Goldie's Big Day

It's 7:30 AM and I awoke to the birds chirping two hours ago. We were downstairs early, even before there was full daylight, eating breakfast in the small sunroom/entrance to our house. This was to be Goldie's big day.

We had kept our cat inside for five days so she could adjust to her new home and recover from the terror of moving once again, cracking the windows slightly open to let the smells enter into her unconscious memory but prevent her from squeezing out, and suffering ourselves from lack of fresh air and cross breezes. Yesterday had been particularly terrifying for Goldie, with all the noise of drilling to admit cable and men crawling on the roofs and clattering up and down stairs. Goldie spent yesterday morning cowering in a corner of the downstairs office, well protected by boxes of books and miscellanea.

This morning at 6:30 we slid the glass door wider open than the inch or two that she had been nosing at, and soon she was out the door. Not running and dancing for joy--she stopped on the top step and looked behind, seeming to inquire why we weren't after her to scold her or bring her back in. We sat tight, and she proceeded down the other stair step, then walked over to the yucca plant and sniffed. Soon she proceeded to the pineapple palm, and then she reversed direction and walked around to the other side of the front room and nosed around the plantings there next to the three-person outdoor seating area. The next thing we knew, she had hopped over the greenery to the garden path leading down to a couple houses behind our property. We left her to explore and went about our morning routines.

At 7:00 I heard a loud continuous noise and walked out on the rooftop terrace to investigate. A large piece of vehicular machinery with a flashing yellow light was coming down Avenida del Tomillo. As it got closer, I realized it was washing the street. Ah, perhaps every Wednesday is street-cleaning day. I'll try to remember that next week so we can park the car inside the gate instead of leaving it on the street. The machine and the person driving it didn't seem to mind, however, as they maneuvered around several cars on the street. The dog on the other side of the street didn't appreciate the invasion, though, and who knows what Goldie was thinking about yet more noise?

I went downstairs to see if she had made her return appearance yet. We had left the glass door to the sunroom open, but closed and locked the grating on the front door of the house. (Locks, keys, door and window grills and grating are a major fact of life in Spain--we have four keys to go through just to get into our living room.) I saw Goldie outside the sunroom, sniffing at the bougainvillea. Then I turned my back, asked a question, and went into the kitchen for another cup of coffee. I came out and looked from the living room through the grate and sunroom, and whistled to try to encourage her to come inside. And she appeared, totally unexpectedly, from behind me in the house! She can walk easily through the spaces in the grating.

For coming home promptly, of course, she got a special treat. If she continues to get rewarded each time she goes out and returns, she may soon not be able to fit through the grating.

Back in the World

We were in the process of moving out of our Roquetas apartment. Experience told us that it took a long time to close or cancel a utility service contract. So we asked a gestoria (management company) to stop or transfer accounts for telephone, water, and electricity, to be effective immediately after we left the apartment.

Suddenly, Thursday noontime, May 7, a full day before we were due to close on our sale, and some hours before I had planned to write business and personal contacts to say that the time was now that we were making the move that had been in the works for months, it went black. There was no phone. There was no Internet.

There began 18 days of disconnection from my world. I already knew that I lived, professionally and personally, through the Internet. If I had not realized it before, I would surely know it now. Wi-fi spaces are few and far between in Spain, Internet cafés are open limited hours, and resort hotels are more interested in providing a sandy beach, pool, tennis or golf, proximity to the paseo, good restaurant service, and live entertainment than access to the Internet.

We moved temporarily (for a planned two weeks) to a gorgeous holiday apartment in Torrevieja, perfect in every way except no Internet or even land-line phone. During that time we spent four days in Madrid at a lovely reunion of engineering college classmates and their wives. But I could buy wireless in-room Internet access from Telefonica for a rather high 14€ (US$20) for a 24-hour period. Balancing the social life and the hours available, I was able to stretch 2 periods of access over the time I was there.

Back in Torrevieja, it turned out that our host's offer of using his office's network connection was his home office. Fine, except for the fact that my U.S. conference calls and meetings were scheduled from 8:00 PM until 11:00 PM Spanish time. Perhaps OK for the Spanish, but a little too intimate for a new acquaintance, and definitely too late for me to venture outside of my home-away-from-home to conduct business at that hour.

