Day Trip to Villajoyosa

Thursday evening before we went to bed we realized that for the first time in living memory, we had no appointments the following day. Having been almost housebound for six weeks earlier in the summer, and busy with therapy and routine errands ever since, we were sorely in need of a day off, out of the house, and away from the usual. So we decided that, if we still felt up to it the next morning after waking up at some point during the night to listen to the final speeches of the Democratic convention taking place on the other side of the Atlantic, we would take off and drive north along the Costa Blanca.

We were out of the house by 9:30, a bit early, especially as it was a somewhat hazy day, with no sun making its appearance by that time. We took the road eastward over toward Guardamar and then turned north on the N-332.This was familiar territory for us--it's one of our two main routes to the airport just south of Alicante city. Still, it had been awhile since we were on it, and we enjoyed seeing the flamingos in the marshes north of Torrevieja and the tall salt mountains in Santa Pola--for the first time I saw a backhoe moving around some of the salt that will no doubt be spread onto icy roads in the north of Europe later on this year.

I have often remarked that one of the reasons I don't feel as though I am living in a country with 20% unemployment is that there are no factories nearby where large numbers of workers have been laid off. Tourism and agriculture are the big industries here, and both operate on a smaller scale than the industries I grew up with. This trip, though, I was reminded that there are some factories around. We drove past the Johnson Controls plant in Guardamar and then went by Alcoa Europe on the south side of Alicante city. We also passed by the huge patent office that is built into the ledge of a seaside cliff between El Altet airport and the city of Alicante. I have wondered about this immense office in such an unlikely location since staying at the Holiday Inn Express almost ten years ago and opening our curtains the first morning to discover that our room faced away from the Mediterranean--and directly into the front of the patent building. We didn't stop here this time (but I did discover, as I prepared this blog entry, that this is the office that registers and manages European community trademarks and designs). We just continued along our way, now in the sun, and hugging the Mediterranean on our right--passing through the raw materials that the area uses as a base for its successful tourist business.

After an hour and a half we came to El Campello, which used to be a small fishing village and is now a suburb north of Alicante, complete with electric tram that runs back and forth from the city at frequent intervals. I know because we stopped for refreshment in a cafeteria with a view across the tram line toward the sea, and at least four tranvias chugged quietly by while we drank our coffee.

Colorful houses in Villajoyosa.
© Johannes Bjorner, 2012

Back in the car we continued north  toward our destination: Villajoyosa. Villajoyosa is known for its colorfully painted houses, which so far we had only heard about. Even the sound of Villajoyosa makes me feel joyous, though joyosa more properly refers to joyas--jewels--than joy. We did not see any painted houses as we drove into town from the south, but we took a right turn and soon found ourselves down on the road beside the beach, where--this being September and a weekday--there was parking available. We found a spot and turned our back on the sea to look at the jewels of the painted houses that in turn looked out onto the blue Mediterranean.

We wandered around through colorful narrow streets, up one, down another. We were, somewhat loosely, looking for El Museo de Chocolate, which had been mentioned in the Spanish tour book we brought with us. No details about where, or opening times, or anything useful like that, but having been told more than once that I was born with chocolate genes, it would have been sacrilegious not to at least make an attempt to find a chocolate museum. Johannes is not shy about asking for directions. The first time he asked, a lady resting on a park bench said, "Oh, it is lejos" (far from here). Up in the main part of town, she meant. So we continued upward. The next person we asked employed two others to get an informed opinion. We were still lejos--a twenty-minute walk (and they didn't even know we were walking slowly on a newly replaced knee). The good news was that we were headed in the right direction.

In the next little leg of the journey we worked our way up to the main street of town, exactly where we had turned right to drive down to the sea an hour before. By now we had lost most of the colorfully painted houses and were just maneuvering through the busy streets of a small city. We had been told to walk straight ahead (todo recto) toward the train tracks, so we crossed the main street, still heading up, and recto. But then we came to a fork in the road, and no train tracks. A woman in a little shop for recien nacidos (newborns) came out and pointed us to the proper road, and now we were only a fifteen-minute walk from the museum.

Reflection shown in the glass facade of the Valor Chocolate Building.

