All Eyes on Center

Saturday evening we went to our second concert of the weekend; this one was at Torrevieja's new Auditorio Conservatorio Internacional, where we had been only once before, to an inaugural concert in January. In true Spanish style, this concert started at 9:00 PM, and I was a little worried about falling asleep at that hour with a "heavy" program of Mozart's Symphony no. 25 in G Minor, K. 183, and the Requiem, K. 626.

I needn't have worried. Symphony no. 25 is the one played at the beginning scenes of the film Amadeus and is quite lively. You wouldn't expect a Requiem to be lively, but the twelve movements provided more variation than I had expected, and the 75-member chorus plus soloists all combined (with the 50-member orchestra) to keep me not only awake but interested. I am learning, too, that it is always entertaining to watch this young but accomplished orchestra directed by José F. Sánchez in the gorgeous and glorious auditorium of the conservatory.

The conservatory itself is brand new and from all appearances no expense was spared in its decoration, except for whatever it would have cost to put up directional signs.With no ushers to direct you, it is really difficult to find your seat, so we planned on arriving 45 minutes early for the hunt. Although we had been there once before, we did not have seats in the same section this time, but I thought that I remembered that when finding our previous D section on the second floor that we had seen the F section nearby.

No ushers, but the ticket-taker at the door did tell us to go to the second floor, on the right-hand side. We had previously been on the left. Oh well, we went up and found our places, Section F, Row 8, seats 24 and 26, without much trouble. Other people were not so lucky, and up until the lights dimmed there were people milling around looking for 14 and 3 and all sorts of other numbers. We thought we had figured out that the even numbers were on the right of the row and the odd numbers were on the left.

We were correct, but what I had failed to notice was the corollary of that rule. If we were sitting on the aisle in seats numbered 24 and 26, and the odd numbers were toward the left, how far left were they? On the opposite aisle, it turns out, for there was no center aisle. And where does that leave seats numbered 1 and 2? In the center of the row, that's where. You can see it on the plan that I have now found, but which I had not located last night. Keep your eyes on the center of the rows to find 1 and 2. Except on the shorter rows, of course, where there are no seats 1 and 2.

Songs for the 60s

Torrevieja String Ensemble Playing The Beatles ©2013 Johannes Bjorner

Friday was a nice, warm, and sunny day and it was still fairly warm when we left at 5:30 in the afternoon, bound for downtown Torrevieja with three good friends for a round of tapas before going on to a concert at the Palacio de la Música. I had been looking forward to this event ever since I first heard about it on January 6 at another musical performance at the new International Conservatory auditorium of Torrevieja. This was billed as a concert with a string ensemble playing songs of The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel. Just the nostalgia trip back to the '60s that I would need in March, as I approached a 60s-something birthday, I had thought then.

We had not been to this concert hall before, and though we found an imposing structure, the auditorium for this concert was surprisingly intimate, seating only 240, and perfect for chamber music such as this. We were in the fourth or fifth row on the main floor and we could see and hear everything, including the expressions on the faces of the musicians.

The string ensemble turned out to be a quintet, with four violins (they were all the same size from my vantage point) and a cello. The concertmaster surprised us all by greeting us, first in Spanish and then in English, saying that the five people on stage were to be playing, but we in the audience were supposed to do the singing. We were, of course, a mixed group of British and Germans and Scandinavians and other northern Europeans, in addition to some Spaniards, and we never really broke out in chorus, but I heard a lot of humming.

One thing I had forgotten about musical performances in Spain, or at least in Torrevieja, is that there are no ushers and, perhaps as a consequence, programs are not distributed. We didn't actually find the printed program until we were leaving the palacio after the concert. There it was, on a table beside the door! During the concert we just listened as each song began and even I was able to identify most tunes before we were in to the second or third measure. Here is the program information that we didn't find until later, reprinted verbatim:

I PARTE

If I Fell . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

Bridge Over Troubled Water . . . . . . . . . . . Simon & Garfunquel

Lady Madonna . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

Hey Jude . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

Let It Be . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

Killing Me Softly With His Song . . . . . . . . . . Simon & Garfunquel

Yesterday . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

Get Back . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

II PARTE

And I Loved Her . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

Eight Days a Week . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

Michelle . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

When I'm Sixty Four . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

I Feel Fine . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

A Hard Day's Night . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

Yellow Submarine . . . . . . . . . . Lennon-McCartney

I had been surprised, when I heard the opening bars of "Killing Me Softly," that it was included in this group, but Johannes and I have a special relationship with this song from years past. At one time he worked at a small company in Massachusetts, where he was responsible for developing circuitry to improve sound quality on a recording device (this was pre-digital recording). "Killing Me Softly" was the test song that had been recorded to use as a quality standard, and its strains were heard several times a day by Johannes and the other personnel in the lab for more than a few months, until everyone wanted to kill the project. And then I heard the story of the trials with this appropriate song for many more years. So when "Killing Me Softly" was played at this concert in Torrevieja it surprised me, but it only added to the nostalgia of the evening. Mind you, this morning I spent an hour or so scouring the Internet to find some relationship between Simon & Garfunkel and "Killing Me Softly With His Song," and I have found none, though I did learn, from several sources besides this one at Wikipedia, that its origins are "disputed."

Whether you were or are a Beatles fan or not, another dimension is added when you hear it from strings and see the pleasure on the faces of a group of musicians as they go through the movements to elicit the sounds. The concertmaster said that this performance was something the group wanted to give the "English community," by which I understand him to mean the multinational immigrant peoples that make up about half of the Torrevieja area population, most of whom are old enough to remember the sounds of the '60s as a part of their youth, many of whom may have learned English from the music, and more than a few of whom have already answered the "When I'm Sixty-Four" question in the affirmative.

It was a lovely evening.

Día del Padre

This coming Tuesday, March 19, is Father's Day in Spain. It is a public holiday. Banks and all the stores will be closed. Father's Day has been celebrated nationally in Spain on this date since 1951. March 19 was chosen because, in the Catholic calendar, it is also the feast day of San José. There is something very fitting about celebrating fatherhood in connection with the person who was the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus, who the world knows as a simple carpenter but who must have been a humble and very accepting father.

El Día del Padre is a little different this year. Since it falls on a Tuesday, the Spanish temptation is to hacer un puente, to make a bridge, from the weekend to the holiday; in other words, to have a long weekend without having to go to work. And the calendar cooperated, for this year January 6, which is Los Reyes, Three Kings Day, or Epiphany, happened to fall on a Sunday, a day that is not normally a work day at all. So workers were "cheated" out of a day off, except that they voted, or decided somehow, to move Reyes to Monday, March 18, the day between the weekend and Día del Padre. Not the actual celebration of Reyes, of course, but the official day off from work. This provides the perfect bridge to a long, long weekend.

That's why I am not having my municipally sponsored Spanish lesson tomorrow morning, because it is the public holiday that workers did not have in January. Signs have been up in the grocery stores saying that they will be open for part of the day on this substitute holiday on Monday, and we are hoping that some professional offices will be open--accountants are what we are after now--but I am betting we will be disappointed. That means we will most likely have to wait until Wednesday to touch base with the accountant, because Tuesday, is definitely a holiday for all, and nothing will be open. Stores and shops will be fined if they are open to conduct business on this day--unless they are in the leisure or hospitality business, that is.

