Tis the Season...

… to celebrate my favorite holiday—HALLOWEEN!!!!

We officially began the party when I was FINALLY able to locate some pumpkins (small, but still). Every year one of my very favorite Svoboda traditions is the annual pumpkin-carving with my Dad. This year I was unable to spend the time with him, but instead of foregoing the tradition altogether I made do with my favorite man on this side of the ocean. It was Angel’s first time EVER to jack-o-lant (yes, I’ve made that into a verb) and I was pleased that he took the appropriate serious approach- google research and careful planning before the actual slicing began. We were both very excited by our final products. (His is the skull; mine the scary-face).

Afterwards I made some awesome spicy tacos along with all of the accompaniments (guacamole, pico-de-gallo, margaritas etc.) and we headed up to the terrace to celebrate Jaime’s birthday. Jaime had also made a FANTASTIC paella so there was plenty of delicious food to go around for the 20 or so partiers. After several hours of the festivities, we were all exhausted and didn’t even make it to really go-out on the town. (pictured: Jaime, Samuel and the paella)

Yesterday (Sunday) provided us with GORGEOUS weather and Angel and I went out for an early breakfast of tostadas, churros and chocolate at my favorite place- Café Futbol. We then drove out to buy some firewood and stock up for the coming months. After we had unloaded all of the firewood we took Gusana out for an adventure- up to Atarfe. We hiked up to the top of a huge cliff to the Ermita de los Tres Juanes (a hermitage). The views were amazing plus there is an Aviary where we walked around talking to all of the exotic birds (including 4 giant ostriches). There was even a wild peacock running around. The only downfall of the outing was when Gusana spotted a kitten and took off after it. To everyone’s surprise she actually caught it and killed it instantly (she’s never caught ANYTHING before). We were pretty bummed afterwards, but on the other hand, this might be the first time in history a worm has caught a cat.

SABES QUE…
“Halloween is actually based on an ancient Celtic holiday known as Samhain (pronounced ‘sow wan’), which means ‘summer's end’.”
from
http://www.pumpkincarving101.com/pumpkin_carving_history.html

“Help me, Rhonda Help Help me Rhonda”

I’ve had that Beach Boy’s song stuck in my head all weekend. The cause of this was a delightful little weekend excursion to Ronda, Andalusia (in the Malaga province).

On Saturday morning Angel and I got all loaded up with our moto gear (or as I like to call them, our space suits) and set off southwest to visit Ronda with our friends Rafa and Mel (Rafa is from there). We had a stop half way in a town called Antequera that was just darling winding cobblestone streets on steep hills, surrounding a giant castle/Alcazaba.

We found a bar to eat some migas and bocadillos in a plaza situated between a beautiful old iglesia and a charming mezquita. We walked around a tiny bit (in our space boots) before hopping back on the bike for the rest of the journey. Once we arrived in Ronda we met Mel and Rafa in a beautiful park along the edge of the cliff. The entire town is situated along this ENORMOUS drop-off.

There’s a huge huge huge bridge over the abyss that I can’t even imagine how they built 500 years ago. After dropping our stuff off (and putting on real shoes) the four of us headed our for a paseo through the town.

We explored the old town the most, it is incredibly well kept-up and clean. We walked along the old city wall (with towers!) and through some tiny little streets before starting our tapa- hopping. The first bar we went into had incredible tapas- meats, croquettes, fish, I had a fancy toasted cheese thing, and the local specialty- some sort of meat from a bull in a soup- delicious!