© Johannes Bjorner, 2012

Our next few minutes brought us to the train tracks and the news that we were only ten minutes away. We walked by a large car park, the mercado de abastos indoor market stall area, a MasyMas and a Consum grocery store, and several restaurants. And then we spied an odd glass building, set off from the sidewalk by a vehicle gate, that showed the distorted reflection of the building across the street in its glass panels. As Johannes ducked around the lowered and locked gate to get a closeup picture of the glass pattern, I saw the small sign that affirmed that this was the Museo de Chocolate and also the factory of the Valor chocolate company.

"Adult Pleasure" at the Chocolate Factory

When I spied the sign saying that this was El Museo de Chocolate, I read it quickly and saw only 10:00 and 13:00. Darn! It was 12:40 now. "Hurry," I said, "we only have twenty minutes!"

But I was wrong, as the guard who had given us permission to photograph the building said quickly. The last tour is at 13:00 "en punto." We should go out the auto entrance to the sidewalk, proceed to the far end of the block-long building, and wait at the gate. At 1:00 PM "on the dot" the pedestrian gate would open and the last tour of the day would begin.

Valor had kindly set up two large umbrellas and three long benches, where we could sit and rest for twenty minutes after our long walk. I read as we waited, and suddenly I realized that 25 or so people had joined us and now it was standing room only. Most were Spanish, but I heard a couple English voices. There are not a lot of events that begin "en punto" in Spain. Trains are one. The Valor chocolate factory tour is another.

Having walked the length of a city block (the front facade of the glass building) we now walked the depth of a block and were ushered in to a small, make-shift theater, where we saw a short film about the "discovery" of chocolate (thank you, Christopher Columbus) and the making of it in general, and especially by the Valor company. The screen was not large, but the images of crushing cacao beans and the addition of milk filled the space available and were tempting. We were treated to a selection of Valor's television commercials for its products, and I found it incongruous, with a large number of children in the audience, that its slogan "adult pleasure" appeared so often. Nevertheless, it's a good slogan and one of the few adult pleasures that can be maintained in vigor as the years increase.

We then went into an adjoining building that featured two stories of memorabilia from this family-run business that was started by Don Valeriano Lopez Lloret in 1881.  Images of some of the items we saw, as well as an English-language chronology, are on the web. My favorite was a print ad reproduction that showed two very skinny adults "who didn't eat Valor chocolates," two very fat adults "after eating Valor chocolates," and two modestly sized and happy adults who ate Valor chocolates "twice a day." A recipe for adult happiness?

Our group, which had been divided into Spanish and English speaking factions for the museum visit, then reunited as we went into the factory itself. Language was not an issue here, as the noise was loud enough that little could be said anyway. We wound our way up and around a narrow catwalk through first, a very hot part of the building, and then a very cold part. If our guide was at the front of our group, I lost her. There was only one way forward, though, and we followed it, observing on our own the activity below us--surprisingly few people on the factory floor, but a multitude of different work stations for mixing, conveying, quality-control, packaging. There was one long belt of chocolate bars moving the width of the factory floor, and only two women at the end, occasionally pulling a piece off. It was impossible not to recall the "I Love Lucy" episode when Lucy and Ethel got a job in the chocolate factory.

All roads lead to Rome, and all factory tours lead to the factory store. Valor was no exception, but we were greeted by three large plates of different kinds of chocolates, free for the sampling. They were good. Following the advice from the old print ad, I helped myself twice. We also made a few purchases before we left. I don't buy chocolate often, so I don't know whether the prices were better than, worse than, or the same as in retail stores. They seemed reasonable. We hadn't paid a centimo for the tour, and the guide had disappeared, so we couldn't even tip her, so the least we could do was buy some adult pleasure to take home after our day out.

How Many Times Does it Take to Buy a Light Bulb?

The light behind my bed went out last week. I don't need this light when I wake up in the middle of the night and use the iPad, but I do need it to read a real book or a newspaper, or even to do a sudoku. I can remember the days when I could replace a light bulb by myself, and almost immediately. It was just a quick trip to the closet where we kept a supply of spares, choose the right one, take it back to the lamp, and screw it in.