Mothering Sunday

Last Sunday, March 10, was Mothering Sunday in Spain. Or, no, it was Mothering Sunday in the U.K., but given the number of Brits who live in this part of Spain, it may as well have been a Spanish holiday. This year I saw it coming. It seemed like every one of the free weekly newspapers carried big ads, or adverts, as we say here, for special Sunday dinner  menus on Mothering Sunday. No sooner was Valentine's Day out of the way than the adverts started up reminding anyone who cared to think about it that here was another good reason to go out for a sumptuous dinner.

Nevertheless I forgot on the day itself. Last Sunday morning was beautifully sunny and warmer than it had been for several days. Instead of going to our usual outdoor Sunday market, the Zoco, we headed off toward Guardamar and the market on the Lemon Tree Road for a change. It is bigger, and many say the prices are cheaper, and they have a whole different set of small outdoor cafe bars where you can have coffee, wine or beer, English breakfast, German wursts, or all sorts of other food and drink.

We parked at the edge of El Raso urbanization next door and started walking across the first of two or three dirt parking lots toward the market. I was enjoying the sunlight but looking directly into it, so I saw the solitary man coming toward me but I wasn't focused on him any more than that he was walking straight toward us, carrying his market purchases. He called out to me first, "No, they are not for you!" he said jokingly. I must have been smiling more than I thought.

As we approached each other I could see that he had not one but two huge bouquets of flowers in his arms. One was all day lilies, and the other was mixed stems. I don't think he was carrying anything else, though it had seemed, when I first saw him, that his arms were full. And so they were. "These aren't for you," he repeated. "They are for my wife. It's Mothering Sunday today, in Britain, and I'm taking these home to my wife." He obviously was cheerful and anticipating the pleasure his gift would bring. We acknowledged that they were beautiful, exchanged a few more pleasant words, reveled in the beautiful day and loving sentiments, and then moved on in opposite directions.

Later in the day I kept thinking of his enthusiasm, and silently complimented the Brits on making this a day honoring "mothering" rather than "mothers," presumably paying note to all women, and people, who are nourishers of life, rather than only those who may have given it biologically. And then I thought how appropriate it was that the British day to honor mothering was so close to International Women's Day, which had also been celebrated with many special events in Spain that same week, on March 8.

And then I did a little research and discovered how wrong my assumptions had been. This year  Mothering Day was March 10--the closest Sunday to March 8--but it's one of those floating holidays that depend on the natural  calendar, like Easter. In fact, Mothering Sunday is always celebrated on the fourth Sunday in Lent, and it is because Easter falls so early this year that it happened to coincide with International Women's Day. And that's not all. Mothering Day did not originate to honor mothers or mothering. "Mothering" refers to the "mother church," and the tradition was that on this fourth Sunday in Lent, people who had moved away from the village where they had been born and baptized would go "a-mothering" to their mother church and then enjoy a family visit. The holiday became very important during the years when young people moved from their homes "into service" in mansions at some distance from their homes, and they were given one special day to go home to their families, for they were never given the time to go home on holidays like Christmas or Easter itself. The move from emphasis on Mothering Sunday as a day to go to the home church to a day to honor mothers came about after Mother's Day became a fixture of life in the United States. During World War II, when many U.S. soldiers were stationed in Great Britain, they spread the idea of celebrating their mothers with flowers and cards and remembrance.

Both the BBC and Wikipedia have articles about the origins and current celebrations of Mothering Sunday, but one should also check out the trademarked Mothering-Sunday UK site.

Morning Concerts

Most mornings this week I have awakened to the sound of birds singing. Apparently they nest, or flit around, in the yucca trees outside the sliding glass door of the full-height window leading to the French balcony off the second-story bedroom. That window is shaded first (outside) with the aluminum reja--standard equipment in Spanish houses--that rolls down its full length at night, and second (inside) with the voluminous, heavy, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall curtains that we installed a year ago to try to offset the effects of no central heating and less-than-tight construction (also standard in Spanish houses).

Still the sound comes in. It's a sign of spring, because one day it's there--and you probably don't notice it then--but the second day--that's when you notice it! On that second day this week it started a little before 7:00 AM. I am not a birder, so I can't tell you what birds are singing and what they are signalling. They chirp, and whistle, and tweet. There seems to be a conversation, and sometimes you can mark movement of the songsters, but I am still too much asleep to get up and part the curtains and roll up the reja to see what they are doing. And of course it is sill dark out at this hour, so it wouldn't do much good even if I did feel like getting up.

So I lie in bed and listen to the bird concert, a whole cacophony of sound from different species, presumably saying different things, or the same thing, but disagreeing, or the same thing in their own dialect. Who knows? It is a beautiful sound, and it lasts for 15 or 20 minutes and then it ceases.

Ten or 15 minutes later it starts up again. What has happened in the meantime? Perhaps the sun is approaching the horizon and warnings need to be given. Another symphony erupts and I lie in bed, tapping solitaires, scanning yesterday's headlines of my top ten newspapers from the Newseum, or catching up on reading from The Economist or (recently) The New Yorker. And then, a few minutes later, it subsides. A few precious encores peep through, but after awhile I recognize that today's bird concert is over.

This Sunday morning I woke a little after 7:00 and welcomed the concert again. I was entertained with peeps and chirps and tweets and whistles and songs for 15 minutes, and then the music lapsed. I waited through the intermission, stepping out only for a trip to the bathroom and downstairs to pick up a cup of coffee, but then, back to bed for the second part of my morning concert.

It never came. I did hear a fear tweets and chirps, much like stray instruments tuning up in between sets, but when the clock moved to after 8:00, I had to recognize that this morning I had slept thorough the first act and intermission, and had only awakened for the second and concluding set. Part of what makes birdsong so unutterably beautiful, I think, is the sheer unexpectedness of it. Even though I made a mental note to try to wake up earlier tomorrow morning, therefore, the best thing will be if I wake up not thinking in advance that I want to catch the morning concert, but that I just hear it.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Many years ago I drove to work early in the morning, leaving my house in Massachusetts before 7:00 AM and driving south along Route 3 and then down Massachusetts Avenue to a parking lot in Cambridge just north of the Charles river. Depending on traffic, it took anywhere from one hour and 15 minutes to 2 hours. I could always gauge my progress early because I listened to the National Public Radio station WGBH, and Robert J. Lurtsema would begin his Morning Pro Musica program promptly at 7:00 with bird songs. I don't think this YouTube rendition is exactly the same thing, but it's a decent substitute.

First of March

March came in like a lamb where I was in Spain last Friday. It was a big change from the day prior, when I had been sitting calmly in the morning writing a lengthy stream-of-consciousness email at my desk while downloading thousands of emails onto a new laptop at my side and hardly noticing that the pitter-patter of light rain had intensified to a heavy downpour. And then I heard a clap of thunder so sudden and so loud and so near that I looked around to see if we were having an earthquake! We were not, but more earth-shattering thunder followed and then I heard the sound of hail on the roof and the terrace floor outside. This was just at the time that Johannes' piano lesson was finishing, but it would have been inhospitable to send anyone out with ice balls falling and water gushing down the street and overflowing the drains, so I went downstairs and joined Johannes and his teacher for a hot cup of coffee while we waited for the rain to stop, or at least let up enough so she could step out the door to her car.

