November 30, 2005
Albaycin, Flamenco, Geneva, Soccer and Mark is really working on his sabbatical project!
Hola everyone! Finally, I'm writing again. This dial-up modem business has slowed my production time down significantly and terminated it a few times while I was "uploading" photos to the blog so this entry will not have photos, but I'll post them immediately in a separate blog, so stay tuned...
Anyway, since we last blogged we had a visitor, Ben Saper, from Evanston. He's in Madrid this semester as a study-abroad student from Brown Univ. and wanted to get out to see some of the other wonderful cities of Espana. Lydia and I knew him a little from camp, which was a nice bonus. Seriously, this guy was great. We could not have asked for a better visitor (no pressure for those of you who are planning your vacations here. You are all unique and we are looking forward to each and every one of your visits). Anyway, the kids were so psyched to have a houseguest, let alone a cool, 21 year old camp counselor! Mark and I were pleased with ourselves that we knew where the bus station was to pick him up from. Nothing like a visitor to give you some gauge on how far you've come or not because once we picked him up we proceeded to get completely lost in the labrynth of the city streets. Oh well. The next day we managed to make it to the old arab neighborhood, Albaycin, with Ben and our pals, the Lozano-Whites.(see photo) We had fried fish in a nice plaza smack dab in the middle of some other labrynth that only our Granadino buddy, Tony, can lead us in and out of . The fish is really good here. Very fresh and there's a huge variety. We had about fifty-six different kinds: calamare, smelts, octopus, and what seemed like two or three dozen others whose names are something like whitefish or rape. I think there are as many different kinds of fish as there are responses to "Hola". So yummy with a beer outside in the warm sun with friends! Then we went walking around the Albaycin which is up on a hill where you can see all of the Alhambra Palace and the city of Granada. All 11 of us walked and walked and talked and laughed along the way. It was one of our favorite days here yet. As Napoleon Dynamite said, "Gosh! Lucky."
Mark and I went to a Flamenco show with Tony and Sandra a couple of weeks ago. That was spectacular. In fact, "show" in Spanish is "spectaculo". They're so smart here. There were dancers, singers, guitarists, drummers and from what I could tell, clappers. Those gals who do all that clapping could make a good euro or two for the Clapper lamp company. Whew! With all the clapping they did they could keep a disco flashing for hours! The dancers were some serious chicas! They could step and strut and kick and shuffle like nobody's business. Very impressive. The guitarists really stole the show for me and Mark, though. These fellas made such beautiful music. They strummed so fast and made so many different sounds come out of their guitars. Hard to describe. You've just got to give it a listen. We hope to take visitors to some flamenco places. The kids really want to go and Wynne is dieing (sp?) to wear her very own flamenco get-up!
On Nov. 17 we left the warm sun of southern Spain for our first intercontinental voyage! We were on a mission to visit Geneva before our tourist status expired and have a great time with friends. So we went to Switzerland to hang with our friends Jonh and Amy Jacobs and their kiddies, Owen (5) and Emma (3). WOW! A two and a half hour flight transported us to an incredible place. Geneva was soooo clean and everyone was on time. There were fancy jewelry stores, watch stores and chocolate shops literally everywhere we turned. John and Amy live in a 200 year old barn.(See photo) Sounds sketchy doesn't it? Wait till you see it...what a place! Huge, renovated, warm, welcoming and styly! We loved having triple the space of our casa in Spain. We could see Mont Blanc (highest peak in Europe) from their town which was cool. Mostly, we hung out*, did a little (expensive) shopping, and ate. The wine, bread and chocolate were wonderful...second only to the Jacobses' company! We celebrated Thanksgiving together and had a blast! None of us can wait to go back--fair warning, John and Amy!
Needless to say, I started the South Beach diet the day we got home.
Besides the really fun walking around bit in the Albaycin another highlight was a soccer tournament at Granada College last weekend (see photo). Reed and Lydia both played and had a great time. It was only for kids in 1st through 6th grades so we got to visit with some familiar faces, chat with teachers and meet a few parents and kids who are part of the school scene. It was the first time we've really seen girls participating in a competitive manner in sports here. The lack of female athletes been one of very few disappointments, let me tell you. Finding girls to play soccer with is like finding peanut butter in a spanish grocery store! So Lydia had a chance to shine and managed to put one in the net! She was one of only two girls to score during the tournament! We are so proud. Reed had a great day as he played relentless defense for his 4th grade team which won the championship of their division! The Spanish are very serious about their "futbol" and we were excited that our little gringos could hold their own and make their teams, their parents and their whole country proud! Long live AYSO!
On Saturday we are going to Dusseldorf, Germany and probably over to Amsterdam, Holland during the week. The country has a bunch of holidays and there's no school, so we're "off like a bride's nightie!" Wish me luck on the South Beach thing. Maybe some wooden shoes will distract me from all those darn good European pastries and chocolates!
All for now, we'll try to post some photos right now. If not, check tomorrow, por favor.