That was before the days of energy-saving bulbs--more expensive and generally ugly--nothing you want to keep a supply of, because each purchase of one is an investment by itself, and, if you are lucky, the design might get a little less ugly by the following time you have to buy one. Still, we have two of these lamps in the house, so I was hoping that there might be a spare. The trouble is, I wasn't sure whether that spare would be in the indoors closet (rightly called "Goldie's closet" because the most important things that it holds are her food dish, her litter box (yep, she lives compactly) and all her supplies, plus just a few of ours) or in the outdoors attic/workshop/studio under the domain of the man of the house. So I advised the man of the house and gave him a couple days to check whether there were any light bulbs out there.

There weren't, so I took the unscrewed light bulb with me on our next shopping trip--I have long since learned that I need to take the one to be replaced or I will inevitably bring home a thick-necked one for a thin-necked lamp socket, or vice versa. We stopped at a hardware store, where the proprietor offered personal attention. While she helped Johannes find the light bulb I went off looking for a universal plug adaptor. That was another item I thought would make a great addition to my bedside table area, so I can charge up the iPad or the Kindle or the phone or the laptop and still have the light on at the same time, once I got a working light bulb again. I didn't find the plug adaptor and the proprietor apologized for the low stock--"it's August" and that meant that deliveries were not as normal.

I paid 7€ (about US $10) for the single light bulb. It's a 15-watt "mini espiral" energy-saving lamp, from Barcelona, according to the package. That corresponds to a 75-watt incandescent. On the package there are descriptions for this light bulb in four languages. The English says, and I quote verbatim:

This lamp can substitutes any kind of lamp.
Saves energy: 5 times less than normal lamp.
Long Life: 8 times more than normal lamp.
Do not use this lamp with dimmers or electronic control.

And then only in Spanish, it promises 8,000 hours of life  and affirms that it conforms to IEC norm 969.

Sounds great, and I took it home, hoping for a long and happy life together. But events being what they are, I didn't even think about it until I got into bed that night. I had to climb out again and retrieve it from my bag in my office. Got it out of the package quickly and screwed it in without any problem--that part of changing a light bulb is the easiest.

Well, I could see, but it was eerie. What was wrong? It was such a harsh, white light. Darn! But I could see. Maybe I'll get used to it, I thought. Two days later, though, I gave up, bit the bullet, and said I was going to buy another light bulb. When did buying a light bulb become such a major decision in life?

We were on our way to the Habaneras shopping center anyway, so we stopped--quickly, I thought--in the AKI home improvement store and looked at light bulbs. I had the package, though not the bulb, from my previous purchase. We looked and looked, much longer than I had thought would be necessary. There must have been 25 rows of light bulbs there and those are only the ones that looked like they would fit my lamp. All of them were Larga Duracion (long lasting) and Bajo Consumo (low energy consumption) and all of them were Espiral (spiral). That's what was in large letters. I had to squint to read any other characteristics, and so did Johannes.

It felt like a crap shoot, but finally we spied what I thought was the telling phrase: Luz Calida (warm light). That was in maybe 6-point type, whereas all the other information was in 12 or 14. But that at least addressed the issue that was wrong with the first purchase. I decided to take a chance on that, paid my 10 euros (about US $15) and took it home.

It's right. It's a nice, warm light, but strong enough for reading. 15 watts, which this brand, from Valencia, says is equivalent to 56 incandescent watts. Descriptions of the product on the back of this package appear in 10 different languages, but they are all printed so small (no more than 6 points) that I can hardly tell what the language is, let alone read any of the ones I might understand. In addition to the warm light from this bulb, there is a design advantage: it is shorter than the first bulb I bought and the original one I replaced, so it does not stick out beyond the end of the lamp. How lovely! That must be what "espiral micro" means, as opposed to "mini espiral." But it only promises to last 6,000 hours, rather than the 8,000 of the white-light bulb--six times the life expectancy of a "normal" light bulb.

And what indeed is "normal" in a light bulb anymore? This morning I read that as of September 1 (that was yesterday) it is forbidden within the European Union to manufacture incandescent light bulbs. So what are the packages going to compare their contents to in the future? CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs) are the new normal.

