, right RIGHT now. I'm in a classroom at School Year Abroad, "teaching" a class. Let me explain, lest you think I'm either giving a test or simply ignoring my students: The class is a once-a-week, two-hour, international conversation class that we call Joven Erasmus (Young Erasmus), after the European international student exchange program. Every Thursday, from 6-8pm, I gather with eight SYA students (chosen through an application process) and eight students that come, in pairs, from four local private schools. The class has a simple construct: Students must sit with someone from "the other country" on their left and right, Americans must speak Spanish and Spaniards must speak English, and each class meeting will be led/moderated by one American and one Spaniard. That's it for the rules. Oh, one more thing: The topics for each class are chosen during the first meeting, and students sign up to be teachers for each meeting. The topics range from differences in school systems, to youth culture, to poverty, to movies and cultural statements, etc. Today's topic is abortion.

And its awesome.

For an hour now I have listened to 16 young people respectfully, powerfully, emotionally, tackle one of the hot button topics of our time. Seriously, when was the last time you heard people, especially high school students, struggle to define for themselves and others how to define "human being", "human rights", "life", and "responsibility." No slogans, no name-calling, no disrespect, just good honest debate. Seriously, this is the best class I teach all year, and I don't have to do anything. I'm the guy with the keys; I turn off the lights at the end of the day, and that's about it. I only posed one question, and let them run with it for a while: "How do we determine what the rights and responsibilities of the father are in questions of abortion? For example, what if a woman wants to terminate and the "other chromosomal half" (sometimes called "father") doesn't? Or vice versa?"

And then I shut up.

Honestly, the hardest part of this class for me is to STAY shut-up, but I think I do a pretty good job of it.

OK, the descanso (break) is over, so i have to go back to not talking. I'll post the rest later tonight. Suffice to say, it is in the upper sixties right now, and sunny almost every day. I could get used to this...

El tiempo vuela...

Wow, so much for a post a week. And now a month has gone by...

Lets see. When I last wrote we were in Andalucía.
That was a great trip, enjoyed by all. In total, we visited Sevilla, Granada, Córdoba, and a couple of little towns in the olive producing region of Jaén (I thought that I had seen olives before, but oh man, Jaén is unbeLIEVABLE. Everywhere is covered with olive treees). In Jaén we visited an olive oil factory (vinyard? oliveyard?) and saw the process necessary to convert olives into Euros. We also saw two towns with medieval centers that were interesting, and cold.

Very cold.

Well, okay, very cold for Spain, when you're improperly dressed.

Spain experienced a very rare cold snap during our trip to Andalucía in which cold winds descended on Granada, Córdoba, and us. It actually snowed north of Córdoba (we saw that from the warm safety of our train). We, of course, went to southern Spain fully prepared...for spring. I can hear the echoes of my family's voices now..."Thanks a lot Dad, for telling us not to bring winter clothes." Poor Ben suffered through a week of short hair and cold wind. Poor Ben, but poorer Dad.

After the Andalucía trip we returned to Zaragoza and to a more school-like schedule. There's not much to say about this period, except to say that Ben and I got to take a couple of terrific ski trips to the Pyrenees (to Formigal and Cerler), and we continued our weekly ration of "futbol-sala" games (Ben's 5-on-5 soccer league that has come to own our Saturdays).

Oh, and we had a leak in our apartment.

A big leak.

A leak that has probably destroyed one of the rooms in our downstairs neighbor's apartment. Apparently it has been going on for some time (read: years) without being addressed. Ah, the joy of landlords. After spending a full day vleaning out the "junk room" in our apartment in order to turn it into a cute little bedroom, perfect for a 10-year old who has been displaced so we can accomodate guests, we have now lost the cute little bedroom to water damage. The wall has been ripped open, the wallpaper torn down... and now we wait until the owners decide to fix it.

I'm not holding my breath.

One other thing of note to report is that Andee and I went out for Valentine's dinner (about a week after Valenltine's day, but what the heck) we arrived at a very nice restaurant at 8:45. We were tuned away. We were too early, they didn't start serving dinner until 9pm at the earliest. The earliest. Mind you, this was a SUNDAY night, not really a big, late night out in Spain. And it was a week after Valentine's, so no big reason to go out late. We were just (once again) the early Americans.

The dinner, for those of you who are still reading, was terrific. We ate at an Argentinian grill (well known in Spain for good food). We plan on going back sometime.

When its not so cold, and when we can stay up and eat until after 9pm.

An Andalusian Doug

I almost kept my promise to write once a week.

In the past week (or so) we have visited Pamplona (no one was there, and no one will be there until july, when Pamplona hosts not the only but the most famous "Running of the Bulls"), we visited a cool area of Aragón known as the Cinco Villas (Fernando II was born here; he's the Catholic king ,and other half of the tag team along with Isabel, that conquered the Iberian peninsula and chucked out and forced the conversion of all the Jews and Muslims- so much for diversity).

We also returned the car that our friend Ximo loaned us while he was in Senegal for three weeks. It was really liberating to have a vehicle for a while. Shopping trips could be spontaneous, and we could buy more than 2 bottles of water at a time. Weekends got us out of the city. Ben's soccer games became soccer games, rather than soccer games surrounded by a half-day adventure on Zaragoza's buses. And I got to drive an Alfa Romeo for three weeks.

Now we are in Sevilla, Spain's third largest chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edhLosefD0Qity and the capital of Andalucia. Andalucia is known for many things Spanish: Olive oil, Gypsies, Flamenco music, guitars, bulls, the Costa del Sol, white buildings, and 115 degree summer afternoons.

It is not summer now, thankfully.

Chances are if you have any stereotypical notions about Spain, they revolve around Andalusian culture. the city is big, baroque, labyrinthine, and has great food. it also has the Plaza de España, one of the prettiest, most impressively beautiful outdoor spaces in Spain and maybe anywhere. If you watched Star Wars: Episode II (I know, it was TERRIBLE, but it was Star Wars, so I watched it), then you have seen this plaza. check out the YouTube clip listed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edhLosefD0Q

George Lucas, king of computer generated scenery, found a real place that was as out-of-this-world-looking as any set he could bild/digitize, and so filmed here. Queen Amidala flew here, but we got to the plaza by horse-drawn carriage.