Because it had been reserved by others, we had to move out of our temporary apartment two days before moving into our new house, so we found a beautiful four-star, newly renovated beachfront hotel for two nights. You would expect Internet purchase options similar to those I found in Madrid, right? But no. I was invited to use one of the two desks in the lobby, for free, to connect via the wi-fi that was available in the lobby only. Again, would I want to conduct business in a public hotel lobby at 10:00 or 11:00 PM?

And then, two days before signing papers on the new house, we called to order the installation of broadband Internet service from Telefonica...only to discover that Telefonica could not guarantee accessibility in our nine-year-old, well-established "rural" area of 177 homes. This in spite of the fact that other residents already had Telefonica contracts for broadband.

Panic set in, but we located iAksess, a microwave provider, that promised to come and check the signal and then, it proving good, to place an antenna on our red-tiled roof to receive microwaves, and to install the wires down through the tiles and terraces and even behind the yucca and prickly cacti growing around the house. Thanks to the guys from iAksess, who spent the entire morning here, I am able to send this Sundays in Spain post from my new, connected office on Spain's Costa Blanca. And I feel as though I am back in the world again.

All Boxed In

I'm up to my shoulders--well, perhaps above them--in boxes. That's because we're packing up to relocate to the Alicante area of Spain, back where this blog began some six months ago.

I'm a frequent mover, though most of my moves have been between houses in the United States. We are also mostly do-it-yourself movers, or at least do-it-yourself packers, because although I keep sorting and disposing of books, papers, clothing, kitchen utensils, household decorations and whatever else it is that brings comfort and clutter to my homes, there is always too much to invite someone in to relieve me of this personal task. I don't think it's true, but maybe I'm fooling myself and the only time I really do sort and clean out is when I move house.

Considering the fact that everything in this house was either acquired on this side of the Atlantic within the past five years, or carefully brought over in my two-suitcase allotment on biennial trips to the U.S., I've got a lot of stuff. But there's not too much time to sort through this time--we were told on Thursday afternoon that our buyers wanted to take possession of the apartment the following Thursday. That would be this coming Thursday. Given the economy and the turgid real estate market, what the buyer says, goes. So we were boxed in to an earlier-than-expected moving date.

In most previous moves, the main type of moving crate has been the time-honored liquor carton. When we moved from the White Mountains of New Hampshire to the Midwest six years ago, we started to drive to different state liquor stores to pick up boxes, not because I was worried that my soon-to-be former neighbors might think I drank too much, but because I was worried that the state store clerks would think we had too much stuff.

They do not have state liquor stores in Spain, but we have been living on the main street of town, within a ten-minute walk of three grocery stores, a stationery shop, and numerous bars and restaurants. (Lots of banks, too, but they aren't receiving any deposits in crates these days). We are also within reach of several trash/recycling centers, so we've started timing our daily walks to throw-out time. People are not supposed to leave cardboard boxes on the ground outside the dumpster, but thank heavens they do. Here, in contrast to most places I've lived before, the sanitation workers actually pick those up and dispose of them properly instead of letting them sit until the next day or the next wind and rain.

We have a very different supply of cardboard moving cartons in this commercial environment. I've explored my piles to see what markings on the boxes reveal about their former contents and discovered how little I know about the many consumer products of Spain. Here's what I can see:

• Coviran Papel Aliminio - aluminum foil for the small grocery store next door
• Hidalgo Pan Precocido - Prebaked bread, lots and lots of boxes from the supermarket down the street. So that's why they always had fresh bread coming out of their ovens!
• Mercadona Barra Bolo - more bread variations from the supermarket
• TempleOliva: 8X2L of olive oil
• Vinagre de Vino Blanco Procer - vinegar to go with the olive oil, of course
• Carnicas Roquetas - some beef product, judging by the silly cow on the side of the box
• Aperitivas - a wide variety of snacks to nibble with your wine
• the box from somebody's Phillips CD Sound Machine
• a Humax 22" Easy Digital flatscreen TV box--I wonder why TV screens are measured in inches here?
• a Tupperware Breadsmart machine box
• something marked AllinOne - a dishwasher liquid
• Plasticos Seguros - I'm not sure even after checking Google España. "Secure plastics" could be anything from baby bottles to plastic gloves, to...you name it
• Ibico binding covers
• 12 unidades El Baño Aloe Vera marked Muy Fragile, so I used those to pack glassware
• Nueces Cascara Hacendada - nuts in their shell, supermarket brand
• something marked Girasol (sunflower) from Moldavia
• Something marked Risi.es that I never heard of before - seems to be a high-calorie fried snack aimed at kids
• A couple gorgeous flat boxes sent to Modas de Ana, one of the nice ladies' clothing stores in town
• something labeled Ron Brugal Añejo - a liquor from the Dominican Republic
• and one fine box marked Johnnie Walker Red Label