We sat in the living room with coffee, warming ourselves inside and out with the sight and flames of the gas fire when all of a sudden another clap of thunder came and squeezed out the lights. And as the lights died, so, of course, did all electricity and my heart sank as I felt the email that had been on my desktop screen upstairs flow out into the world of no return, because I had been writing on the hard-wired computer instead of the battery-operated laptop. The gas fire stayed on, but my world was a little dimmer than it had been before. I still have not been able to resurrect the consciousness that had been streaming so prodigiously as I wrote while downloading all those email messages from the past three weeks that I didn't really want, but didn't know how to stop the flow.

The piano teacher did go home within the hour, and Thursday afternoon the weather cleared and waters receded enough so we dared drive out to inspect our surroundings (that low spot in the pavement on our access road that we always forget about until it rains must have been overflowing with water when she tried to drive through it). And on Friday morning the sun rose, and the sky was blue, there were no clouds, and no wind.

At 4:30 Friday afternoon it was a glorious day and I drove out alone to meet an American girl friend for a coffee and a long-overdue chat. We had our choice of cafe bars in the plaza of Los Montesinos but we decided to sit inside at Carl's, because the outside tables were in the shade and we wanted to be in this location so that my friend could easily catch her son when he came down that lane from his music lesson. But we sat at a table just inside the open door and next to a window, so we could watch the afternoon fade and the activity in the plaza while we talked. We had a lot to catch up on, and the conversation didn't stop until 6:30, when I needed to leave to drive home to assemble the dinner menu that I had left at the latest possible stage of pre-preparation. My friend is American, but she keeps a Spanish household, so she could have gone on for another hour and a half before going home to start her dinner preparations.

As it turned out, I left at a very good time. At 6:30 or so I made my way out of town with parking lights on, but as I drove the secondary roads toward home, I flicked on the regular driving lights. The sky changed from cerulean blue to shades of orange and red as sunlight found its way around enormous white clouds and then the sun itself slipped behind a cloud and I turned in another direction, and when I drove into Montebello and parked in front of my house, the beautiful early evening sky was replaced by two-story houses, though the view probably extended for several more minutes out in the countryside.

It was a lovely conversation and a lovely drive home.

Car Culture

I don't pay too much attention to car models and features, but I was really impressed last Sunday evening when our friends lifted the hatchback on whatever car they have, which they had backed into the diagonal parking space adjacent to the seaside promenade in the town of Santa Pola. The back seat of their car had been removed or folded down to form a long expanse level with the floor of the trunk, and on this "table" were a single lit candle, a vase holding a fresh red rosebud, a bottle of cava and four glasses, and an assortment of tidbits that I learned later were roast duck breast on homemade croutons. It was the pre-dinner anniversary surprise that our 45-years-married friends had planned not just for themselves, but for us.

The bottle of cava was uncorked in a jiffy; music suddenly sounded--from the car CD-player, probably--and the anniversary couple obliged us with a dance on the promenade in front of the Mediterranean. Spanish passers-by stopped to watch the festivities, and upon being told the story, wished them enhorrabuena. It was a touching and very festive little celebration. This was the ultimate of tailgating, I declared, and I tried to explain to this not-American couple the U.S. custom of tailgating for sports events. I failed, and I know I will never again think of tailgate parties without remembering this one.

It has been a week of thinking about cars. Ours stopped, or rather, failed to start, right out in front of our house early in the week. The starter turned and choked, but it just couldn't start. Well, it could have happened in a worse place; we just went back inside, waited for 15 minutes, came back out, and our Ford Fusion started fine. No more problems for a couple days, but then one morning we stopped to drop off papers, bottles, and containers at the recycling bins on the other side of our urbanization, and by the time we had emptied the bags and climbed back into the car, it refused once more to start. Well, at least we were home in our own development, so this time we pushed the car to the curb, locked it, and walked the four short blocks home.

We had been meaning to get it to service anyway--we knew we needed new refrigerant for the air conditioning--so it suddenly seemed as though making the appointment sooner rather than later would be a good idea. When we went up to the bins after an hour's rest, and once again it started up easily, we drove straight to the repair garage, not wanting to strain our luck for a third time. Alas, no loaner car was available for another week, the following Thursday, and we are, here in Spain, a one-car family. Well, maybe our luck would hold out, we thought. But we have a couple important appointments this week that depend on our getting somewhere at a certain time.

  

Friday morning we both woke up with the same thought. First we drove to our planned coffee date with the small American group we know here, and then we drove in to Torrevieja to the rental agency where we had been such good customers before buying this car four years ago. I stayed in our car with the motor running while Johannes went in to sign the papers for a rental. What a disappointment, though--there were no rentals available! Fortunately we did not drive very far toward home before we found another rental agency. This one had a car to rent. Again, I stayed in our car with the motor running while Johannes went in to do the paper work. Forty-five minutes later (!) we were on our way again, this time straight to the garage, which was happy to get this job ahead of schedule and has tentatively estimated that we should get ours back on Tuesday.

That will be nice, and in addition to diagnosing and fixing the starter situation, they are going to fix the a/c and mount four new tires. We are reminded, especially as we see news of the driving and parking problems in the snow-covered northeast U.S., how little time we spend worrying about our car here--and how little money is spent on maintenance and repairs (not true, though, of the initial cost and gasoline). We never have to think about antifreeze or the effects of salt on the roadways, and even the occasional dusting of Sahara sand that floats over with the rain can be washed off at the one-euro car wash down the street.

For now, though, we don't have to think about washing a rental car, and while we wait for the six-year-old Ford to look and act like new again, we can enjoy the experience of trying out a make that is brand new for me. I would have been happy if we could have rented a smart car, as none of the appointments we have this week involve trips to the airport of carrying friends around, but we didn't have that choice. What was available on no notice was a Tata Vista. That is serving us well, and contrary to what I expected from what I had heard was a "basic" Indian car, this one is at least as large inside as our Ford Fusion. But I am not planning any tailgating party.

Happy Anniversary!

Later today we are going to the seaside town of Santa Pola, to have dinner with Danish friends in an Argentine restaurant run by an Argentine of Danish parentage. It is our friends' 45th wedding anniversary, something that we find hard to believe because they don't seem old enough to have been married for 45 years, but since this year we will also celebrate our own 45th wedding anniversary, if all goes well, I suppose it is possible.

Thursday of this week, which was also Valentine's Day, dawned as a perfect day: sunny, the warmest we have had, and none of the strong winds that have blown through lately. I did a little work and then needed a break from the computer. So did Johannes, so we set out for a drive, and since we knew we would be going to this restaurant later this week but were not sure exactly where it was, we headed the car north to scout out the area.

It's a good thing we did, because Gloria Pérez Sanchez, our GPS lady, seems to have lost her good will and doesn't want to work for us any more. After a couple starts and stops, we found ourselves in the town of Santa Pola, but without any idea of how to find the restaurant. We stopped a couple times to ask directions, and since we were hungry but were nowhere near any restaurant except McDonald's, we ended up having chicken sandwiches at McDonald's for Valentine's lunch. Ironic, since I had not made it to a McDonald's during the three weeks I was in the U.S., and had even held myself back from the one in the Madrid airport, where I am often tempted to have breakfast when I come in from an overnight transatlantic flight and have to wait hours for my flight to Alicante. Here in the Santa Pola McDonald's, we were not alone, and a young couple who knew something of the area directed us to Calle de Mar, taking into account the one-way streets that had always forced us into detours from which we could never escape. We eventually found the restaurant and also the way out of town again, and look forward to meeting our friends there this evening.