Maybe I will remember some of the information I have acquired when the next time comes to change a light bulb. But that should be about 6,000 light hours from now, so maybe I won't. On the other hand, I've been noticing that the overhead light in my office seems awfully dim lately ...

"Están de Vacaciones"

Quick, while it is still August, I write about August, the month of vacations.

For the past month, almost every daily action has been punctuated by the phrase "Estan de vacaciones." They are on vacation. Most of our friends here in Spain have been away in Denmark, or England, or Germany, or the U.S., on vacation. One reason is to escape the heat, which has been in the high 30 degrees C., or hovering around 100 degrees F. Another reason is simply that most families go on vacation in August, especially if the family includes children who will be going back to school in September.

Meanwhile, for those of us who have not quite achieved full mobility after knee operations,we stay at home in the cool of the air conditioning, venturing out only as a respite to cabin fever and for the necessary errands. Running errands has become even more of an adventure than it usually is. There is a curious mixture of "stores open" vs. "stores closed." Because we live in a tourist area, many establishments are allowed to stay open on Sundays during the summer season, so for a brief three months we can shop for groceries on Sunday mornings or all sorts of products at the Carrefour hypermarket until midnight every day of the week. This open commercialism is counterbalanced, however, by the tiendas, the small mom-and-pop stores and bars and restaurants, that close, at least for the last two weeks of August, for vacation.

We know, in theory, that during August anything is apt to be closed. But we forget. So when we went to the Scandinavian Center in downtown Torrevieja one Wednesday afternoon to replenish our supply of herring, we came home empty-handed, because they were closed for vacation. When we took our new microwave back to the hardware store where we bought it, after it blew out every fuse in the house, we were told as soon as we walked in the door, "The factory is on vacation. You won't get a replacement until September." I read in one of the free English newsweeklies that the city of Elche had printed a brochure listing establishments that were open in August, and I thought that a little extreme and perhaps a waste of money. That was before we drove to La Marina last Saturday morning to check out a kitchen design store with an advertisement in the same newspaper, and discovered, after we finally found it, that it was shuttered because "están de vacaciones."

If the third week of August was lonesome, the fourth became even more so. Just as I was preparing to head out to our favorite specialty wine shop last Monday to buy a bottle of South African wine for a friend, Johannes told me that an email had come through--they were on vacation for this week. The other errand we set out to do that day was to stop at a gestoria to begin the process of bringing our wills up to date, but no one answered the door or the telephone--they were "de vacaciones." Earlier this week and then again today we noticed that even the musicians who normally play and sing outside the grocery stores were nowhere to be found; they, too, are apparently on vacation.

But today is Friday, the 31st and last day of August. Officially in Europe, summer ends with August. In a rare turn of the calendar, the end of European summer occurs this year during the same weekend as that curious unofficial end of summer in the U.S., Labor Day. A few hours ago I finished my last work for the week, month, and summer, and turned my sights toward a leisurely end-of-summer weekend, and even now as I write this, my colleagues in the U.S. are finishing up their Friday before Labor Day weekend work (if they actually happened to go to work today) and preparing for the last summer hurrah. When we all return to work next Monday or Tuesday, depending on where we are, we will be starting in once again on normal life. It will not be cooler here, but at least almost everyone will be back from vacaciones.

Laundered Money

The normal rule in our household is, whoever finds the loose change in the pockets that are going in to the washing machine, or that tumbles out of the washing machine after a load is done, gets to keep it. Since the person who usually does the laundry is the person that writes this blog, that is usually me. But this week we split the laundered money.

Yesterday morning Johannes put on a clean pair of shorts, stuck his hands in his pockets and pulled out a five and a ten euro note. The blue of the five and the pink of the ten seemed a little faded, but the silvery strip on the right end was still shiny. They also were unwrinkled, and I wished that the clothing would come out as unwrinkled as the euro notes did. Since the euros had made it through the washer and the drying on the line and back into the clothes closet without my noticing them, I could hardly claim this laundered money as my own. Coincidentally, I was starting a load of laundry before we left for our morning outing; today was bedding, though, so no pockets to check.