Well, that's enough of a break. I still have some empty boxes to fill.

Gazpacho!

When I asked for gazpacho one of the first times I dined out after moving to Spain, the waiter looked at me, horrified. That's because we moved here in November, and I asked for gazpacho in the winter. Gazpacho is a summer dish.

There are probably as many recipes for gazpacho as there are Spaniards. This Spanish food site has a decent recipe, and an even more interesting history of the dish. It claims that gazpacho originated at the time the Romans were building aqueducts throughout Spain. That, of course, was before Columbus sailed to the New World and brought back many culinary staples for the first time, one of them being the tomato. Gazpacho existed without tomatoes? That was a different kind of gazpacho.

This week on Tuesday, we joined about 20 friends for one of the monthly English-speaking club luncheons that we have enjoyed over the years that we have been in Roquetas. And I enjoyed this season's first gazpacho. I like the way that El Bodegón serves it, with very finely diced onion, pepper, and cucumber to sprinkle on top, so the gazpacho truly does become a liquid salad.

I'm looking forward to many more gazpachos this summer.

Layers for the Sun and April Showers

We have had such splendid summer-like weather this week that by Friday I was ready to pack away my spring clothes (light-weight, long-sleeved) and replace them with the really light summer garments that I change into and out of four times a day during the hot summer months.

It's a good thing I have mastered the art of procrastination.

The nice weather at the begining of the week built up to temperatures in the mid 80s on Friday. We brought our folding bikes (unfolded, standing upright) down two flights in the three-person elevator and rode toward the village of Aguadulce. Almost immediately I realized that the shallow V-neck, cap sleeved T-shirt I had on was too warm. More importantly, it was going to leave me with sun-tan marks that would be visible when I switched to the slightly more revealing tops that I have finally gotten used to wearing in Spain, after living most of my life more covered up in New England. When I returned home, I could see that the two-hour bike ride in the sun, broken only by a few minutes for an agua con gas and half a tostada, had defintely left their mark.

Later in the day, before we set out to walk the twenty minutes to the local shopping mall, I scoured my underwear and lesser-wear drawers to find something in which I could open myself up to the sun and try to blur the lines. Of course, I also needed to grab a light cover-up to push into my bag. While I have finally learned to stride almost nonchalantly through city streets dressed in clothing that is more revealing than my nightgown, that does not mean I can be comfortable wearing the same thing when walking through an indoor shopping mall, where I might actually make eye contact with another person.

We prepared for another bike ride and sunning expedition on Saturday, but rain had descended through the night, leaving cars and our balcony windows streaming with the muddy splotches of Sahara sand that blows over the Mediterranean periodically. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees F. and a startlingly heavy wind was blowing things this way and that. No bike ride that day, but we did make a cold trip to the car wash.

This Sunday morning in Spain was pleasant again. Our wind gauge (the palm tree across the street, viewable from our second-floor apartment) showed no movement. I put on a moderate sunning-shirt, we took the bikes down again, and headed in the opposite direction from Friday, toward the resort Urbanizacion southwest of the "old town" where we live. We stopped for a drink and tapa mid-way beyond the old Castillo and the Urba, but as we lounged and watched the passers-by on the paseo, it began to rain. We scurried out and drove the three mikes back to the apartment in record time. This time I was glad for the warm cover-up I had stashed in my backpack, an ancient favorite Green Cotton original, from Denmark by way of Garnet Hill in Franconia, New Hampshire.

It is too early to pack away the spring clothing. But not too early to bring down that last box of summer clothing from the high shelf of the wardrobe.