We also had a couple bottles of a delicious wine (Pago de Carraovejas Crianza 2006 D.O.Ribera del Duero) that had us each rocking the purple-teeth look.
Several bars later Melinda and I got to talking to an older American couple. They used to work for one of the larger newspapers (he was the editor, she a reporter) and have been coming to Ronda every year since 1973. They sure did have some wild stories!
After I finished my chocolate cake (I had seen someone else order it and wanted some too) the 6 of us headed across town (about a 5 minute walk) to a different bar- very cool. It had a kind of speak-easy feel to it. At this bar the dancing began and was carried on to a disco-teca nearby until the wee hours.
It was a fantastic night.
The next morning (afternoon) we all woke up and ate at Rafa’s mother’s house- they had prepared a big ol’ bacalao and some pork and veggies and pretty much a delicious feast (I even tried the fish). After the food coma wore off, we peeled ourselves from the sofas and drove down to the bottom of the cliff to see the view of the bridge from there.

 It was incredible. I can’t even compare the magnitude of this place to anywhere else I’ve ever seen. We then drove a little further down to Rafa’s family’s farmhouse- An enchanting 100ish year old, two story, yellow home with a big balcony and lots of land.

We met the 80-something sweet old couple next door and walked through the crops and garden. Inside the house were just piles and piles of neat old antiques (my dad would have had a field day looking at everything!) There was a larger salon and newly remodeled kitchen and bathroom downstairs, and three bedrooms upstairs. My favorite had a large princess curtained bed with an old washbasin stand and a window opening towards the gardens. The other two bedrooms were full of twin beds- clearly a very healthy catholic child-bearing family built this home.

 The four of us then returned to town to have one last café con leche before the drive home.






SABES QUE…

Ronda is one of the oldest cities in Spain. Archaelogists have found things dating back to before the Neolithic age, including many cave drawings (like this one).

Semana Mia

The routine continues.
Angel was on an adventure in Morocco last week so I took the extra time to focus on things for me. I went on a short run or a long walk every day, sometimes with my friend Melinda. Once I walked through the open parts of the Alhambra and through some tiny twisty little garden paths. One day Melinda and I went for an especially ambitious trek and ended up in lost the middle of the wilderness on the side of a mountain with me 2 steps from a panic attack about snakes for several hours. However, once we finally found the trail again we were treated to some gorgeous views.

I also had a little bit of a sore throat so I treated myself to a night at the baños arabes with the steam room and a massage after work. It was perfect.

On Friday I stayed in and made myself a delicious dinner- Buey (ox) with grilled balsamic veggies and some red wine, with a fresh fruit medley dessert. I also had a few phone dates with some of my girlfriends back home. Very relaxing!

Besides all the pampering, I had a very busy workweek. I was called into the bar quite a few evenings as half of Granada has a cold right now. One night there was a whole gaggle of Texans in there on vacation, which was downright delightful! We talked about Shiner Bock and two-stepping and all sorts of good things.

I continue to accumulate classes at the school tambien and have really been enjoying some of the discussions that have come up in several of the adult classes. (For example, whether pets are part of the family and different views on dating).

Angel finally came back on Monday (They celebrate Columbus Day here too, so everything was closed and no one had to work). His adventure basically had consisted of him and about 50 other guys riding their dirtbikes over the dunes in the middle of the dessert for 8 days, but sleeping in gorgeous and lavish jaimas (tented structures) with pools and 5 star meals. He brought me presents! A beautiful necklace with silver and pinkish/purplish/reddish stones, a beautiful silver box to keep it in, a carved Tortuga (stone and wood) and photographic and video evidence that camels can indeed run (a debate we’d been having).

Tapaemos (We did a sampling of tapas at various bars) with his friends on Monday night and found a few new exciting places nearby.

The sad news is that my beautiful dog, Ophelia, passed away this past Sunday. She had stomach cancer so we knew it was coming, but it was still tough to be so far away when it happened. Below I’ve written 10 things that I loved about her.

1. Ophelia was an excellent hunter. She would spend hours chasing and ferociously barking at small animals in the yard or up trees. However whenever she actually caught anything she would freak out and if she accidentally hurt it she would get really upset and pout for days.

2. She was really good with other dogs. In fact, when we would run together we would both instinctually speed up whenever another runner and/or dog came near in order to showoff while appearing completely disinterested.

