casacollins

January and February here in southern Spain remind us more of Chicago than you might think. We've had snow, rain, frost, wind, and cold. The big difference is that the bitter cold only lasts a few days and "bitter" is really about 35 degrees ABOVE zero. No snow to shovel. It's only stuck to the mountaintops, many of which we can see from our neighborhood! Lydia (Photo #1) has gone skiing three times with Mark. It is her new "favorite sport". Just in time to get some inspiration from the Olympics! Reed joined them once and Wynne and I will follow suit in March probably. The Sierra Nevadas here are beautiful and easy to get to. Apparently 30,000 other people feel the same way. Mark says the lines are enormously long, so leaving at 7:30 am to get up there early is commonplace. You have to understand that many (young, social types) Spaniards are making their ways back home from a night out at around 5 am, so a 7:30 wake up call is quite a feat. "It's so worth it," say Lydia and Mark who are both quite young and social as you recall.

Other ways folks pass their time in Andalucia is to go and visit places. Cathedrals are a popular draw as most of the country has some Catholic heritage somewhere even no one goes to church (it's the whole Franco-bossing-everyone-around-for-so-long-that-now-we-don't-want-to-do-anything thing). History and how the Mulslims were driven out by the Catholics, etc. is also a big thing here as you can imagine, what with all the ruins, stories of wars and rulers, streets named for famous warriors or saints. We've definitely gotten a fair amount of mileage out of cathedrals and battles here. Strange, but true and usually more exciting stories than one gets on Disney Channel (not always, but usually). Reed especially loves the forts and castles, but all of us get into walking through the ruins, checking out the views (they're always on hilltops or mountaintops), and having lunch in a nearby cafe--okay, and pretending we're in a battle!

In order to put things in perspective for me, when I turned 40, Mark and I spent a day over in Cordoba to see their famous mosque/cathedral. The kids were in school so we took the day to drive over there and give the place a good look. This mosque used to be the biggest in Europe and thousands worshipped there. Then in the late 1400s those Catholics took over and made it into a cathedral. The old, huge mosque surrounds the much smaller cathedral. But the only size that counted for them was their coffers and their armies no doubt. Both houses of worship are ornate and unique in their own right. Very, very cool to see the juxtaposition of the arab style archways and the marble figures from the catholics all in the same place. Really comforting to feel like there are lots of people and things much older than me that have survived and are marveled at for their age, grace and style! If we can all only be so lucky. The second photo is the outside of the mosque which looks like a well decorated fortress. Makes sense given all the fighting they were up to back then. Most of the colorful paint has worn off over the centuries, but you can get an idea of how decorative their art and architecture was.

The last photo is the inside of the mosque with all the archways and the forest of columns. It is famous for the candy striped archways and the sheer number of columns, of course whose number I forget--it's something like several hundred. The whole mosque is as big as an entire city block. Incredible. The only things built that big these days are shopping malls and Wal-Marts(not here yet!). Not like the good old days when under-paid laborers worked horrifically long days for a pittance, but built these amazing monuments. Now we have unions and strip malls. Go figure.
The third photo is picture of me and Mark outside the Cordoba mosque in the gardens. There are orange trees everywhere, but be careful. They're not for eating. Just for decoration. This is a good example of what we are going to be like when we're retired. Travel around together. Mary takes a million pictures. Mary's wearing bright clothes. Mark poses willingly as he contemplates lunch. We don't change all that much do we? Fun to have a date that can last all day long and is a bit more than a movie and dinner.

The fourth photo is a great shot of Wynne in her element. Her friend, Louis, came over after school to play for a while before heading off to a birthday party at El Castillo Magico (the Magic Castle)! They're encouraged to dress up, apparently, for these fiestas, so who are we to interfere. I was relieved that she didn't want to go as a Spice Girl. Instead Wynne sported her very own Chinese dress that she bought with her own money! Louis ditched the school uniform later for a pirate's outfit! Apparently for Carnaval (Mardi Gras) folks over in Valencia really go to town with their costumes. We're not doing anything here for Mardi Gras seeing as we've got that dress up thing going on enough already.


The next blog is about to come out so check back tomorrow to read about our visa fiasco and Gibraltar!