Road Signs

Well, I haven't done very well with my intention to spend the winter learning to drive in Spain. In fact, I barely cracked the book that I finally bought from an autoescuela until this past week. When I did open the book, I kept getting bogged down in Chapter 1, which has colored pictures of almost 40 different vehicles, from a bicicleta to a tren turístico. The idea here, I gather, is to be able to recognize the ones that require a driver's license to drive (not needed for the bicicleta, and I'm not about to try for the special license for the tren turístico or tractor de obras, either).

So this week I finally just skipped over to Chapter 2 (of 18): Road Signs. This is the first mention of anything that really has anything to do with how to drive, or how not to, as the case may be. I have noticed, of course, that some road signs follow international norms of which I am already aware, but others are not very familiar to me. And I'm looking forward to reading an explanation of what one is supposed to do when navigating through the hundreds of roundabouts (rotondas) that Spanish roads use to manage many intersections. They look like the rotaries that are common in Massachusetts, but the Spanish drivers don't seem to get in and out of them in quite the same way that Massachusetts drivers do.

I haven't come across the rule of the rotonda yet. But the first thing I found in the Road Signs chapter was the five different types of road signs. They are:

1. Signals and orders from Traffic Agents (these are humans)
2. "Circumstantial" signs that modify normal traffic signs (as for road work or emergencies)
3. Traffic lights (of the red, yellow, and green variety)
4. So-called "vertical" signs, the metal ones that are anchored vertically to the ground on the right or left side of the road
5. Signals painted on the pavement

Now I've spoiled the surprise by giving them to you already in priority order, but the first, mind you, the first sentence in the chapter says, "When the signals are contradictory, you must obey the sign that has the highest authority."

I'm sure I would have guessed that special "circumstantial" signs took precedence over normal road signs, and that if a human traffic agent told me to do something, I'd better follow that order rather than whatever any inanimate sign said. But all the examples show situations in which the lower three priorities of signs are contradictory! Now why would someone deliberately erect a traffic light, or a vertical metal sign, or paint signals on pavement and make them contradictory with what was already there?

And why, I wondered as I got deeper and deeper into contradictory road signs and what to do when I encounter them, did the book go into such detail about the proper course of action when it had not yet even introduced me to the meaning of all the individual signs themselves?

I'm only on page 38.

Spain's New Christians

I'm not a theologian, but I would guess that it's correct to say that Christianity started 2009 years ago on Easter, when the Resurrection of a Jewish man named Jesus caused some Jews to revise their faith. They became the first "New Christians."

Spain had its own New Christians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were moriscos, Moors, who were forced to abandon their faith and officially become cristianos nuevos, New Christians. After years of fighting, the Moors had been finally defeated by the forces of los reyes católicos, Ferdinand and Isabella, at Granada in 1492. Many fled, but those who remained in Spain converted, at least on the surface.

Ironically in this week preceding Easter, Semana Santa to the Spaniards, I read that it was the 400th anniversary of the expulsion of the moriscos from Spain. In 1609, on April 9, Felipe III signed the decree authorizing the greatest exodus Spain has ever known. About 300,000 inhabitants were sent out of their country, which figures to be 4.3% of the population of the time. The same percentage today of Spain's nearly 46 million inhabitants would put the number at approximately 2 million people.

Spanish historians are reexamining the record of this great expulsion and note that on the same day Felipe signed a truce with Dutch Protestants in the Twelve Year War. They say that Felipe was telling the world that even though Spain had compromised with the heretical Protestants, it was still Catholic enough to deport more than four percent of its own population.

Today, with modern immigration, there are once again Muslims in Spain, and many of the customs of the early moriscos are alive in the country. One of the ways that 17th-century Christians were able to detect moriscos was through their bathing habits: Moriscos washed themselves once a week, on Friday, while Christians of the time limited their baths to twice a year. Other morisco habits were cooking with olive oil instead of animal fats, eating many vegetables and fruits, using perfume, and dressing in colorful clothing. In such ways does the culture of the vanquished live on.

Already a hundred years after the expulsion, in the eighteenth century, the deportation was regretted and called "the ruination of Spain." Today Spain is preserving its Moorish culture with pride. The 400th anniversary of the expulsion was noted, but not celebrated.