3. The only problem with the previous thing was that she was just as clumsy as I am and one or both of us would trip or stumble while running- often in front of other people, sometimes creating a crazy tangle of legs and leash and even once or twice into a pool.


4. When she felt she was not getting the appropriate amount of attention that she deserved (anytime she was not getting a headscratch or a backrub) she would calmly remind whoever was around of this deserved attention by placing her head in their laps/on their knees/ etc. If this was ignored for long enough she could produce a disgruntled-old-man sound similar to a cartoon “Hrrummph” accompanied by a tragic sigh.

5.Whenever we would sleep, she always managed to have a place actually in the bed with me. One of her favorite tricks was to wait until I was asleep, cuddle up really close with her legs all folded up and then suddenly stretch her legs out- pushing me over and sometimes even off the bed.

6. She would get a little gassy while she was sleeping and in the process would wake herself up and look at you accusingly.





7. She would grudgingly wear antlers for Christmas and appear like Santa’s Little Helper.

8. Ophelia LOVED to be groomed. Anything remotely related to bath-time or being brushed got her very excited. When my dad’s long-haired dog would get a haircut, Ophelia would get jealous and sad unless we pretended to give her a haircut as well.

9. When she was lying down, she very often crossed her front paws like a lady.





10. She would eat anything with the same excitement as if it were a filet mignon. Favorites included my dad’s bbq brisket, vanilla ice cream grasshoppers and dirt.

Establishing Routine

Things are going really well. Finally, after months of living here I have started a job that I really like! I am working at a small school here in Granada, teaching English to small groups of mostly adults, but some classes of teenagers. I have been really busy preparing for and teaching my classes.

Angel and I have been busy going to concerts and trying new tapas bars- even occasionally out dancing. (pictured: when we saw the Delincuentes performing at a festival in Zaidin).

I have also introduced him to the concept of breakfast for dinner (brinner) and the old classic american Pancakes (with and without blueberries. Finding maple syrup in this country is an [expensive] miracle, but was totally worth it.) I also taught him the colloquial term "flapjack", in honor of Marly.

Recently we also celebrated my friend Melinda's birthday. Our group of girlfriends went out for wine and dinner, an eclectic fancy cocktail bar before the group expanded as we went dancing at a discoteca called Granero (meaning 'barn'). It was the first late-night our group has had in a while, and although we always have a great time on nights like this, it has been really nice to slow things down a little bit with our social scene. Especially as it has been getting colder- there is even a little snow on top of the nearby mountains now!

So as I have nothing too new and exciting to report, I am thrilled to start to experience a little more stability.

SABES QUE...

"Rythms" is the longest word in the English language without vowels.

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched".

Playa Playa Playa

Ahhhh… Paradise. That’s where I’ve been for the last few weeks. Angel, Gusana and I loaded up the van and headed down to the coast- Cabo de Gata. We spent two weeks beach-hopping, sleeping next to the Mediterranean Sea (and on occasion under the stars), building sand animals, exploring coves and hills in the giant national park as well as ruins of castles and towers. The water was warm and crystal clear and the sand was fine and white- pretty much perfection. We even ventured out for one midnight swim when there was a full moon (but I quickly remembered every shark movie I’d ever seen and how the really bad stuff usually happens at night- let’s just say I hightailed it out of there reeeeaaaaalll fast.) We didn’t see any tiberonitos (sharklets), but plenty of other less harmful animals (with the exception of a few medusas (jelly fish) on the first two days— I was the only one who got stung. Twice.) We spent a day snorkeling around a rocky bay and saw a ton of interesting and colorful fish, sponges, prickly things, squishy things, slippery things, and bony things.
For most of our meals we cooked in the van, but occasionally we would venture out into a town to try interesting plates and fancy fruity cocktails. Cuisine highlight for me: Buey de Planca (Grilled Ox). One Friday Angel and I found a discoteca called La Rocca in San Jose and spent the night dancing to a mix that heavily favored a latino flare. Another night we found a Tex Mex restaurant in a tiny hippy town called Las Negras, and after some delightful fajitas and margartas we were heading back to the van when we walked right past Christopher Lloyd, (the older actor in Back to the Future, we’re 95% sure it was him) and ended up having a drink at the table next to him, giggling and playing with his dog.