We have visited the cathedral (one of Columbus' tombs is here, the other in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic), the barrio Santa Cruz (the old Jewish quarter, until aforementioned Fernando came along), and a number of notably narrow streets graces with sidewalks exactly one sneaker wide. And unlike in Zaragoza, we hear English spoken everywhere. This is a VERY touristy city, even now, out of tourist season. Ben and Chaia stop and stare/comment every time an English speaker walks past us, as if they were little dogs and another dog walked by on the street. By the way, Chaia is now officially a "señorita", complete with a polka-dotted Flamenco dress, a red flower for her hair, and black velvet shoes. Her fan is back in ZAZ.

Tomorrow we will visit the Alcázar of the Spanish kings in Sevilla and then head to our next stop on this 6-day tour. Maybe our hotel there will have wi-fi too.


Photo courtesy of http://www.trekexchange.com/images/Plaza_de_Espana.jpg

Good skiing, better food!

First of all I'M SORRY JUSTYNE!

There, that should just about cover it.

January in Zaragoza is winter, no doubt. Everyone here talks all the time about how COLD it is. I suppose that "cold" is a fairly relative term, since it rarely drops below zero degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) in the city. Before coming here everyone talked about the cold. yeah, yeah. Excuse me, but we're from Maine. Gouldies wear T-shirts on days when the temps get up to 32!

They never told me about the wind.

El Cierzo is the wind that comes down into the Ebro river valley and knocks down trees and American teachers on bicycles. And anytime the sky is clear and the temps drop below about 4 degrees, the wind picks up. And picks up papers, dust, and small children. And THEN it feels cold. I don't usually complain about temperatures, but man, even I wear a bufanda out in the winter in Zaragoza. A bufanda is a scarf, usually worn as an identifying badge by Europeans and language teachers. Go ahead, look at your language teacher (or someone you know that does teach language, at least a European one). She's wearing a scarf, isn't she? if not, she wore one yesterday.
(By the way, I say "she" because 95% of all language teachers are women. Male French teachers also wear scarves).

Well, anyone that knows us knows that winter means skiing. Fortunately we are only about 2 short hours from some really great skiing, in the Pyrenees mountains separating Spain and France. Ben and I have been a few times, to a couple of different mountains (Andee and Chaia also came once). The biggest ski area in Aragón
is Formigal
Formigal base lodge

(an Aragonese word meaning "anthill." I don't know if anyone in Spain sees how amusing it is to call a popular ski area "The Anthill." On a typical Saturday it looks just like one. Also, Ben and I spent a rainy day skiing Candanchú, a ski area right on the French border (you look across the valley into France as you ski). Finally, Ben has spent this week skiing at Cerler, the highest ski area in the Pyrenees, with his school. Many schools in our area take a week during the winter called Semana Blanca (White Week) and go to a mountain to ski and play. Ben experienced his first week ever away from family skiing the tippy-top of the Pyrenees. Did I mention how jealous I am?

In addition to skiing this month we have eaten some really great food, and I wanted to share some of it with you. Here are some really good things to eat in Zaragoza:

1. In my last blog I wrote about New Years Eve. I'm not going to repeat about that feast here, except to say that Spaniards love to eat, and love to talk about eating while they eat. My kind of people.
2. Huevos Rotos. Imagine a meal that includes scrambled eggs, ham, potatos, and a beer. Or a glass of wine. That's right, American breakfast meets Spanish beverage. At night. This is a typical late evening meal/snack and its delicious. Don't try to order this in the morning, it isn't available. Except for the beer and wine.
   
3. Champiñones. The New York Times published an article last year about the Expo that took place in Zaragoza in the summer of 2008. In that article the author (can't remember the name) raved about a tapas bar called La Cueva en Aragón in which there was only one type of tapas served: A tower of grilled mushrooms drenched in garlic butter served on a round of baguette, crowned by a mini shrimp. Yes, it is THAT good!
4. Patatas Bravas. Anne Osborn (I hope she sees this!) fell in love with what she called "brave potatos" when she was in Spain last March. this simple plate of cooked potato chunks slathered in aioli sauce and mildly hot red sauce, is everywhere, and really good. We found the BEST by far, at a tapas bar called Erzo. If you are in ZAZ, find it.
5. Los Victorinos. This isn't a food, but rather a very special tapas place run by a true artist. You won't find the types of snacks available here anwhere else, and if you do, you might find a place with one or two tapas as magnificent as the sixteen or so available in this tiny laboratory of gastronomy. Just a couple of possibilities: "Symphony of mushrooms in port wine sauce over toasted baguette", and "sliced pork tenderloin and goat cheese." Oops, forgot the "roasted red pepper stuffed with braised oxtail." Everything here is incredible, and a ten minute conversation with the owner-chef-artist si worth the trip.
   

I am going to try and break my "once every three weeks" mold, and will try and write once a week for the next three weeks. Lets see how it goes. If it doesn't work, don't worry. Justyne will be on my case.

Images: Google Earth, and Griffin Mose's cellphone camera.

Navidad, Navidad, pronto llegará...

Much has happened since my last posting! Christmas has come and gone, as has my mother and many parents of SYA students, who went on break from the 22nd until...well, tomorrow, the day after Spain's big present-giving day, Día de Los Reyes (3 kings day, the celebration of the adoration of the baby Jesus by the three kings). Let me back up a bit...