My Three Countries

It's been anything but a quiet week in this place so far across the Pond from Lake Wobegon. It's been a week of politics, intervention, mediation, and reconciliation.

President Obama went to London on Monday for the G20 meeting, reportedly wanting more stimulus money from European countries for the economic crisis. Germany and France, on the other hand, wanted stricter financial controls. Who did British Prime Minister Gordon Brown call in to mediate between Merkel, Sarkozy, and President Obama? None other than José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, president of Spain.

Further into the week, many of the same leaders moved to Baden-Baden to celebrate the 60th anniversary of NATO. This time the disunity was between Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was aspiring to become the next General Secretary of NATO, and Turkey, which was upset over Fogh Rasmussen's handling of the Muhammad cartoons published by a Danish newspaper in 2005. Who mediated the conflict this time? President Barack Obama.

Fogh Rasmussen was successful in his bid to become head of NATO. He spent today, Sunday, in audience with the Queen of Denmark, resigning his post and passing the Danish government over to Lars Løkke Rasmussen (no relation except political) and will appear in Istanbul tomorrow to speak to the Turks. Then he'll move on to Prague for the European Union meeting, where President Obama spoke today to huge crowds about nuclear non-proliferation.

Reportedly, Obama and Zapatero held a 45-minute private meeting in Prague today.

It's been a week of diplomacy, in which the heads of state of all three of the countries which in some sense are "home" to me played major roles. And they each did a creditable job and took actions of which I approve.

That's a first.

It's 8:03 A.M. Do you know what time it is?

For the last several months at 8:03 A.M. every morning, a clock has sounded with the words, "It's eight oh three A.M.; it's eight oh three A.M.; it's eight oh three A.M.," and on and on for an entire minute, unless I get to the Off switch to shut out the mechanical voice.

The clock is the one on my pedometer, a freebie trinket from the National Library of Medicine booth at a trade show many years ago, which has proved very useful in measuring my steps while walking and even biking. But several months ago, I managed to set the alarm, unintentionally, and even though I (finally) located the printed instructions, I have not been able to undo it.

This Sunday morning in Spain I was not disturbed until 9:03 A.M. That's because this morning, Spain--and all of Europe--finally switched clocks to Daylight Saving Time, or Summer Time, as it is known here. Spring forward, fall back. What had been 8:03 now is called 9:03--except by my pedometer clock.

The last three weeks have wreaked havoc on my sensibilities. I am used to the U.S. east coast being six hours later than we are here in Spain. It's an easy switch. Around the time of my lunch at 2:00 P.M. here, people are going to work at home. When I settle down for the evening news, they are beginning to think about their lunch. And if I am still sitting at my computer at 10:30 P.M., they are just closing up work for the day.

But since the U.S. changed its clocks on March 8, and we didn't change until last night, we were, temporarily, only five hours ahead of U.S. time. I was late for my usual telephone call to my mother on Saturday afternoon. I failed to check my email at a computer in Connecticut before the office opened at 8:30 A.M.--though I only had to wait up until 9:30 P.M. my time (instead of 10:30) to check the end-of-day messages at that office. And my New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Jim Lehrer Newshour, and Katie Couric emails have been coming in at hours that I did not expect. In short, I have been totally disoriented.

Since they both do shift time twice each year, spring and fall, I have never been able to understand why the U.S. and Europe don't change on the same date. Now, after an afternoon of research--made even shorter by that hour I lost this morning--I still don't know why. But I do know that the changes are embedded in their respective laws. Before 1996, countries in Europe changed to summer or winter time, as the case was, at different times. The European Union standardized the time switch, and since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. The United States, which first adopted DST during WWI, then abandoned it until WWII, started regular observances with the Uniform Time Act of 1966. There have been periodic revisions since then, and starting in 2007, Daylight Saving Time begins the second Sunday morning in March, and extends until the first Sunday morning in November.

I figure I have seven months before my time is out of synch again. And I hope that by that time I will have figured out how to change the talking mechanical voice on my pedometer.

Lost in Translation?