The first few days we joined his cousins, Pablito and Angelito, and Angelito’s girlfriend Ester to try out a few different beaches as well. One of those days we hiked about an hour to reach a secluded beach called San Pedro, with the ruins of a castle shaped like a kabob (no one else agrees with me on this, but it’s true).

It was a wonderful wonderful wonderful vacation, completely Spanish (except for a few occasions when Angel wanted to practice English, resulting in a few very funny mixups such as “Ladies and Germans”).

And now back to Granada and reality. Kind of. What a wonderful life.

SABES QUE…
Christopher Lloyd is supposedly best friends with Jack Nicholson.

Lorca, and Other Stars

Last night I went to see a play in a beautiful theatre. A tragedy called Bodas de Sangre, a play that I was already very familiar with (the English translation anyway) by Frederico Garcia Lorca. Originally it premiered in Madrid in 1933, and although it was not anywhere near being one of Lorca’s favorite, it remains one of his most well-known and successful plays.

Basic plot summary: A young couple is engaged, the groom’s mother is kind of a wreck because all the other men in the family have been violently killed, the bride has been engaged before to a man named Leonardo (the only character who gets a name) who is now married to someone else and has a son, the wedding happens, during the reception party the bride and Leonardo run away together, they are searched out in the woods and both Leonardo and the groom are killed, leaving his mother terribly grief-stricken and alone, and the bride claiming her virtue is intact and begging to be killed too.

The theatre itself set an excellent atmosphere for the production: An open aire courtyard with a fountain surrounded by two floors of arched walkways. Vines were growing up the sides of the walls and creeping a little bit over wires across the open roof, and when the wind blew all of the leaves rustled a little bit, without fail sending chills down the spines of half the audience.

This particular production took quite a lot of artistic liberty, and while this produced some very interesting effects (including lots of really cool percussion) I felt that a lot of it was just for the sake of being ‘new’ and ‘different’ and didn’t particularly add to the story. Most of the acting was very good, the mother was absolutely outstanding, and the singing was phenomenal across the board. I enjoyed it very much.

I have also been working in the bar a lot more this last two weeks, which has been nice, but still a bit frustrating to get used to not being called in until 11 p.m., therefore thwarting any tentative plans. On Tuesday a friend named Gerard came into the bar- he and I had met when I worked for the Civic Theatre of Allentown in Pennsylvania, and has been traveling with friends around Spain for the summer. It was wonderful to see a familiar face, and not only that, but one of the nicest and most sincere people I have ever known. What a small world!

My only other adventures as of late have both been in the mountains. Last week during the Llorar de Estrellas, Angel, Gusana and I drove up into the Sierras a little bit, just far enough to escape the city lights and watch all of the shooting stars, as well as searching out planets and constellations, and even make up a few of our own. The amount of stars we were able to see was unbelievable!

Again on Monday we found ourselves with an afternoon off and decided to hop on the moto and just drive up. We drove for about an hour and climbed almost all the way to the tippity top of the Sierra Nevadas-past the ski resort- until we weren’t allowed to drive anymore and continued on foot a little. I was shocked to see that there are still a few patches of snow up there, even in this insane heat! On the way back down to Granada we stopped in the coolest bar- my favorite kind. It was very plush; in the middle of nowhere on the side of a cliff overlooking the mountains (the sun happened to be setting when we arrived). There is an indoor bar, which is lovely, but the outside part is incredible- a pool surrounded by spacious white tented-cabana beds (alternating square and round) and modern colored lights juxtaposed with Moroccan lanterns. We lounged in one of these sipping beautiful cocktails and listening to the mix of jazz and house music. Marvelous!