Christmas in Spain is an interesting thing. As the world has gotten to be a smaller place, Spain has begun to adopt the traditions of others as their own. The combination of modern American Christmas traditions and older Spanish practices gives the holiday season a bit of a schizophrenic air. First of all, when does the holiday season begin? For us its an easy answer: The day after Thanksgiving. But what to do when there IS no Thanksgiving? I discovered this year that holidays need boundaries, something to tell them when to begin and end. Here in ZAZ, Christmas sort-of dribbled in bit by bit, starting sometime in mid November and clearly arriving some time in mid December. The streets in our neighborhood were lit by holiday lights (they don't look specifically Christmas-y, as they are white, blue and yellow..kind of a Chanukah-meets-tanning booth festivity if you like) and the big department stores were decked out in giant snowflake lights. The snowflakes make me giggle a bit, as Zaragoza almost never receives snow of any amount. There were a few flakes around the 17th of December, but the snow was gone by the afternoon. You can also see signs of Santa Claus here and there. And scenes of Bethlehem. The Belén scenes are the big deal in Zaragoza, and don't just have a manger with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. they include hills, buildings, water mills, flocks of sheep, and Roman fortresses with roman guards high over the town. And in the distance, the three kings make their way to the manger. Some stores have little scenes, some have big ones, some, like the banks, have HUGE ones. In the plaza in front of the Basilica there is a Belén scene so big that it takes 1o minutes to walk through it, looking at life-sized statues of people, donkeys, Roman forts, and an angel up in a tree next to a working water wheel powered by a real moving stream (see below).

What is missing from all of this are Christmas trees in lit windows. From our street the only tree that can be seen is our little, artificial tree. There are no other trees in any windows on our block, nor on any block around us. People tell us that other families have them, but that mostly the trees are inside the house and can't be seen. I had never thought of this before, but we display our trees as much for the neighbors as for ourselves in the U.S. In fact, here in Zaragoza there aren't really any lights up in ANY windows (at least facing the street). I have been searching on Youtube for images of lit neighborhoods to get my fix of the lights this year.

And, of course, everywhere are references to the kings. Epiphany, or Kings' day, is January 6th (today). Spanish kids put their shoes on the windowsill (or under the window if you happen to be on the 6th floor) along with some food for the kings and their camels on the night of the 5th. On the evening of the 5th there was a giant parade on our main street to welcome the kings to Zaragoza that included fairies, wizards, warriors, jugglers, flame throwers, accompanying Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltasar, the three kings, on their giant floats. At the end of this blog you can see a short video of the parade, set to music by the Alford trio (recorded as a present to Andee).

On the 17th my mother arrived from Bethel, experiencing the coldest few days we are likely to have this year (about 29 degrees and REALLY WINDY). We had a wonderful visit, taking her to all of the cool places we have discovered and cooking all of the yummy things we regularly eat here. On Christmas Eve we had the traditional meal of soft-shell tacos. Yes, tacos. This is not a Spanish tradition, as tacos are really not eaten here. This is a family tradition going way back. We eat special, secret-recipe tacos (our advisees know exactly what I mean here). After Christmas we took a three day trip to Madrid and Toledo to visit museums and monuments. and it rained. A lot. Every day. Just ask Ben about this picture.Okay, maybe I exaggerate. Ben was standing next to the cathedral in Toledo here, discovering what the functional purpose of a gargoyle is (Renaissance drainpipe).

After a really nice visit my mom left on the 30th, to rest from her vacation. We returned to Zaragoza for New Year's Eve (Nochevieja) with Alejandro and his parents. We had a fantastic meal of (traditional) seafoods, followed by grilled lamb and steak. Both Ben and Chaia ate like champions (steamed mussels+ meat on the bone=happy kids). Watching the ball drop in Spain is a bit more of a personal thing, as at precisely midnight, on each stroke of the count of twelve, Spaniards eat twelve grapes. If the clock you are using happens to have a fast chime, then you wind up with a mouth stuffed with grapes. Needless to say, the traditional New Year's kiss does not combine well with the Spanish tradition, and laughing about the awkwardness of trying to combine the two just makes the whole thing worse. Ben and Chaia saw 2AM for the second time this year, and we all slept until 10:30 on the 1st.

Happy new year all, may your 2010 be happier in all ways than your 2009!!

Thanksgiving for 90!

As I said in the last entry, our days have become a bit more routine. the routine, however, never seems to last very long. Shortly after the first week of November we had a special dinner to welcome the director of SYA to Zaragoza, a special dinner for Andee's birthday, and then Andee left us for a week to travel to San Sebastián with another teacher and a group of 20 students. Houseboy Koko was left to clean, supervise, give some help and some tests to a couple of kids who didn't attend the trip, and take mini-day trips out on his bicycle.
San Sebastián is widely considered to be the most beautiful city in Spain, and so of course when Andee went there, it rained sideways for 2 days. In addition to Donostia (the Basque name for the city), Andee and her team of teens went to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao (for modern art), and to France (for bragging rights, they were only there for about an hour-long enough to have a coffe and a crepe). It was a great trip, and Andee came back with a new food addiction: Croquetas de pistacho (pistachio croquettes). She has been looking more of them ever since. She's probably in the kitchen looking for some now, in fact. There aren't any there.
Well, when Andee got back to ZAZ the house was clean, the laundry done, and the kids were happy to see another parent. Back to our routine.
For 2 weeks.
Then, the BIG day happened. The holiday abroad to top all holidays abroad. On one level its easy to eplain Thanksgiving to Spainards. Its a huge celebration of eating too much. In a way, we celebrate like this every lunch (someday I'll try to describe the very Spanish way of eating lunch). I'm talking about, of course, Thanksgiving. Its the BIG family holiday for most of our students, and the first one they are missing, so we try to do it up big. So SYA connects with a restaurant here in the city to provide a banquet for all of the students, faculty, faculty families, Spanish students that attend my special exchange-conversation class, and invited dignitaries. In all, 90 people.
Are you ready for the punch line?
In either a fit of lunacy, a transient bout of sado-masochism, or in recognition that I do nothing but take saunas all day, Griffin (Resident Top Dog at SYA Zaragoza) put ME on detail duty.
Stop laughing.
Its true. I went to the restaurant to go over the traditional Thanksgiving menu that we developed, deliver the special recipes, and organize the design of the room and explain the order of events. This meeting took place 2 days before Thanksgiving, Plenty of time to get everything together, right?
Right.....
Try to imagine (this is for everyone except Brian Scheidegger) cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 90 people. Take a breath, and wrap your head around that. This was the menu:

10 turkeys, with gravy
Mashed potatos (or potatoes if you're a Senator from Indiana)
Mashed sweet potatos
green beans
peas and onions
Doug's dad's cornbread stuffing
vegetarian stuffing
cranberry sauce
bread
desserts, including pecan pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and strawberry bread.
Oooof....
Now the interesting part- The American teachers were responsible for making dessert (I made the apple pies, 8 of them), and the rest was to be made by ONE COOK. No joke, one little Spanish lady was going to try and make dinner for all of us. Also, this was to be her first thanksgiving dinner. she ahd never cooked most of the items.
Also also, she was going to do all of this AFTER cooking lunch for 125 people (remember, lunch here is in the early afternoon, about 2:30).
No way.
When we met on Tuesday, I could see the panic setting in and I volunteered to help her with the meal, which left me only thursday morning to make all 8 apple pies. Oh well. She and I went over the recipes, the order for serving food, everything. And I left with one request: Please find me cornbread. My job on Thanksgiving was to serve as her assistant and prep cook, and to make the two stuffing recipes (I left her with a detailed list of ingredients). Easy enough.

Fast forward to 5:30 pm on Thanksgiving (dinner to be served at 8:45). I arrived with 6 of the 8 pies (Andee had to other two) and my dress clothes in a backpack. And the first thing I was told on arrival was:

"No cornbread."

No cornbread?? I'm supposed to make cornbread stuffing for 90 people without CORNBREAD? Sorry, no cornbread anywhere in the city. And no one knows how to make it either.
Hmmm........... (insert here the tiny "pop" of my brain exploding)

So I explored the kitchen and found some baguettes, celery, onions, sausage, and spices, and I improvised. No cornbread, no recipe, just a kitchen, a harried head chef, and about 2 1/2 hours.
I finished both stuffings AND helped explain why we need both mashed potatos and mashed sweet potatos.
And I got dressed on time.

My final observations around Thanksgiving "Spanish style" is that the Spanish have a very specific way of eating. First there is a drink, then a primer plato or first plate, followed by a segundo plato. The whole idea of being in a restaurant and putting everything on the table at once is foreign to Spain as blood sausage (morcilla) is to the US. I simply could not convince the waiters that we wanted all of the food together. Finally I told them to put out the vegetables and potatos first. It made them very happy.

Next year I'm going out for sushi, or hot wings, or something else for Thanksgiving. Definitely nothing with cornbread.

Sorry, justyne (and everyone else that has chastised me for abandoning the blog)!

My goodness, time does zip on by! In a funny way, both very little and so much has happened since the last blog entry (was it really in OCTOBER?). "Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up." (This last stolen shamelessly from The Princess Bride).
Over the course of the end of October, through...well, today, we have followed a kind-of pattern every day, broken up by major events. First, the pattern:
After the normal morning preparations (see earlier entry), Andee goes to work, and I go to work out. Because that's the kind of guy I am. A workout guy.
OK, stop laughing. I'm serious.
About mid-October I joined a health club around the corner from our piso. Its a small gym, with good exercise equipment, aerobics-etc. studios, jacuzzis, personal trainers (fort extra hire), ultra-modern chic decor, clean changing rooms, and about a zillion aerobic, pilates, yoga, and cross training classes every day.
Oh, and a sauna.
So every day, off I go with my very un-chic LL Bean backpack gym bag and my equally un-chic workout clothes, and head all of 30 seconds down the street to my sauna-with-attached-gym. Because anyone who knows me, knows that THAT is why I joined a health club. Not that I don't take advantage of the other things that they offer. I really am exercising, its just that although the workouts vary day by day, the sauna doesn't. So for 60 Euros a month, I get to have a sauna EVERY WEEKDAY, and its a hot sauna at that. "Siekman-hot" (for those of you that know what that means). And that's not all. Like I said, I really do work out first. On Mondays and Wednesdays I go to pilates class, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have yoga. On Fridays I go to a high-energy aerobics class called "Body Attack" that basically kills me for the weekend. In addition, I do other weight and stretching workouts, and every hour on the half-hour a ten minute mini-masochistic exercise is offered that the really, really, extremely good looking workout assistants call abdominales. Apparently abdominales is Spanish for "I hate myself and I want to hurt all around my midsection, so please torture me."
Oh, and also, apparently Spanish men do NOT do group workouts. All of the 50 year old women with whom I exercise think that its just "sooo cute" that I do pilates and yoga. My back, however, has not felt this good in years, and I have thus far avoided all of the cold and flu epidemics typical of schools. "So I've got that going for me. Which is nice." (Caddyshack)

ALSO, we now have a weekend activity. Because abdominales isn't enough fun. Now, on Saturdays, we pack up a snack, get up too early, and head off to the traditional initiation event for parents of 10 year old boys: The 5-on-5 short-field soccer game. the parents of Ben's team are really super people, and some of them bring coffee and cake every Saturday for the fans (ourselves). Those of you reading this who don't have children at this age pretty much cannot understand the stress involved in watching your child compete. We all love that our kids are playing soccer on asphalt on a Saturday morning, but rather than experiencing the joy of watching our progeny run, twist, kick, celebrate, and generally frolic with their friends, most of us are focused of on a few, desperate mantra: PLEASE don't let him fall on the asphalt, please don't let him miss the ball when its kicked to him, PLEASE don't let him cry when the other team scores. To his great credit and my pride, Ben is a wonderful person. He is playing on a team with other 10-year olds that began playing soccer in utero, and he keeps trying. And he's still positive. And...he's getting better. He can't kick as hard as them, and he can't pass the ball sideways while running the other way, but he does know how to close passing lanes and to mark up on throw-ins and corner kicks. The rest will come. But in the meantime, PLEEEEASE........