We've joined a weekly walking group of mostly Brits, and have spent the past few Wednesdays hiking for an hour or so at interesting locations in the Roquetas environs and then having a lunch of a tapa or two at a bar near our excursion site. Last Wednesday's walk took us to the Cabo de Gata nature park east of Almería. Although la gata means "cat" in Spanish, Cabo de Gata has nothing to do with cats; it seems in this case to be a variation of the word "agate," which was once found among the stones in the beach area.

The car trip to Cabo de Gata took most of an hour, and the walk down a sandy path along the marsh to the flamingo look-out and abandoned country church took two hours, so we were quite hungry when we found our way to a seaside bar and restaurant. I overheard part of a conversation at the next table. As waiters are wont to do in southern Spain, especially when descended upon by a group of 22 English speakers, this one tried valiantly to respond to one walker's question about the preparation of the fish he was ordering.

"Is it done in batter?" was the question.

"Oh, no! No butter!" responded the waiter, horrified. "Olive oil."

"Yes, but is it covered in batter?" came the question again.

"No, no butter," repeated the waiter patiently.

Was this a misunderstanding in the making?

I have no idea whether this hiker wanted his fish in batter or not, nor whether he got it in batter or not. We can be sure he didn't get it in butter.

My own boquerones (anchovies) were covered with a delicious light batter and fried lightly in olive oil.

Some Favorite Tapas

A friend's birthday party this week was a celebration not only of his 75 years, but of the leisurely way of eating in Spain. Tapas--small portions of food served with drinks--are well-known throughout the world now. There are hundreds of varieties of tapas, in which small portions of fish, meat, vegetables, and potatoes are combined in interesting and tasteful ways, and served in distinctive individual tapas dishes along with an alcoholic beverage. The days of a no-charge tapa accompanying your order of wine or beer are mostly gone, but all bars still display a tray of eight or ten, or more, different tapas selections throughout the day. You specify your choice and they ladle it into a distinctive individual tapas dish, pop it in the microwave, and then serve it to you with just a fork and a slice or two of a good baguette--all for a single euro. If you are still hungry after a tapa, you simply have a second one. Foreigners, especially, often eat lunch this way.

Our birthday party followed the tapas tradition but served raciones, which are larger platters of the same types of food that make tapas. A group of Spaniards might order a racion for the table and each just dip into that plate with their own fork. Our group of 20 were seated at regular dining tables, each with a formal place setting of knife, fork, and dinner plate, and the plates of raciones were passed along the table so all could help themselves.

Our progressive tapas dinner began with ensalada mixta, mixed green salad, with lettuce, tomatoes, onion, peppers, and olives. An ensalada mixta often serves as a first course to a normal Spanish dinner; you dress it yourself from the olive oil and vinegar, salt and pepper condiment set that invariably accompanies it. This was slightly different in that pieces of Spanish tortilla were served along side. I've previously written about my love affair with Spanish tortillas, and I enjoyed this little extra touch.

Just as I expected the main course to be served, the next racion appeared. And then another and another, in successive installments. As soon as we had passed and finished one plate, and washed it down with copious copas (glasses) of vino tinto (red wine) and agua (water), out would come another dish. In addition to salad and tortilla, we ate boquerones fritos, delicious fried anchovies, with papas fritas (French fries); patatas pobres, thinly sliced potatoes, slow fried with garlic; habas (lima beans) with bits of jamón serrano; a montadito, literally, something mounted on bread--this was a miniature sandwich of pork tenderloin), and pieces of pollo, chicken, marinated in something wonderful. I am sure there were a couple other courses, but this was several days ago and there were those copious copas. After three hours at the table with good food, good wine, and good conversation, there was a delicious birthday cake.

Spring Flowers

A few weeks ago I passed by an open garden gate and was surprised to see a courtyard full of blooming daffodils. Spring flowers that were traditional in my North American growing up years--primarily daffodils and tulips--are rare here, as the winters along the southern costas of Spain do not get cold enough to properly "set" the bulbs. As a matter of fact, I was surprised to see flower bulbs on sale at all the first year I was in Spain. So the sight of a mass of 50 or more daffodils that must have been carefully and individually planted was an unexpected early spring pleasure.