It did not occur to me then, but it has since, that this blog, Sundays in Spain, was born in Santa Pola several years ago. I've done some homework during the week and re-discovered my first post, "Al mal tiempo buena cara." That was on October 12, 2008 and spoke of our experience in a small Santa Pola restaurant watching the other diners, one group of whom turned out to be a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, their boda de oro. Fifty years is just five years beyond 45, of course, and I realize now that I have been writing this blog for nearly five years--225 posts--and it doesn't seem all that long. We just might make it to 50.

In the meantime, happy anniversary to all who have any number of years and any occasion to celebrate.

Settling In Again

It has now been just a little over a week that I have been back in Spain, and during that time I have been doing slowly the things I customarily do when I return from my jaunts to the U.S. It wasn't until today that I could get up and say that I had had a normal night's rest--I went to sleep at 11:00 and woke up naturally at 7:00. Every other night in the week I had been awake long into the night, and often took a sleep-inducing PM medication at 2:00 or 3:00 AM, before sleeping until 9:00 AM--unheard of for me normally.

I unpacked two suitcases and received the usual greetings from the TSA, who I have now figured out are not particularly interested in the vitamins, Triscuits, and other curiosities I bring back from home, but do take account of the computer that I pack in the middle of a suitcase so as not to have to display it at various security checkpoints. I managed to get things out of my luggage and move the suitcases to storage a lot earlier than I usually do, though not everything got put away in its proper place until today, and there are still some papers to go through.

I washed clothing. I did not come home with a lot of dirty laundry but a bunch had certainly accumulated in my absence. Fortunately we have been blessed with mostly sunny and surprisingly warm days this week, so hanging clothes out to dry has been a pleasure.

I visited the Sunday outdoor market and my two favorite grocery stores and replenished the refrigerator and freezer with fruits and vegetables for our lunches, and the few frozen dinner items I keep on hand for the evenings when I do not feel like cooking. And I used two of those dinner items (San Jacobos and bollas de patata) last night.

I went to my group Spanish class on Monday and to petanca with the Danes on Tuesday, and our book group held its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, so in a single week I saw almost all the people in my face-to-face social network. Still remaining is my Danish Spanish teacher, who was under the weather with a recurring cold, but I will see her tomorrow. The small American group also awaits the "Fourth Friday" coffee, but that will be this coming Friday.

I also saw my hairdresser and the optician, to cut off the hair that had grown in the last six weeks and partially replace the eyeglasses I had inadvertently left at my sister's in Cincinnati. I had had it on my agenda to replace those glasses, so this "emergency" made me do it a little quicker than I would have otherwise, and now I am trying to get used to new distance glasses--I gave up on the dream of "three-in-one" distance/reading/sun glasses, which after a year did not do any function really well.

Somehow I also managed to get some professional work done, putting in several hours on the web and with editing, and writing and sending an overdue article that my ever-patient editor greeted with the words "Worth the wait"!

And then I spent all day yesterday reading travel books, chasing down websites, and then making airline reservations for a combined business-vacation trip in August this year! I would have liked to delay this activity and not even think about going off again until I was more settled, but half the world has vacation in August, so it was imperative to get the reservations nailed down while they were still available. But now I can put those notations away and not be concerned with them for another few months, except when I may begin to sense that it has been too long since I had a little adventure outside the routine.

Carnival

Last night much of the world celebrated Chinese New Year, but in Cádiz, Spain, they celebrated Carnaval. It is a vibrant, colorful, noisy celebration that lasts days (and nights), just as Mardi Gras does in New Orleans, and Carnival does in Rio de Janeiro.

Easter, and therefore Carnaval, comes early this year. I was reminded of it by my seatmate-once-removed (blessings abound whenever there is an empty seat between you and the next person on a plane) between New York and Madrid. She was on her way to Cádiz to celebrate and, I believe, speak at one of the events of the carnaval. Her father, an anthropologist, had passed a sabbatical in a town near Cádiz back in the 1950s; he and his family returned several times over the years, and lived there for long periods of time, so this was a homecoming for my fellow traveler.  Jerome Mintz wrote two books about this part of Spain. The Anarchists of Casas Viejas, originally published in 1983, is a classic oral history and analysis of an incident in the small town of Casas Viejas that happened in Civil War-era Spain and the subsequent Franco dictatorship; it was reissued by Indiana University Press in 2004. Carnival Song and Society: Gossip, Sexuality and Creativity in Andalusia, published in 1997, describes, primarily the songs of carnival and how they evolved from the mid-1960s (still under Franco) through to 1990. Both these books are now on my reading list.

You can get a flavor of the 2013 Carnaval in Cádiz and the importance of the satirical songs here in several clips from El Huffington Post.

A Taste of Tucson

Saguaro cactus,by Gentry George, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

 For three weeks I have been criss-crossing the United States: first in Cincinnati after a layover in JFK airport, then in Seattle via Chicago, then in Tucson after landing in the Phoenix airport, then back to Cincinnati by way of Dallas, and finally back to Madrid and Alicante, through JFK, skirting the snowstorm that battered the northeast and reminded me of the 1978 blizzard. I often find Spanish influences as I pass through my home country, but this time I found even more.

I was enchanted with Tucson, where it seems that half the streets have Spanish names--but not like those on the Spanish streets here, which are often named after cultural and political personages. These names focus more on geographical and topological features. Paseo del Arenal was my headquarters, though the official mailing address is N. Paseo del Arenal, I was told, and I wondered whether that would be Paseo del Arenal Norte or North Paseo del Arenal. In either case, when we ventured out by foot from that nominally sandy area, we encountered other street names that I was happy to be able to recognize: Paseo del Suelo (ground), Paseo de la Cumbre (summit), Paseo del Cenador (arbor, though my first recognition was dining room--probably not the meaning on this street sign), Paseo de la Pereza (laziness, or slowness--perhaps this street was on the way to the cumbre) and Paseo Sereno (not only calm, but also clear or with night dew, I found out when checking my dictionary, but we did not walk there at night, so I don't know).

As we drove I also spied caminos, which seemed to be substantial roads in Tucson, not like the little unnamed service roads, often dead-end, that I see here in Spain. We found mesas and parques and palos verdes and sahuaro, which seems to be a phonetic re-spelling of the characteristic saguaro cactus. I saw lots of cacti at Sabino Canyon, a part of Coronado National Forest, and at Saguaro National Park, as well as a stunning nature video. The Sonoran Desert in Arizona is very different from the Tabernas Desert in Almeria, Spain and provides much more pleasant and varied vistas, and better interpretation.

The Sonoran Desert stretches from Mexico into Arizona--Tucson is only about an hour's drive from the Mexican border--and of course the Spanish influence in Tucson is Mexican, not Spanish-from-Spain. (All the better for the wonderful "modern Mexican" food we sampled at Blanco at La Encantada mall.) There is also a notable American Indian influence, as the area is inhabited by the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the Tohono O'Odham Nation. There is much more to see on a subsequent visit.

