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.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
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.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
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.
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.
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.
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