There are spring flowers in Spain, just as there are distinct seasons. The flowers are just different from the ones I was used to while growing up in Ohio or living in New England. First we have the almond blossoms, which I almost missed this year, being away in the States until mid-February. But drives across country and walks along hilly trails in the past few weeks have always presented gorgeous profusions of yellow wildflowers. There are several different kinds, all of which are unknown to me, including one which looks almost like a dandelion, and another like a buttercup, but they aren't either of those. Today, while biking through Roquetas on yet another new bike path along the Mediterranean, I stopped in my tracks when I saw this display of naturalized yellow miniature blooms popping their heads up over the blades of grass in a small park--grass itself being a rather unusual form of greenery in this area.

My favorite spring plants, though, are the low borders of green succulents along the sea promenade, that suddenly spring forth with round magenta flowers each March. We watched one of the promenades being built, and the green succulent leaves served as a ground cover during the winter. Only a few flowers blossomed the first year, but each spring since, there have been more and more, so now it sometimes appears as a magenta carpet over the entire area. Danish friends told me these are middagsblomster, and a German friend verified that in Germany they are mittagsblume. But I've never been able to find either the Spanish or the English name. Now, after leafing unsuccessfully through two Spanish flower books with pictures, I found a lovely multilingual site on the Internet, Biopix. Clicking the Spanish flag produces two imaginative names for this plant: diente de dragón (dragon's tooth) and flor de cuchillo (knife plant). The individual succulent leaves could certainly be regarded as the long teeth of a dragon. But the British flag reveals two surprising and unjust names, I think: giant pigface, and Hottentot fig. The Latin name is neutral: Carpobrotus acinaciformis. I think I would prefer to remember dientes de dragón.

The Windmills of Spain

Don Quixote has made the old windmills of Spain famous for the past four hundred years, but new Spanish windmills are now achieving a prominence of their own. Spain's national newspaper, El País, reported this week that on March 5 windmills generated enough energy to meet 29% of the demand for electricity at 11:10 in the morning, and more than 40% of the demand during several of the early morning hours.

Windmill farms with a hundred or more mills are a common site when driving across the plains, though usually only a small portion of the mills are operating. Indeed, the country's windmill network was only functioning at 74.5% capacity when the March 5 record was established.

The bigger news that El País reported, however, was that in the months of January and February, Spain exceeded the goal of generating 30% of its electricity with the renewable sources of wind and water. In 2001 the European Union established a target for its member countries to satisfy 29.4% of their electrical needs with renewable sources by 2010. Though Spain experienced favorable conditions of wind and rain in the first two months of this year--as well as diminished electricity demand due to the economic crisis--it appears to be well on its way to maintaining its place as one of the leaders of renewable energy production and management. According to El País, only 10% of electricity in the U.S. is generated by renewable sources, and in the UK, it's less than 5%.

First Bike Ride of the Season

This second March Sunday morning in Spain was perfect for bike riding, and I have a new bicycle. Petty theft happens here, especially when you get careless. Someone climbed over the four-foot wall surrounding our terrace in December, picked up two bicycles that we had forgotten to lock that night, and somehow passed them over to the other side. Since then I have been without a bike.

This time I bought a folding bike. We are no longer living in the house with the terrace and four-foot wall, but now on the second floor of an apartment building with a small four-person elevator. The collapsible bike, when folded up, can be carried into the elevator for trips down from and up to the always-locked apartment. With some difficulty.

Even before we reached the tile-paved promenade at the foot of the half-mile paseo that connects the main street on which we live to the Mediterranean, I knew I was going to be too warm in my turtle-neck and long jeans. I was, but there was too much life going on to turn back and change, or even to run back and pick up the camera we forgot. At 11:00 AM, the promenade was full of people of all ages enjoying the sun and fresh air of a spring Sunday. A bike path runs along the people promenade, and theoretically all bikes follow the bike path and all people on foot are on the wider pavement closer to the Sea. But there are many sorts of wheeled vehicles to contend with. At any point in time, regardless of where you are walking or riding, you may meet:

• tricycles
• roller skates
• children's bikes with training wheels
• wheelchairs, pushed not by the occupant
• motorized scooters, driven by the occupant
• baby strollers, pushed by parent or grandparent
• double-wide baby strollers holding the large number of sets of twins in Spain
• sedately moving two-wheeled bikes, ridden by pensioners or those approaching that age
• racing bikes, usually controlled by young Spanish men passing you by at breathtaking speeds
• the occasional motorcycle
• a few cars and camping vans, making their way to the wide beach front between the promenade and the Sea