Strawberries in January

We get lots of fresh fruit at all times of the year, but there are noticeable seasons. Lemons and oranges have started appearing in large bags at cheap prices (one euro for a dozen or so lemons) at the Sunday Zoco market now, and indeed, we can see farmers harvesting them all around us. We have even harvested a few lemons from our own tree. I realized recently that it had been ages since I had seen a strawberry, but this morning at the Zoco, while I was buying bananas and grapes, the fruit handler was practically forcing a large, ripe strawberry into Johannes' mouth, so before I knew it, we had a few strawberries, as well.

Since I am rarely in the U.S. during strawberry season, I don't know whether American strawberries have gotten as large as those here in Spain. The ones purchased today are about two inches in height (or length--how does one measure a strawberry?). Two were sufficient to dice onto the top of our lunchtime fruit salad. They were delicious, but I think they will be even sweeter as the season progresses.

I wonder about the size of U.S. strawberries, because, coincidentally just this morning I was reading an article in The CoastRider, one of the newsier free weeklies, that said "Spanish robotics firm takes US by storm." The Agrobot company, based in Huelva, reportedly has successfully tested a prototype strawberry picking robot in Watsonville, California "where 40% of the State's strawberries are produced" and now is planning the manufacture of strawberry pickers in the U.S. Apparently the robots are able to function flexibly enough that size doesn't matter. Harvesting costs for "fresh" strawberries are reduced 50% with the robot and 90% for the "industrial" strawberries that are used for purees and yoghurts.

It is wonderful to read about a success for Spanish industry.

New Year - Kings Concert

Last week's concert by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Torrevieja was a joyful and spirited occasion. The printed program, as opposed to the tickets, dubbed it "Concierto Año Nuevo - Reyes" but, in English, just "New Year's Concert." The program was reminiscent of what to the English and presumably German-speaking population is a traditional New Year's concert, similar to the one shown on PBS by the Vienna Philharmonic on New Year's Day, though this orchestra has been playing together for far less time--just four years. Here is what we heard:

Programa

I Parte

La Revoltosa (Preludio) ....... R. Chapi

Marcha Española Op. 433 ....... J. Strauss

Danza Hungaras No. 5 ....... J. Brahms

Pizzicato Polka ....... Johan y Josef Strauss

Marcha Persa Op. 289 ....... J. Strauss

Vals de la Bella Durmiente ....... P. I. Tchaikovsky

Tik-Tak, Polka Op. 365 ....... J. Strauss

Auf der Jagd Op. 373 ....... J. Strauss

II Parte

La Dolores (Jota) ....... T. Bretón (Solista: Francisco Moreno)

Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka Op. 214 ....... J. Strauss

Vals del Emperador Op. 437 ....... J. Strauss

Champagner Galop Op. 14 ....... H. C. Lumbye

Vals del Danubio Azul Op. 314 ....... J. Strauss

Plus three encore pieces, whose names I don't know but whose melodies were just as recognizable as most of those above.

The new auditorium at the International Conservatory of Music in Torrevieja is elegant and seemed to provide excellent seating for almost all of the 1400 attendees, though there was a mad scramble to find seats in the three-level facility, since ushers were non-existent and signage was minimal. The orchestra, which was just loaning the facility, was so good that the next day we accepted their invitation to become sponsors, paid our money, and thus will be notified ahead of time of upcoming concerts and special functions. Since we had made our way innocently, while exploring the building, into the champagne reception for members only during the intermission, it was the least we could do. The next concert is scheduled for March, Mozart's Requiem.

Happy New Year - Feliz Reyes

Santa's Job is Finished, ©Johannes Bjorner 2009

Today in Spain is not just Sunday. It is the Twelfth Day of Christmas and the Reyes Magos, the Three Kings, have finally arrived in Spain from the Orient to give children their holiday gifts. True, in today's multicultural Spain, many children get gifts from Papa Noël on the 25th of December as well as from the Three Kings on January 6. Since we don't have children, we don't make a fuss over Reyes but I usually aim for this day as the day to finish removal of the Christmas decorations. One of the joys of living in a country that celebrates Reyes is that you don't have to take down holiday decorations on New Year's Day. That's especially good, since I am usually later than normal in getting them up.

I have been collecting the different items from various rooms for the past two or three days, washing the linens in preparation for packing them away until next year, making the decision to throw out a couple that no longer amuse me or that have gotten torn or broken, and generally assembling them in one place, ready to put in boxes. Later today I will put them in boxes, but I won't put the boxes away just yet. I still need to wait a couple days, looking high and low, literally, to find those that have escaped my glance even though I tried to be systematic about collecting them--and seeing what comes up in the laundry over the next day or two.

We are celebrating the day this year, however, by going to a concert, a Concierto Extraordianario de Reyes, performed by the Ars Aetheria orchestra in the auditorium of the new Conservatorio Internacional de Música of Torrevieja. We will hear Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms, according to the announcement that we saw this morning in one of the Norwegian free newspapers. If all goes well, we will also hear a Danish classic, The Champagne Galop, by Hans Christian Lumbye, which begins with the sound of a champagne cork being released from a bottle. That must be why the foreign press is announcing this concert as a New Year's concert. The tickets, however, say it is a Reyes concert. The Spaniards won't fight a battle over this, because any day is a fine day for  hearing the pop of a cork from a bottle of good Spanish cava.

Here through YouTube is Champagnegaloppen played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Feliz Reyes and Happy New Year!

Happy Books

Inside Happy Books, ©Johannes Bjorner 2012

One of the unexpected pleasures we had in Barcelona was stumbling upon a store called Happy Books. Given the name and the bright colors of children's books and cookbooks on display in bins out front, I thought at first that it was a bookstore for light reading only. The store was crowded (this was the Sunday before Christmas) but we made our way in to browse, and then we went farther and farther in. True, I found a good share of light reading (pizza cookbooks in a circular shape, for example) and young adult books (YA classic editions of literature from around the world, including Lazarillo de Tormes, a Spanish classic that I had read part of). As I got farther in, however, through room after room leading to the next, I found many forms of enlightenment. The clean, modern architecture gave way to older, more historic, and beautifully restored stone and brick arches--but still with excellent lighting. We browsed for a long time, and we stood in line to make a purchase. As we left I asked if the store was open tomorrow (Christmas Eve day). We were happy to hear that it was.

But we never got back to Happy Books, because later that evening we discovered Casa del Libro just a few steps down from our hostal on the Rambla. Another large bookstore, with sections for English and French and German books, in addition to Spanish. By this time it was ready to close, so we went back there the next day. Twice, as I recall--once early in the morning and then again later at night. We are obviously starved for the ambiance of large, well-equipped bookstores, and I am glad that by now in my stay in Spain I have gotten to the point where I can browse and buy comfortably in Spanish. We left eventually without all the books we wanted--size of luggage being one consideration, but also the realization that while some things look compelling when on holiday with loads of time looming, they too often lie languishing when you return to everyday life and have lots of other things to do.