When I went to hang the sheets out to dry upon our return, I discovered that the spin cycle had gotten stuck, the machine was still full of water, and I couldn't even open the door, since it was mid-cycle. Oh, bother. We had had an electrician at the end of this week putting in a proper outlet for the upstairs terrace laundry, and he had had to move the washer and dryer. The washer probably got unbalanced, I thought--it had happened once before. I fiddled with the switches, and started the load again. Two hours later, when I checked, I was at least able to get the door open, but the machine was still full of heavy, sloshy sheets. I hauled them out, wrung them out as best I could, and got them onto the line. Then we got the washing machine manual out to study, Johannes took a tool to unlock a filter, pulled it up, and out tumbled a bunch of coins--four euros and 50 centimos, when we counted it.

That's the money we used this morning when we went to the Sunday market. I bought almost four euros' worth of red and white grapes, a kilo of potatoes, and a chunk of fresh ginger. Then I spent a euro on a kilo of tomatoes and 55 centimos on a pound of gorgeous large mushrooms. We sat for awhile in the Norwegian cafe, reading the newspaper over a cervesa sin (beer without alcohol) and café con leche. And we walked up and down the aisles to see if we were tempted by anything else. We weren't, so I didn't have to touch the coins in my pockets--one and two-euro coins in the right pocket, centimos in tens and twenties in the left, which is the way I can come up with the small change to pay at individual stalls without going through the trouble of getting out a wallet and revealing its whereabouts to pickpockets.

Upon returning home I immediately emptied my pockets of the small change and replaced it in the ceramic bowl where it will stay safely until next market day. Then I went out on the terrace to check the laundry that I had started before we had gone out for the morning. It was fine. I was able to open the door and feel clothing with its usual pre-clothesline dampness. Seems as though we had found the cause of the washing machine's previous misbehavior. It just doesn't do well at laundering money--at least not coins.

Once in a Lifetime: Johnny Cash in Denmark and Spain

Man in Black: DVD cover from Amazon.com

Nothing connects Johnny Cash in Denmark in 1971 with Sundays in Spain in late summer of 2012 other than the curious twists and turns of a life. Nevertheless I made that connection this week when Danish television, which we pay 300€ annually to view here in Spain (and then it blacks out live Olympic coverage because they say they don't have rights to show it outside Denmark) broadcast a short and surprising program.

"When Johnny Cash Hit Søborg" was the name of the program, and not being an especially strong Johnny Cash fan I was ready to give it a miss, as our English friends here say. But it was only fifteen or twenty minutes in length and came during the time slot between the after-the-news evening issue program on Danish TV and before Charlie Rose on Bloomberg TV, and I was sitting with a glass of wine and had already cleaned up the kitchen after dinner, so why not?

Søborg happens to be the earlier home of the TV department of Danmarks Radio (DR), the public, non-commercial television system. Denmark has commercial competitors to its public TV now, of course, but back in 1971 (a year before I lived there), DR was the only game in town and country. It covered everything of importance, so when Johnny Cash came from America to record a concert in Denmark, an editorial meeting was held in Søborg to determine who should go to the airport in the suburb of Kastrup and interview him. For some reason that I didn't quite catch, it wasn't a music reporter or even a cultural reporter who was chosen. Mr. Cash's prison reputation had apparently preceded him, and therefore it was a young crime reporter, Erling Bundgaard, who was sent out to Kastrup!

During the on-the-spot airport interview--probably one of the smallest media gatherings by which Cash ever was received--he responded to the inevitable question of how much time he had served in prison by saying that he had never been in prison at all other than to give a concert--thus rendering the crime reporter's story a non-story. Cash did not offer the news that he had been in jail overnight a few times, but at one point he asked what station this interview would be on. "The only station," was the response. "Just one station?" he asked in quiet incredulity (and it is true, there was just one station in 1971 and also in 1972--and it didn't even broadcast the entire day, and it broadcast in black and white). "So what program?" Cash went on to ask. "The evening news," came the answer, and Cash seemed astonished that he would be featured on the news of the day on the only TV station in the country.