* Mark wants me to edit the "hanging out" portion of this entry because he actually did visit some museums to do some good work for his sabbatical project, which is going well, by the way. He's collected and documented over 200 photos of art stuff (good, descriptive word, eh?) thus far!
Anyway, since we last blogged we had a visitor, Ben Saper, from Evanston. He's in Madrid this semester as a study-abroad student from Brown Univ. and wanted to get out to see some of the other wonderful cities of Espana. Lydia and I knew him a little from camp, which was a nice bonus. Seriously, this guy was great. We could not have asked for a better visitor (no pressure for those of you who are planning your vacations here. You are all unique and we are looking forward to each and every one of your visits). Anyway, the kids were so psyched to have a houseguest, let alone a cool, 21 year old camp counselor! Mark and I were pleased with ourselves that we knew where the bus station was to pick him up from. Nothing like a visitor to give you some gauge on how far you've come or not because once we picked him up we proceeded to get completely lost in the labrynth of the city streets. Oh well. The next day we managed to make it to the old arab neighborhood, Albaycin, with Ben and our pals, the Lozano-Whites.(see photo) We had fried fish in a nice plaza smack dab in the middle of some other labrynth that only our Granadino buddy, Tony, can lead us in and out of . The fish is really good here. Very fresh and there's a huge variety. We had about fifty-six different kinds: calamare, smelts, octopus, and what seemed like two or three dozen others whose names are something like whitefish or rape. I think there are as many different kinds of fish as there are responses to "Hola". So yummy with a beer outside in the warm sun with friends! Then we went walking around the Albaycin which is up on a hill where you can see all of the Alhambra Palace and the city of Granada. All 11 of us walked and walked and talked and laughed along the way. It was one of our favorite days here yet. As Napoleon Dynamite said, "Gosh! Lucky."
Mark and I went to a Flamenco show with Tony and Sandra a couple of weeks ago. That was spectacular. In fact, "show" in Spanish is "spectaculo". They're so smart here. There were dancers, singers, guitarists, drummers and from what I could tell, clappers. Those gals who do all that clapping could make a good euro or two for the Clapper lamp company. Whew! With all the clapping they did they could keep a disco flashing for hours! The dancers were some serious chicas! They could step and strut and kick and shuffle like nobody's business. Very impressive. The guitarists really stole the show for me and Mark, though. These fellas made such beautiful music. They strummed so fast and made so many different sounds come out of their guitars. Hard to describe. You've just got to give it a listen. We hope to take visitors to some flamenco places. The kids really want to go and Wynne is dieing (sp?) to wear her very own flamenco get-up!
On Nov. 17 we left the warm sun of southern Spain for our first intercontinental voyage! We were on a mission to visit Geneva before our tourist status expired and have a great time with friends. So we went to Switzerland to hang with our friends Jonh and Amy Jacobs and their kiddies, Owen (5) and Emma (3). WOW! A two and a half hour flight transported us to an incredible place. Geneva was soooo clean and everyone was on time. There were fancy jewelry stores, watch stores and chocolate shops literally everywhere we turned. John and Amy live in a 200 year old barn.(See photo) Sounds sketchy doesn't it? Wait till you see it...what a place! Huge, renovated, warm, welcoming and styly! We loved having triple the space of our casa in Spain. We could see Mont Blanc (highest peak in Europe) from their town which was cool. Mostly, we hung out*, did a little (expensive) shopping, and ate. The wine, bread and chocolate were wonderful...second only to the Jacobses' company! We celebrated Thanksgiving together and had a blast! None of us can wait to go back--fair warning, John and Amy!
Needless to say, I started the South Beach diet the day we got home.
Besides the really fun walking around bit in the Albaycin another highlight was a soccer tournament at Granada College last weekend (see photo). Reed and Lydia both played and had a great time. It was only for kids in 1st through 6th grades so we got to visit with some familiar faces, chat with teachers and meet a few parents and kids who are part of the school scene. It was the first time we've really seen girls participating in a competitive manner in sports here. The lack of female athletes been one of very few disappointments, let me tell you. Finding girls to play soccer with is like finding peanut butter in a spanish grocery store! So Lydia had a chance to shine and managed to put one in the net! She was one of only two girls to score during the tournament! We are so proud. Reed had a great day as he played relentless defense for his 4th grade team which won the championship of their division! The Spanish are very serious about their "futbol" and we were excited that our little gringos could hold their own and make their teams, their parents and their whole country proud! Long live AYSO!
On Saturday we are going to Dusseldorf, Germany and probably over to Amsterdam, Holland during the week. The country has a bunch of holidays and there's no school, so we're "off like a bride's nightie!" Wish me luck on the South Beach thing. Maybe some wooden shoes will distract me from all those darn good European pastries and chocolates!
All for now, we'll try to post some photos right now. If not, check tomorrow, por favor.
* Mark wants me to edit the "hanging out" portion of this entry because he actually did visit some museums to do some good work for his sabbatical project, which is going well, by the way. He's collected and documented over 200 photos of art stuff (good, descriptive word, eh?) thus far!