Yesterday, however, we were suddenly "in need" of a travel book, or at least in need of browsing some travel books. Lo and behold, and thanks to the Web, we found that Casa del Libro has many casas, and one of them is in Alicante city. It was a beautiful, warm day for a drive, so off we went. As we approached our destination we found a parking lot with no difficulty and dived in--the rule in Alicante being to "park first, then walk."  We set off on foot for the store and found it with only a little backtracking. We browsed for an hour, and limited ourselves to one selection. "Should it be wrapped?" I was asked at the cashiers, because everyone else was buying gifts for the Reyes Magos to deliver that evening. The Three Kings bypassed our house last night, and that's just as well, because we have already had a very full holiday season, planned and unplanned. One of the unexpected pleasures of the new year is the discovery of a good multilingual bookstore within an hour's drive of our house. And close to a fine little restaurant we had seen during the walk from the garage, where we treated ourselves to the menu del dia, a larger-than-normal luncheon for us, which made the day all the more enjoyable.

A Tale of Two Cities

The two cities are Copenhagen and Barcelona. We visited both in December--each just for a long weekend--and both were fantastic.

Copenhagen

I have lost track of the number of times I have been in Copenhagen, but for most of the past 45 years I have spent a few days or a week each year in Denmark. Most of those trips involved some time in its capital city. Through the years I have observed many changes but also watched with wonder that some things remain constant, or renew themselves to keep up with the times--and quite often that is done in an agreeable manner. In many ways, Copenhagen has become my barometer of change and constancy.

Lyngby Storcenter - a shopping center's Christmas village. ©Johannes Bjorner 2012

Surgery and rehabilitation kept us from travel earlier this year, so we decided to do the Denmark trip in early December, to celebrate a birthday and get into the Christmas spirit. It was a very quick trip. We took an early Friday morning flight from Alicante and were in Copenhagen before lunchtime, and we were scheduled to return late Sunday evening. There was a time--and not too many years ago--when all the stores would have been closed Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. That would have left us precious little time to scour the shops for books and DVDs and Christmas decorations and pass through the department stores to catch up with the trends. Fortunately times have changed and we had no trouble finding places to spend our money every hour that we were able to be out of our hotel.

Tivoli at Christmas, ©Johannes Bjorner 2012.

It was cold, and it snowed on Sunday, but that didn't stop us. We came back with suitcases filled with 30 or more DVDs in the original English or Danish--something we cannot find in Spain, where films are routinely dubbed into Spanish in the cinemas, on TV, and on DVD. We went to at least four big bookstores and even waited in line for almost an hour for an author signing at one. We saw two current films in the theater--something we never do in Spain. We ate in our long-time favorite restaurant where we almost always  enjoy a meal--usually the same kro-platte selection of open-faced sandwiches, though the sandwiches change over the years and are as good a barometer of fiscal conditions as the McDonald's index. And of course we went to Tivoli. There it was frightfully cold, and the masses of people (we really should not have left this until Saturday evening) made us realize that we have turned into country bumpkins, unused to throngs of humanity in one place.

Barcelona

I don't have enough years left to get to know Barcelona the way I know Copenhagen. This--three days over Christmas--was my second trip and I recognized some of the places from my first trip to Barcelona. That had been for a professional conference, however, and this trip was purely for pleasure.

Christmas Lights at Plaza Catalunya, ©Johannes Bjorner 2012

Did we think that we had left Christmas decorations behind us in Copenhagen? Not on your life! There may not be as many pine trees in Spain as there are in Scandinavia, but nowhere can there be more lights. We sat in the restaurant at the top of El Cortes Inglés department store Christmas Eve as the day turned to dusk and saw the colorful street lights coming on all over Plaza Catalunya at the top of the Rambla. We also spied the fairly new Apple store on the other side of the plaza, so of course we had to walk in that direction when we moved on our way. On Christmas Eve at 8:00 PM the place was jumping. Though there were people playing at all 20 of the large tables with various devices arranged in the room, we had no trouble finding a geek to answer a few questions we had.

Looking Up at Sagrada Familia, ©Johannes Bjorner 2012

Earlier on Christmas Eve day we had made the pilgrimage to Sagrada Familia cathedral, which we had first seen in 2009. At that time there was scaffolding in the sanctuary and construction dust all around. Since then, the Pope has been to Barcelona to consecrate the cathedral and while it is not done--and will not be done in my lifetime, probably--the scaffolding is gone and during the Christmas season, at least, there were no signs of construction. Work on the Sagrada Familia began in 1882. There is something very nice about now having seen it twice, with construction workers, and with signs of progress. It provides a connection with the millions of people who, over the centuries, built other mammoth cathedrals in Europe. This one is extraordinarily beautiful and inspiring, regardless of your faith or lack of it.

Gaudi Tiled Bench in Park Guëll, ©Johannes Bjorner 2012

Christmas Day itself we had reserved for the Park Guëll, since most everything else would be closed on a public holiday, but, we reasoned, a park would not. The artist Gaudi lived in a house in the park for 20 years while he was designing the public park space; Guëll was his employer-benefactor. The weather had turned hazy and so we did not have the spectacular views of Barcelona that this high-elevation park normally provides, but we still enjoyed the walk through its winding and climbing pathways and the varied vegetation. We entered from a back entrance, we discovered (we had followed the directions of the information person at the Metro and Metro is not the best way to go, we now know) and we had to walk all the way to the front entrance before finding the famed fountains and buildings and park benches with Gaudi's colored tiles.

We enjoyed many other things in Barcelona: the gorgeous displays of food at La Boqueria market, just across from where we stayed on the Rambla, and the best steak that I have had in nine years in Spain at Restaurante Ferran, which is better known for tapas and Spanish cuisine--so we shared an appetizer of tomato bread with  jamón ibérico de bellota (which means that the contributing pigs have eaten only chestnuts). I walked to the end of the Rambla and saw the Columbus statue and some Christmas market stalls, but I didn't buy anything, because enough is enough. We had a delightful interchange with a young Danish woman of Afghan-Indian heritage and her Indian novio, who happened to be our host at the hostal in which we stayed. They are going to India once her exams are over for this season--her first time in India--and we gave them Danish Christmas decorations we had brought with us and wish them the best of luck in their future life.

©Johannes Bjorner 2012

And all this was made easier because we had a hostal in a very central position on the Rambla--just opposite the Liceu Metro exit. I had never stayed in an hostal before, wary that it was a little too basic for my mature tastes, and thinking of bunk beds in dormitories. Our hostal, however, was less than a year old and was quite modern, with comfortable beds and northern European comforters, a clean and functional toilet and shower, with the usual amenities, and the best lighting on both sides of the double bed that I have experienced in awhile. Yes, it was in an old building with a very narrow stairway that you had to go up even to get to the tiny elevator, certainly the smallest I have ever seen, and remember--I have been in Denmark. The elevator (which required a key) was limited to 150 kg., so balancing two pieces of luggage (even carry-on) and two people meant that inevitably one (or more) got left out. But most of the time, there were just two of us going up and down in the elevator, and all we had to remember to do in the tiny space was, as Johannes said, "Assume intimate position" and up (or down) we would go. All this was quite appropriate since we shared a building (but not the same entrance) with the Erotic Museum.

Hans Christian Andersen Slept Here

Photo by Johannes Bjorner ©2012

Most people don't know that fairy tales were only a small part of the literary works of the world-famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen is referred to in Danish by his initials and therefore becomes H.C. Andersen. Since the letter H is pronounced "ho" and the letter C sounds rather like "say" in Danish, oral references to H.C. Andersen sound like one is talking about José Andersen, which is rather amusing and confusing when discussing Andersen in Spain. But I digress. H.C. Andersen was first interested in the theater, and he wrote drama, poetry, journals, and travel pieces, for he was an inveterate traveler during his lifetime (1805-1875). In 1862 he came to Spain, over the Pyrenees from France; he entered Barcelona by coach on September 6 and spent several days based at the Fonda del Oriente hotel.