Coming soon: Thanksgiving for 90!

¡Jalouín!

I have just understood in a wholly new way the old saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder." Or maybe "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til its gone."

I am talking about Halloween.

I am experiencing tonight, along with my family, my first Halloween outside of the US, and the sound emitted by the vast, sucking hole where this greatest of all secular, truly American holidays would normally be, is deafening. If that sounds like overstatement, come to Europe for the month of October someday and see for yourself. Take, for example, my walk home from school yesterday.

For those who don't already know, Andee and I work at School Year Abroad in Zaragoza, a mini American enclave surrounded by a VERY Spanish city of 750,000. All of our 67 students (save one Brazilian) are American, and five of the twelve adults working in the school are also "yanquis." So you can imagine that in "el colegio americano" Halloween is not lightly observed. On Friday, October 30, the school was decorated with pumpkins, bats, and spiderwebs. Most of the students arrived for classes dressed like elementary school kids all over the US on the same day, as did Griffin and I (pirate and vampire, respectively). There was candy and good cheer everywhere, and lots of photos taken (some to be posted on Facebook).

And then came my walk home.

Walking up the Paseo de la Independencia, at the core of the city's shopping district, I have to admit that I looked a little silly. OK, a LOT silly. Not because I was a vampire strolling past ZARA, El Corte Inglés, and countless top end boutiques, but rather because I was a vampire strolling along with a computer bag over his shoulder. But that is not the weird part. The weird part is that absolutely no one reacted to me. People were looking, I could see them stare. But I got not a single smile, not a single giggle, not even a disapproving shake of the head. NOTHING. Also, none of the stores were decorated. Very small pumpkins were available for 3 euros ($4.50) in El Corte Inglés (complete with Jack-O-Lantern faces conveniently pre-attached with black duct tape) but no stores had any displayed. And that is just a beginning. Here are some notable facts about "Jalouín" in Spain:

• There are no candy corns. That alone should have warned me about today.
• There is no trick-or-treating. Chaia is, with good reason, outraged.
• There are no parades. This, in a city that 2 weeks ago had a parade of around 300,000 people. In costumes.
• Chaia was not allowed to wear a full costume to school on Friday, only a hat. Outraged.
• If you look hard, you can find costumes for sale, as well as bags of candy. But again, no one wears costumes and no trick or treating.

I think what I am witnessing is a holiday being born. If you look around, the pieces are there. Its just that no one knows what to do with them. It reminds me a bit of the scene in Apollo 13, when the engineers dump all of the hardware pieces on a table and have to figure out how to make them work together. We are doing our very American best to explain things. Tonight we are having a Haloween party (just the 4 of us) where we will eat candy and play "pin the hat on the witch" (Chaia's invention). On Thursday we carved pumpkins (only 3 this year, they are a bit pricey), including one with Ben and Chaia's name carved into it. If anyone reading this sees Brooke Libby, please let her know that 10 years ago she gave us a pumpkin with Ben's name carved into it. We have done this every year since, adding Chaia's name in 2002.

Maybe what Halloween in Spain needs is a bit of hybridization, something along the lines of what the church did with the combination of the original Pagan holiday with Catholic veneration of saints (Nov 1 is All Saints Day in Spain) that gave rise to Halloween. Andee and I have suggested that we could start a tradition whereby adults dress in costumes, knock on doors throughout the neighborhood, and trick-or-treat for wine and tapas.

I think it could take off.

Las Fiestas del Pilar

October is big-time fiesta in Zaragoza. "Big-time" means no school, no work, and no sleep. If you can imagine the 4th of July, and then imagine that the 4th of July lasts for 10 days, you have a general picture of "Pilar" in this city. The festivities began on October 9, and ended promptly (sort-of) at midnight on October 19th. The center of the party is the 12th of October, a national holiday in Spain for 2 reasons: It is el día de la hispanidad (Hispanic day?), and also the holy day for Our Lady of the Pillar. The pillar is a statue of the Virgin Mary on a small marble pillar, and it commemorates the apparition of Mary in Spain during her life, to speak with the Apostle St. James. "The pillar" stands at the center of the Basilica in Zaragoza, so the big holiday focuses all of it's energy on this city. The population more than doubles for the festival. The religious/traditional/cultural high point of the week is the Ofrenda de Flores, where people dressed in traditional Spanish dress (mostly from Aragón, but other regions are also represented) process from, of course, our street, to the Basilica to offer flowers to a statue of Mary on a huge scaffolding. Andee and Chaia were invited to participate, so they lined up with the other 300,000 people processing (no joke) and made their offering.

But that's only one event out of manymanymanymany events.

So what else happens?

So many things that I can't possibly put them all here. I'll try to sum up, hitting on the major events (I'll forget some, I'm sure).

• First off, there are fireworks every night in different parts of the city, at about 11:00. Also, there are concerts. SOOOOO many concerts in different parts of the city, some free and some not. On the nights of the 16-18th, the concerts were basically right outside our apartment, starting at 10:00.

• Also, there is an artisan's expo for the entire festival. It fills the park near our street with food, toys, and other crafts (ceramics, metalwork, woodwork, you name it). No junk, all pretty nice craftsmanship.

• Next to the artisan's expo is a tent, filling a street for the week. In it, there are free concerts all day and evening, and food and drink (not to mention childrens' activities throughout the day). In the tent you can get Ternasco, grilled lamb, day and night (ternasco is the regional meal of Aragón) along with your beer or wine at snack break (about 10:30 am) and at mealtimes, or with vermouth before mealtimes.

• There are parades sporadically occurring through the week, most of them on the major street adjoining our street. Sometimes they are organized, purposeful processions, and sometimes just 30,000 rowdy, drinking, singing members of various peñas (clubs) showing off their singing skills.

• In the city parks there are nonstop activities for kids and their parents.

• In the larger, divided streets with pedestrian walks in the middle, there are tents and kiosks selling everything imaginable. Prices range from expensive to REALLY expensive.