SABES QUE…
The Irish bar that I am working in was the first of many Irish bars to be found in Granada. It opened in 1994.

Holy Toledo! Madrid and Portugal

Early Wednesday morning I caught a bus to Madrid to meet up with Ross, a good friend of mine since we were very little. We spent the afternoon walking around the city and exploring without a map. That night we did a little tapa-sampling (not free in Madrid, that’s a special Granada thing) and tried out a few bars and discotecas.

Thursday we decided to head out to Toledo, a town about an hour southwest of Madrid. (It also used to be the capital before some king, I forget who, moved it to Madrid to attempt to separate religion and politics.) This town has been declared a national monument, as it is one of the best-preserved parts of the country. It is charmingly gorgeous, situated on a hill with the most confusing tiny, winding, cobblestone streets and basically no new architecture. 

Home of the famous artist “El Greco”, art and religion (Judaism, Christianity and Islam were all equally represented by the population for centuries) are really predominant everywhere you look. We were able to visit a tiny chapel that hold’s El Greco’s most famous work- The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. (pictured) which was incredible. We also visited the famous synagogue there- gorgeous, with a lot of Arabic influences in the carvings, walls and ceiling. Then we headed a few blocks over to the cathedral, one of the largest and most beautiful in Europe. 

In this particular cathedral there is a tradition that the cardinals can hang their hats from the massive ceiling over a spot of their choosing to be buried, and the hats remain there until they rot. This gave the cathedral what I felt was a little bit of a Harry Potter quality, and we were able to find about 8 or 9 of the hats, in various stages of decay (one is pictured, right). This cathedral is also well known for it’s incredible art— my favorite painting in particular was in one of the chapels, depicting a representation of all of the sins (gluttony, lust, greed, etc). Lust was a hot redhead on fire, almost a dead ringer for a certain friend of mine. Thursday night was another night on the town with dinner and dancing. We were joined by Ross’s friends and a few other girls we met during the evening.

Friday was a dia del museos—We started at the Prado (classical and renaissance European art) and worked our way over to the Reina Sofia (modern). I was most excited to see Picasso’s Guernica (a response to Hitler and Franco agreeing to give a nuclearesque bomb a little trial run in this northern Spanish pueblo- the first time a bomb of this magnitude was ever used).

In the wee hours of Saturday Ross headed off to Canada and I caught another bus to Badajoz, a Spanish town on the Portugal border. From there, Angel, Gusana, his friends Pablo, Gema, Juan Pablo and I drove over to have a tasty lunch in a tiny little Portuguese village. We then returned to Pablo’s rented cottage, an unbelievably adorably situated, white washed, two story house surrounded by grapevines and various other fruit trees and bushes in the middle of some rolling green hills. After a siesta, we watched the sun set and ate dinner there- grilled beef, shrimp, and vegetables. Sunday was Gema’s birthday, so after a lazy breakfast we ventured over to a town called Castello de la Vela where we strolled through the narrow streets up to the castle (open to the public) and climbed the towers and walls. We then sat down to avoid the heat at a little café where we were served Portuguese beers and…..snails. For eating. They were apparently very good as everyone else jumped right on in and started slurping the little suckers out of their shells, but I just couldn’t bring myself to join them.  (pictured: top left, clockwise: me in a tower window of the Castle, Angel in the village, Juan Pablo on top of the castle wall, the view from our cottage window, Pablo and Gema, the snails, the cottage, and in the middle: Gusana) 
After a little more hanging out at the cottage we ended this fairy-tale weekend with a 5 hour drive back to Granada.


SABES QUE…
The American expression "Holy Toledo" likely originated from the Sephardic Jews who eventually immigrated to America. To them, Toledo was the most holy Jewish city in Europe...Holy Toledo! 

-My Rick Steve's Guide to Spain book