I took my copy of I Spanien (In Spain) with me to Barcelona on my Christmas trip, 150 years and a couple months after his adventure. One of my goals was to find the hotel where Andersen had stayed, because I had happened upon a notice some time ago that a commemorative plaque had been placed at the hotel, acknowledging Andersen's visit.

It turned out that the hotel, now named the Husa Oriente, was only a few blocks down the Rambla from where we were staying. I should have guessed that, because one of the sites Andersen mentioned was the Liceu theater (no performances during the time Andersen was in Barcelona, though he was able to see the theater stage itself during a rehearsal) and that was just across the street and down one block from our hostal. The Liceu wasn't hosting any performances on the Christmas days that we were there, either, and we didn't get beyond the lobby and guard desk. 

Photo by Johannes Bjorner ©2012

The plaque at the hotel was placed by the Ayuntamiento (City Hall) of Barcelona and roughly translated from Catalan, it reads:

Hans Christian

Andersen

(Odense 1805-Copenhagen 1875)

Danish Author

Observed from this hotel

the flooding of the Rambla

of September 15, 1862 

I had read Andersen's account of the heavy storms and flooding that occurred toward the end of his stay in Barcelona. It was historic, obviously, as that was the sole site or event indicated on the plaque, though Andersen's account  mentions several other areas of the city that exist to this day: Barceloneta, Monjuic fort, and the Plaza de Toros (though I don't know how that is being used now that Barcelona has outlawed bullfighting). In addition to the Rambla itself, of course, which Andersen loved for its shops and fruit stalls and trees and cafes full of people all assembling to eat regardless of class, he noted. People still love the Rambla to this day and it is a hive of activity at all hours. We even saw a whole parade of Santa Clauses motorcycling up the street at breakneck speed on Christmas morning when we were having our breakfast.

Torrevieja Tapas

I had a very busy week at my desk last week, focused on one particular project, so by the time Friday afternoon, November 30 rolled around, it seemed like I deserved to get out of the house to do something to clear my mind. It was a sunny day, and that is not something that we have been able to take for granted this particular November, which has had record cold and record number of gray days. But Friday morning was crisp and light, and after working for a few hours, we decided to go in to Torrevieja to check out the Tapas Route.

This was not the first time we have been to Torrevieja Tapas, which has a promotional "tapas trail" twice a year, but I think we missed it last spring. Many communities in the area promote these events throughout the year. Various restaurants of a town promise to offer a drink and a special tapa at a low price--usually a euro for the drink and another for the tapa, they prepare the tapas in quantity as much as possible while holding them fresh, and wait for customers to come by, try the tapa, and then move on to the next restaurant. It's a competition, you see. Customers get a stamp from each restaurant they visit, and then at the end of their tapas run--if they accumulate 10 stamps--they can enter a vote for the best tapa of that particular competition. There may be prizes for the winner, but the big benefit is the exposure all the restaurants get.

We were a little early--it starts at noon and by now it was still only 1:00--and wandered through several narrow streets of Torrevieja without finding a single bar participating in the event. We eventually happened by the Glorieta Cafe. It looked like a tea shop, and after we were invited inside (it was on the shady side of the street) we were told by the server that it is indeed a tea shop--all of the teas in canisters on the shelves were for sale in whatever quantity you want measured, as well as specialty sugars, coffees, and various decorative implements to make or serve your beverage. Just the thing for a little gift for the new lady friend of a male friend of ours who I have not yet met but will at Christmas, I thought. But in the meantime, we had a vino tinto and non-alcoholic beer, and nibbled on two different tapas. The beauty of the Torrevieja festival is that each restaurant makes a "traditional" tapa and an "innovative" tapa. According to the brochure, we were eating sarten de solomillo y foie and pimiento verde preñado. Both were excellent, although I cannot describe them more than as "sauteed tenderloin with pate" and a delicious soft something--possibly a small green pepper--with a wonderful sauce (preñado means "full" or "pregnant.").

We went on in fairly quick succession to Cafeteria Valdes, where we tried tentaciones Valdes--but I really need to start writing down detailed descriptions while I am on the "run," because I can't remember everything. The next place was Puerto Rico, and I remember these: the pelota de "Purisima" was a single large meat ball suspended in a flavorful broth, not elegant, but delicious. Puerto Rico also offered an escalope de queso con patata rellena de sobresada, three slices of potato with cheese, covered by the Mallorcan red pork spread. We decided we needed one more to fill out "lunch" before heading for home and fortunately we found Meson La Huertica on the way back to the car. Although we had sat outside for the middle two places, we were once again on the shady side of the street, so we entered the inviting old-style pub, almost, with dark wood and small tables at various heights. By now (circa 2:30) it was full and we were lucky to get a seat. Johannes ordered one of the tapas and I the other. Then we ordered a second round and reversed who got what. These tapa descriptions are too long to fit comfortably on the allotted space in the brochure. As near as I can tell it was huevos de corral rotos con patatas, foie y jamon iberico (free-range eggs with potatoes, pate, and Iberian ham) and minihambuerguesa de angus con rulo de cabra cebolla caramelizada en cama de crep de sesamo y pasas (mini-hamburger of beef with caramelized onions in a crepe bed of sesame seed and raisins).

Then we descended into the depths of the parking garage, retrieved our car, and drove toward home. We had said that we would stop at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a few necessities. Following the common advice of never shopping on an empty stomach, we did stop, bought what we needed, and did not splurge on anything that looked tempting. After all, we had already succumbed to tentaciones.

iQ

It was while we were sitting outside at Cafeteria Valdes, on the corner of two of Torrevieja's very narrow streets, enjoying our drinks and tapas, that our eyes were drawn to the car that was parked on the sidewalk next to our table. This was only our second small drink--tapas festival drinks are smaller than normal, just like tapas are smaller than entrees--so our eyes were to believed.

It was parked kitty-corner between the main and the cross street. It was white. It was small, but it was a car. Johannes got up to inspect it, and as he approached, I saw a young man eye him warily. "¿Es coche tuyo?" I asked, and he rushed over to Johannes to answer his questions--and brag--about his car, a Toyota iQ.

Photo courtesy of Toyota

Even I, one who cares little about cars, got up to look. He had bought it second-hand a year ago, he said, and on 5 euros of gas (about $6.50) he could drive 100 kilometers (62 miles). I circled the car, which appeared to have four seats, not two, though there was something that looked like a bicycle in the back seat. There was also a trunk, though it seemed as though, if you put groceries in the back area, there would be no room whatsoever for any passengers.

Later I investigated the Toyota iQ (great name for an alternative to the more-prevalent Smart Car) and learned that it was introduced in Europe in 2009 and in the U.S. in 2011. Online Conversion tells me that, according to the young man, it gets around 62 miles per gallon, though a USA Today article reporting on Consumer Reports' bad review of the iQ says the U.S. version only gets 34 mpg. How can this be?