• There are contests of every kind (running, rowing, speed skating, you name it).
• There are processions of gigantes y cabezudos, big puppet characters of 2 kinds: The gigantes are 15 foot tall statues of famous and not-so-famous characters held on the shoulders of a REALLY srong person, and the cabezudos are regular-sized people with enormous heads, also of famous and not-so-famous characters. The gigantes are fascinating; they are huge, and fun, but also possess a strange nobility. They make you feel like a little kid. The cabezudos, on the other hand, are truly bizarre. They carry whips, which they use on unsuspecting children as they are chased down the street. Then the scary, big-head puppets give the kids candy. No joke, this is the stuff that nightmares are made of.
• There are bullfights, bull expositions, and vaquillas, which are pretty big cows (but not bulls) that are let, one at a time, into the bullring where a gang of hormonally imbalanced teenage boys attempt to got chased by the cows. Occasionally a teenager gets hurt doing this, which really gets the crowd going. The notable thing about the vaquillas is that it takes place at 8:00 in the morning. Silly me, thought:"Wow, I'm impressed that people get up so early to watch and participate!"

Wrong.

These teenagers (and most everyone watching) have been awake all night, and this is just the last stop before a mid-morning nap. After the nap, the whole party starts again.

• There are street vendors, artists, henna tattoo guys, pirated DVD sellers, comedians, acrobats, and of course at least 20 Andean music bands playing the theme from Titanic over and over from noon until 2 AM. All week. Right outside our apartment.

Basically, the city turns into a circus for a week and a half (I forgot to mention the circus- that's here too). Everyone is exhausted all of the time, and everyone is poor and hungover from overeating once the week ends. By the last weekend of Pilar, we had had enough festival to last the rest of the year. We rented a car and went to the Pyrenees for some peace and quiet. That trip gets detailed in my next blog, as soon as I get the theme from Titanic out of my head.

October is here

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..."

1. 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....
2. 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.
3. ..and..
   
4. 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.
5. 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).
6. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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?
   

C'mon, the ambulance ride is FREE!

We are now in the third week of school for both the adults and the kids, and all seems to be going pretty well. It's Tuesday, and I'm writing this at 9:45 in the morning. Tuesday is my official errands day, since I have no classes. On Tuesdays I run errands for the family and for SYA (when Anna, la reina de la oficina, needs me. Yesterday, in fact, I picked up SYA's season tickets for the local pro basketball team (in exchange for rights to tickets to the first game of the season). Today is "Andee bicycle day," "classical music tickets day," and of course "shopping for bread, water, and laundry detergent day."

As I have said before, this will be a year of firsts. We have already had a number of them:

• First Tomatina.
• First whole Jamón ibérico.
• First birthday out of the US for Chaia.
• First man-bag for Doug (i know, but I have keys, wallet, other keys, bus card, etc. to carry every day).
• First foods: Snails, morcilla, Doner Kebab, rabbit, etc.
• And now.....

Andee's first-ever trip to the emergency room. As in, "Andee of the Nine Toes, and the Sidewalk of Doom (excuse the weak Lord Of The Rings reference there). On Sunday afternoon, Andee and I left Ben and Chaia with Griffin (who is determined to convince Chaia that she should drop out of school at 7 and start a jewelry design business. More on that later, maybe..) and took a taxi to the Hospital Miguel Servet, the BIIIG central hospital in Zaragoza. Here's what happened, including the back story:

We live near a major boulevard in ZAZ called Paseo de la Independencia. It's wide, busy, and full of stores and people all day. It is also apparently the site for a number of cultural events including (I'm told) the naked cyclists' traffic protests (I'll write about it when I see it). On Sunday the Paseo was completely blocked to traffic, and the street was filled with exhibitions of activities for kids. there were horse rides with mounted police, basketball games, tables for chess (Ben and I played a game to a draw), gymnastics, karate, etc. There was also a rock climbing/catwalk thing for kids to try. So during the afternoon (6:00 or so) Ben decided to try the climb. And got halfway there. And got nervous. So Andee decided to come to the rescue, and in her effort to quickly run to Ben ("run" and "quickly" is a dangerous combination for Andee) she slipped off of the edge ogf the sidewalk, slicing off the tip of her big toe and part of her toenail in the process. Ouch.

Now before I explain the rest, it's important to know a few things about this injury:

1. This is a fairly painful thing to do.
2. There was (according to Andee) a fair amount of blood ("a POOL of blood in my shoe").
3. There is a first aid tent nearby.
4. In spite of the pain and blood (both subjectively significant), this is NOT a typical emergency room-type of injury.

So when Andee hobbled over to the 1st aid tent, she was expertly attended to by no fewer than FIVE EMTs. After cleaning her up and bandaging the mangled digit, all five of them suggested that she head to the emergency room. For an x-ray. On the tip of her toe. Because it's Spain and it's free.

Did I forget to mention they also recommended an ambulance ride? for the TIP OF HER TOE. I don't mean the top 1/3 of her toe, I mean the TIP.

Anyways, after about 90 minutes in a VERY sterile-looking hospital we returned home with Andee's x-rays (negative fracture of the tip of the toe), prescriptions for ibuprofen and Betadine, and an interesting story. The toe is healing now (it's actually pretty gnarly-looking, I cleaned and rebandaged it last night), and now we know Andee's emergency room threshold. She also has a new nickname: nueve (Spanish for "nine").

*Andee would like everyone to know that she's fine, that she never actually fell ALL THE WAY to the ground when she injured herself, and that she refused the ambulance ride. We went by taxi instead.

A Day In The Life...

We have now entered the phase one might call "normal" here in Zaragoza. The temperature has dropped during the day to a comfortable 85 degrees, and nighttime is downright cool. Everyone has begun to develop a daily rhythm, so I thought I'd take an entry to talk about what the day looks like for this family living in "the big city" (if I didn't say it before, Zaragoza is Spain's 5th-largest city with about 750,000 inhabitants).