We next see him in the TV studio in Søborg, where I now realize he recorded a short concert. The funny thing is, he didn't realize he was recording the concert while he was recording it, either. Toward the end of the program I saw this week, he asked when they would start recording. He was quite surprised to be told that they had finished! Presumably he thought that what they had done for the past hour was a dress rehearsal.

That unrehearsed concert is available from Amazon on a DVD that was released in 2006, and judging from the customer reviews there it is pretty good. At least one reviewer remarks that Cash and company seemed particularly at ease, as well they might, considering they were only rehearsing. And one comment verifies that at least part of an exchange that I found astonishing and charming made it to the concert tape: that was Johnny Cash speaking--in Danish, tentatively and slowly, but understandably and from memory--thanking for the welcome, and saying he found the city of Copenhagen and the country delightful. (One wonders how much he had experienced of the city and country before saying this, but no matter--he bothered to say it, in Danish.)

So that is my once-in-a-lifetime experience for the week. I am probably one of the few Americans in the world who has ever heard Johnny Cash speak Danish. And definitely one of even fewer who understood what he was saying. And in all likelihood, the only American in Spain to have heard him and understood what he was saying.

Blacked Out

I guess I'll have to buy the DVD, because when I went to the Danish TV website to find out when the program I watched would be re-run (most everything is re-run during the week following original broadcast) I found that what I had seen was the re-run--the original program had been broadcast a week ago. But there was a notice saying that the program could be viewed in its entirety online until August 31, and I rejoiced, because I would have like to see it again to check some facts for this post.

But when I clicked, I got the message: "Because of copyright law," they don't have rights to make it accessible outside of Denmark.

Exploring San Miguel

Today is not Sunday in Spain, but it is a holiday--the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. This is one of those rare occasions when we knew ahead of time that there was going to be a holiday and that the stores would be closed on Wednesday. There had been articles in the free newspapers to warn us, and I had read the articles in time. We were a little discombobulated, however, when we saw a sign in the Consum grocery store last Saturday stating that not only would it be open all day on Wednesday, the 15th, it would be open until 10:00 PM, which is 45 minutes later than its normal closing time of 9:15. I think perhaps that means that there will be festivities in the evening and that we should be prepared for loud music and fireworks starting shortly after 10:00.

Anyway we drove out at about 11:00 this morning, following Johannes' piano class, because, well, just because it is good to get out of the house and do something during the day. We did not need groceries, so we headed away from our usual route and drove inland, between orange groves, to San Miguel de Salinas, a town that we had driven through several times, but in which we had rarely stopped. It seemed like a nice day to explore the main street and old town on foot.

Indeed it was, and made even easier because, due to the holiday, we were able to find a parking place right on the main street. We got out and walked slowly up the street, past several cafes. My half-serious goal was to locate an establishment called Bargain Books, where a couple of the women in my book group had purchased English language editions of three of the titles we have read. We did get there--it was right where they said it was, close by the plaza, across from the church. And conveniently, across from two cafe bars where lots of people were sitting out and enjoying coffee or cold drinks and a talk.

We found an empty table and sat and enjoyed our usual: cafe con leche and a media tostada con atun y tomate. And it was then that I realized that I was in witness of a rare sight in Spain. We were seated in between two tables of groups of women enjoying leisure time out. Women only--there were no men. That doesn't happen too often, as women in Spain have a rigid schedule, even if they don't work outside the home. But it can happen on a holiday, and it was lovely to watch ten middle-aged women enjoying each others' company, the good weather, and freedom from the daily schedule.

One group disappeared, though, as the town clock struck 12:00, probably to make their way home to prepare the afternoon dinner. The other stayed around awhile longer, and just before we began to make our way back toward the car, I noticed a funny thing about the cafe. The proprietor had begun setting out more tables, presumably for the dinner or afternoon crowd, whereas there had been only five for the early morning coffee customers. Each of those five tables was shaded from the sun by a large umbrella. Four of the umbrellas had bright red backgrounds with small Coca-Cola bottles in white splashed across them. The one odd umbrella had a white background. But when I looked closely I saw that it had a single Coca-Cola bottle marking it. That was a bottle of Coca-Cola Light.