Regardless, my current measure of a car is: 1) Can you use it for shopping around town? 2) Can you use it to get you and your luggage to the airport?, and 3) Can you use it to pick up visitors and their luggage from the airport? Yes to number 1 and 2, I determined, without further ado, but absolutely no to number 3. A fine second car, should we ever become a two-car family again, but not a first one.

American Thanksgiving in Torrevieja

I don't usually stick an American flag at the top of the pineapple in my traditional Thanksgiving centerpiece, but this year was different, for we went on the Saturday following Thanksgiving to a British restaurant to eat a roast turkey dinner with some Americans we know and some we didn't. There are not many people from the U.S. along the Costa Blanca, but those that there are, I think, are aware of the peculiar experience of being in the minority. That, plus the power of Thanksgiving memories, is probably what brought us all together last Saturday.

This particular group of Americans all seemed to be bi-national or multinational couples. The countries of our spouses and partners included (at least) Spain, Denmark, Germany, the Philippines, Cuba, and UK. We were a fairly diverse group of Americans, too, as separately we acknowledged "home" to be Ohio, Wisconsin, California, New York, New Hampshire, and Maine, although several of us have lived in even more states.
Thanks to one family, we were three generations, with six children and teenagers and a smattering of younger adults; the rest of our group of 20 had celebrated some 40 or more Thanksgivings earlier in our lives.

Since I have lived in Spain with so many British ex-patriots I have learned that roasts of various meats and poultry are the traditional Sunday dinner, with at least four vegetables. Our British hosts at The Courtyard had put individual placemats depicting the American flag on the table, which was an unexpected welcoming gesture. The restaurant put on a fine spread, and the various side dishes that some of us brought were completely unnecessary in filling out the meal, but important for our traditions. I brought the fruit arrangement shown above (the photo was taken on Sunday, so it is a little less bounteous than it was at Thanksgiving dinner). We also had homemade sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, cranberry sorbet, and a marvelous pumpkin soup.

A Thanksgiving timeline developed by the Library of Congress tells us that the first documented thanksgiving feast in territory currently belonging to the United States was held by Spanish explorer, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1521.  Maybe so, but I still prefer the Plymouth Colony story of 1621, which was a three-day feast. As ours was this year.

Thanksgiving Light

Even though we had planned a festive Thanksgiving get-together with American friends and acquaintances on the Saturday after Thanksgiving itself, I couldn't let the fourth Thursday in November pass without some celebration. Part of the reason was that I had introduced some English friends here in Spain to the holiday some years past, and it has become something of a tradition for us now to enjoy the meal together on that day. Another part is that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, bar none.

The third reason that I elected to do Thanksgiving this year was that I had found a small turkey, albeit a frozen one, in the British Iceland food store. I also had a few of the appropriate edibles in my kitchen and wanted to make sure we ate them while they were still edible. And then, through careful packing on a couple trips back to the U.S. I had finally assembled a few of my traditional decorations: the silver tray on which for many years I had arranged a bountiful harvest of fruit for a centerpiece, and the autumnal tablecloth and napkins, more recently acquired but used in Indianapolis on the last Thanksgiving I shared with my parents.

I planned a small dinner, for four people. At the Sunday market I bought good white potatoes for the mashed potatoes, and then unexpectedly encountered my favorite new red potatoes from a vendor who had not had them at all last year, so bought them to roast alongside the turkey, as well. Early in the week I ironed the tablecloth and napkins, polished the silver, made cranberry-nut bread from the cranberries that I had brought intact from my most recent trip to the U.S. (thank you, Food Lion), baked the pumpkin and scraped out the pulp. Wednesday I cooked the wild rice for the un-stuffing, threw together the cranberry sorbet and started the freezing and scraping process, and assembled the succotash--a new addition to the menu this year because it seemed appropriate to have something of the corn that came from the new world.

Thursday morning I realized that I didn't have the real whole cold milk that was necessary to thicken the prized tiny package of instant pumpkin pudding and pie filling that I had carried back in my suitcase earlier this year. The advantage of Thanksgiving not being a holiday in Spain is that all the regular stores are open, and Johannes went down and brought back a liter of milk from the refrigerated section of a convenience store, even carrying it in a cooler with ice pack for the two kilometers' drive. He went off to a morning meeting while I puttered in the kitchen, finishing the pumpkin and vanilla parfaits (I don't do pie), sauteing the celery, onions, and mushrooms for the stuffing, toasting the walnuts, mashing the boiled potatoes and adding the pumpkin, preparing the carrots, and pre-heating the oven at the appropriate time (it was only a 3 kg. turkey, after all, so wouldn't need much time).

I put the turkey in the oven at 10:45, made the roux and added enough stock to make a thick gravy (I would thin it down and flavor it up with the drippings from the turkey later). And then all of a sudden the lights went out. Not only the lights, but the oven and the stove, because we are not cooking with gas. The dishwasher also ceased its machinations and, I thought I've forgotten that I can't have so many appliances on at one time. I'll just turn off the dishwasher and a couple burners on the stove, then go and flip the circuit-breaker switch and the power will come back on.

I did, and it didn't. I saw two neighbors down the side street and went out to see whether they also were without power. They certainly were, and they were completely unsympathetic upon hearing that I had a turkey in the oven. After all, one of them had a workman installing double-glazed windows for the winter. They pointed to a man on an electric tower at the top of the hill, and we all hoped that he was going to get the power fixed soon.

He didn't. A half hour later, the guy in the electric tower came down from his heights and we did not have electricity. I had already calculated how much time I would need after the power came back to roast the turkey and give it its "rest" (three hours total) and was prepared to call my guests, who were scheduled to arrive at 2:00. But now, an hour or so after the power had gone out, I was beginning to worry about the health of the turkey, which had only had a half-hour in the hot oven before it started its premature "rest." Plus I was avoiding opening the refrigerator and freezer, because who knew how long it would keep the pumpkin parfait and cranberry sorbet cold?

At noon I called my guests and we moved the feast from 2:00 until "5:00 or 6:00," depending on when the power came on, and I would keep them informed. At 1:00 PM, just when I had previously calculated the turkey should come out, I lay down for a nap. At 1:30 I was awakened by the overhead light in my room coming into action. I went downstairs to inspect the kitchen.

I had been uncomfortable with this turkey even before this turn of events. For one thing, I don't buy frozen unless I absolutely cannot help it, and I was uncertain about the amount of time necessary to thaw it--and I had allowed too much. Secondly, I had discovered when I set the turkey in the roasting pan that it was handicapped: one leg was damaged and it rolled to one side. Now it had been slightly heated and then left to rest prematurely in a lukewarm oven for more than two hours. I did not want to risk serving this to my guests.

The good thing, again, about Thanksgiving not being a holiday in Spain is that all the regular stores are open. We made a quick trip down to the Mercadona grocery store, where we bought two already-cooked chickens and an extra bottle of wine for good measure. Our guests came at 6:00 and we broke out the cava. For years people have been saying that the best part about Thanksgiving dinner is not the turkey, but the side dishes. They have a point. All the sides survived intact and the four of us really enjoyed them. The vacuum-packed chickens microwaved up well, and there were juices to add to the gravy. The cranberry sorbet re-froze well and was a big hit. I forgot to serve the cranberry bread, but as a dear friend who I lost way too many years ago always said, It's not a party unless you find something in the refrigerator the next day that you forgot to get out.

It was a great small party and a memorable Thanksgiving.