Ben and Chaia have started school (3 days and counting), so that is their thing, Mon-Fri. The Spanish school day is a little different from the typical American one so I'll describe a regular day for them:
7:50 wake up. Chaia needs to be coaxed out of bed, so we invent a "problem with our dragon."
8:05 get dressed, come out of the bedroom for breakfast.
8:15 eat breakfast (ciabatta toast for ben, fruit or yogurt for Chaia. Water for both because the milk is..well...different. Milk here is sold in a box, and it's unrefrigerated until you open it).
8:30 finish breakfast, brush teeth, find shoes (Ben's are usually in 2 different places) and backpack, put school stuff in.
8:50 leave for the bus stop. Down to the street, and a 3 block walk to where their school bus picks them up.
9:02 on bus, off to school that begins at 9:30.
-->(forward to end of school day)
5:50 Off of school bus, 3 block walk to the apartment.
6:00 rest, snack, homework or reading, decompression time.
8:00 Help dad cook dinner.
9:00 eat dinner
9:45 get ready for bed
10:00 (or so) lights out. Repeat tomorrow.

Andee has begun her full time job. Her routine is pretty simple:
7:45 turn off alarm clock, bribe Doug to get out of bed first.
8:00 get out of bed, look for tea.
8:15 walk around the apartment, trying to wake up.
8:20 eat breakfast (tea, Greek yogurt or something similar).
8:30 watch all of the commotion around her.
8:50 say goodbye to kids while getting dressed, leave for work.
9:00 first class at School Year Abroad.
5:15 last class at SYA ends.
5:30 (or so) go home and either go with House-boy Koko to get kids, or wait for them while napping.
Then the after-school and dinner schedule kicks in.

And then there is me.

I have a little bit of a "different" schedule. I only teach 1 class right now (4 days a week), and the earliest I teach during the day is on Monday (1:10 pm). No class on Tuesday. So here was my day today (Thursday):

7:45 wake up, shut off alarm. Get bribed into getting up first. Wake up Chaia with a story about how our dragon is misbehaving and only she can control him. Tell Ben to put down the book and get dressed.
8:00 put together breakfast for kids, turn on tea water for Andee.
8:10 put together lunch for kids while they eat, try to make coffee.
8:20 get dressed, put snacks together.
8:35 run around looking for backpacks and shoes.
8:50 Walk kids to bus, walk back home, drink slightly cold coffee.
9:15 Go to the coffee shop across the street with Andee, drink a cortado (espresso with a tiny bit of milk) and eat a croissant (cruasán).
9:50 go to SYA for an assembly meeting.
10:25 end of meeting, go out for coffee and a mini-tortilla sandwich.
10:45 walk back home (5 min each way) to get the papers for class that I left there.
11:00 back at SYA to "fiddle around" with some web pages that have Spanish worksheets
11:40 get bored, go on an errand for SYA to copy some keys (a nice 10 minute walk to a hardware store).
12:15 finish the errand, go by the library to return a lousy video the kids got (something about a bored witch, it's REALLY dumb)
12:50 back to SYA, talk with some other teachers, waste more time.
2:00 go to lunch with Andee at the local Montessori school (that's our dining hall here).
3:00 out after lunch for more coffee with the diretor of SYA to talk about some stuff (lunch here is 90 minutes).
3:30 finally teach a class. It went well, considering I had all day to prep for it.
4:20 leave SYA go to grocery store to get things for dinner (we go food shopping every day, our refrigerator here is smaller than the TV set).
5:00 Home, take a short nap.
5:45 go get the kids from the school bus after folding some laundry and hanging more on the line (the washing machine is smaller than the regrigerator).
6:00 back home, play with kids, talk to Andee, make dinner, eat, put kids to bed (with Andee).
10:30 watch an episode (or 2) of the British sitcom "Coupling" streamed from a Chinese website. Our TV doesn't get any channels yet (maybe fixed this week, maybe not).
12:00 Write this blog entry, go to bed.

As you can see, I have a VERY full day. And tomorrow, there's another one. Life is a busy thing for House-boy Koko.

Holding pattern...

Here we are, on the third of September, waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting... At the moment I feel a little like a plane circling an airport, waiting to land. Granted, Zaragoza is one heck of a plane to be sitting on, but I feel this way nonetheless. What are we waiting for?

School.

Not so much School Year Abroad (which officially kicks off on Friday evening with the arrival of Griffin (director) and the students (our raison d'etre). Andee and I have been writing syllabi, looking through books, and generally getting ready for the school year. That part has been, so far, pretty doable.

No, we are waiting with baited breath for Ben and Chaia to start school.

Confession time: I have never understood, until now, all of those parents that breathe a sigh of relief when their children begin school in the fall. Not until now, when I find myself in the same position. In Bethel, the start of school has always been an exciting touchstone, but never a relief of any kind. Here, thinking back of the past five weeks, I realize that Andee and I have been "man-on" with our kids without a break. (Yeah, I know, "poor Doug and Andee, stuck with their kids travelling around Spain.").

The fact is, since our arrival on the 23rd of July we haven't had access to a babysitter, and so everywhere we go, they go. And it's not like at home, where we can just "send them outside to play." Outside, here, is a pretty busy neighborhood with cars, shops, restaurants, bars, and the like. If we want the kids to go out, we go with them. If we want to go for a walk, they come along. So all of our outings are of "Ben and Chaia-length", and anywhere we go has to be "Ben and chaia-friendly." This leaves out some pretty cool places, and leaves us anxious for a night out to watch a Real Zaragoza game in a pub (Real Zaragoza is the local pro soccer team, FIRST division, if you are a real fan) or the chance to go for an evening walk (it's still in the upper 80's at 10:30 pm). So it's not so much that we are tied to our apartment or anything, it's just that either our outings are of a semi-short duration, or we have to go out one at a time (or one of us with one, or both, children in tow).

So, parents out there reading, please tell me that I'm not a cruel, heartless father. Tell me that we are normal, loving parents, who just want to love their children from a bit of a distance for a few hours each day, so we can take a long walk, or go to a museum together, or sit in a café trying new tapas, and not have to teach, entertain, explain, mediate, or resolve crises involving stuffed animals.

Anyways, school starts on Tuesday morning. Until then, we'll go for shorter walks broken up by stops for helado (ice cream) and granizados (a kind-of lemon flavored slush puppy, heaven on a hot day).Limón granizado

Tomatina!!

Valencia, August 17-26. Many things happened during the 9 days we spent in Spain's third-largest city, including the eating of a tortilla de patatas made by the jedi master of tortillas, Ximo's mother. We also ate paella de pollo y conejo, fideuá, many awesome tapas, and fabulous produce from Valencia's mercat central. We went to Europe's largest aquarium, toured a many-layered cathedral, and chased pigeons in the Plaza de la Virgen.

And we were robbed.

Yup, our backpack was stolen from right under our noses while on the beach with Ximo and María José. We lost MANY keys (leading to a long night of running around to replace said keys so we could get the car back to Valencia), Chaia's new camera, a book I loaned to Ximo 2 years ago and just got back, and some random clothes.

That said, we had a terrific time in Valencia and can't wait to get back again. The city is gorgeous, the food terrific, and the old friends can't be beat (Ximo and I met through an exchange program 27 years ago!). On the last day of our stay on the Mediterranean coast, I was able to realize a lifelong dream; Ximo and I went out to the unremarkable town of Buñol to take part in the world's most famous food fight, La Tomatina.

I have enclosed some stock photos below to illustrate (I didn't DARE bring our camera), but basically La Tomatina is this:

• for 364 days a year, Buñol is an industrial town of about 10,000 people.
• On the last Wednesday of August, the town becomes the focus of all chaos in the universe.

That's it. On said Wednesday, around 30,000 people descend on the narrow, winding streets of Buñol, dressed in bathing suits, goggles, t-shirts, some with watermelon-rind helmets, and throw very ripe tomatoes at each other. For an hour. Gigantic trucks bring in millions of tomatoes from western Spain (these tomatoes, everyone says, are overripe and in any case the wrong kind for human consumption) and, on a signal, begin to dump the tomatoes on the main street of the oldest part of town while driving at 2 mph up the street. Then people from EVERYWHERE (I met Serbians, Americans, Brits, Germans, Portuguese, Italians, Japanese, Chinese, and Spaniards) join in a messy, red, fragrant mosh pit. It instantly brings out the 8 year old in everyone, and people are smiling, laughing, and literally swimming in tomatoes and juice.
And then it ends (sort of). The trucks leave, people are dancing and singing, and from every balcony in the city water from hoses and buckets rains down on the heads of the tomato-warriors. People come out and uncover their housefronts and storefronts, and begin to clean up the streets. The acid from the tomatoes does a pretty amazing job cleaning the street and walls, and to be honest I can't remember when my hair felt softer and cleaner. The rest of the day is a street party filled with food stands, music, beer, and sangría. Then everyone goes home (or somewhere else), and Buñol turns back into a sleepy, industrial town.

For anyone not terrorized by crowds and chaos, I highly recommend the Tomatina. Just make sure you leave a change of clothes somewhere safe (I did).






Photos from google.com.

Toledo, imperial city

After leaving El Bonillo (and it was not easy to leave Llani and Olallo's gorgeous house and fantastic cooking!) we headed out in Llani's car to Toledo, the current capital of Castilla-La Mancha and a city built layer upon layer over the past 2,000 years. When the Romans arrived on the Iberian peninsula (your people, Bill!) there were already people living on the hill that overlooks the Tajo river.

Toledo is a fascinating place, and one of the most visited sites in Spain. Ben noted that he hadn't heard any English speakers yet on our trip, but in Toledo we were pretty well surrounded by other "turistas." In the 5th century after the fall of Rome, this city (Toletum) became the capital of Visigothic Iberia. Under the Moors (a catch-all term for the many Muslim peoples to control the peninsula between 711 and 1492, history lovers) Toledo was a city of unusually peaceful coexistence between Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. When the monarchs Fernando and Isabel arrived here they loved the city so much that they decided to be buried here, and commissioned a church to be built to house their tombs (San Juan de Las Peñas, it's a spectacular Gothic church with a beautiful cloister). Only in Toledo (a common phrase of mine) can you find a "Synogogue of St. Mary." If you only go to Spain once in your life, Toledo is a must.

We found a hotel to stay in (actually, Andee and I stayed here about 14 years ago too) with a view from our balcony that would take your breath away. Then we ate at a nearby restaurant (patatas bravas and bocadillos) and headed for the cathedral. There we spent the next 2 hours, and Ben and Chaia learned more than anyone should have to know about church architecture and symbolism.

Toledo is the seat of the Archbishop of Spain, and as such has a magnificent cathedral, one of the four most beautiful in Spain in my opinion (let's see if we get to the other three this year...). Just a sampling of things to be seen here are eye-poppingly beautiful illuminated bibles, massive stained glass rose windows, the Transparente, Spain's greatest work of Baroque art, and a Sacristy (it's where the priests' robes, and other sacred treasures, are kept) full of paintings by Caravaggio, Van Dyck, Titian, Goya, and at least 15 or 16 by El Greco.

Oh, and did I mention the GIGANTIC painting of St. Christopher on the wall of the cathedral? He's the saint that, in 1969, was dropped from the list of saints because there was very little evidence that he really lived. His mother must have been furious.
Anyway, we spent two days in Toledo, visiting churches and museums (the Museo Sefardi, which houses the history of Jews in Spain, was great). Then, in the heat of the day (the thermometer read 38 degrees celsius- about 100 farenheit) we left Toledo and braved the 3 1/2 hour drive to Valencia, where my great friend Ximo lives. It was an uneventful drive, and should only be noted that there is a REALLY obvious loss of altitude from Toledo to Valencia, at sea level. When you leave the plains of La Mancha, you really do leave the plains. More later...