There were hundreds of people moving along, and when we got to the end of the tiled promenade, we and they continued on new bike and walking paths that had been built within the past year. We passed on wooden bridges over shallow marshes and through a natural park with a nice selection of grasses, shrubs, and palm trees. We stopped at one point for the most surprising pedestrians of all--at least 60 sheep making their way across the marsh, with a little help from a herdsman. All wore a small metal bell around the neck, each emitting a single soft tone that together produced an enchanting musical interlude.

We were headed to Aguadulce, a small village immediately to the north, perhaps seven or eight miles away. We stopped on the southern perimeter for our traditional snack of café con leche and tostada and a rest in the sun. Normally we would have continued all the way through Aguadulce, but I'm still getting used to the straight-across handlebars and the hand brakes on this bike, and I could also tell that I was feeling the effects of even this short ride in my legs, so we'll leave that for another day.

By the time we made our way back, the sheep were long gone.

Burying the Sardine

The first street parade I saw in Spain appeared without warning just below our living room balcony on a Sunday afternoon in spring five years ago. We sprang from the dinner table to watch colorful floats, marching bands, and young people in vibrant costumes parade down the main street of town. At the time we didn't have the slightest idea of why the procession included a large papier-mâché fish borne on the shoulders of four young men, but we came to believe it was a custom unique to Roquetas, which until 25 or 30 years ago was a small fishing village.

Since then, we have learned that this particular parade, Entierro de la Sardina, happens annually, on Sunday or Ash Wednesday, as the culmination of Carnaval, just before the beginning of Lent. There are parades like this in towns and cities all over Spain, and the fish is not unique to Roquetas. In fact, they carry a large fish--a sardine--in all the Entierro de la Sardina parades. This year I have done some research and discovered that they do, in fact, burn and bury the sardine each year at the conclusion of the parade. That would explain why it always looks a little different each year.

The funeral procession for the sardine has a spiritual significance. The sardine itself seems to represent sins and vices, the sense of abandon expressed in the festival--and it is true that the noise, dance, and some costumes rival those I have seen in Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans. The cremation of the fish represents cleansing and liberation. The interment of the sardine, then, is a symbol of the burial of the past and subsequent rebirth of spirit--renewed, transformed and more forceful and powerful.

The Alcazaba in Almería

The Alcazaba in Almería rises high over the city and cannot be missed when approaching Almería from the west, which is the direction from which you drive when coming from Roquetas. We've been to the Alcazaba a few times before and found it to be a pleasant and ever-changing experience. The grounds of this ancient fortress and castle, dating from the 10th century, are well-maintained, with the terracing, water pools, gardens, and patios common to Moorish dwellings. Now that spring seems to be arriving in southern Spain, I was hoping to see some colorful flowers, different from the ones I had seen on previous trips in high summer and mid-winter.

Every time I had previously visited the Alcazaba there were several workmen present doing restoration work, and some areas were off-limits for visits. The only workmen I saw this time were gardeners who were busy pruning the various green plantings--bougainvillea and lavender hedges provided most of the color at this time, but I know that later there will be lots of roses. I hope the current economic crisis has not halted restoration of the Alcazaba, which has gathered much support from the European Union (EU citizens receive free admission, but no one checks passports).

It's impossible to walk the entire grounds in one visit. This time I saw a complete restoration of a Moorish home, with central patio and surrounding salon, bedrooms, and cooking area, all furnished with typical mattresses, tapestries, pots and ceramics, with detailed signage, though only in Spanish. One larger room is always devoted to a contemporary art exhibit, and though I've not yet attended, there are occasional musical concerts within the grounds.

As with most historical sites in Spain, no single civilization can lay exclusive claim to the Alcazaba. Though the structure currently standing was built in the 10th century by the Moors and exhibits mostly an Arab face, the Romans got there first, specifically the Carthaginians. Roman baths were being re-excavated the last time I was there, and last Friday the area had been cleaned up but is still waiting for some interpretation. The Christians laid claim to the area briefly during the 12 century and again later at the end of the 15th century, Los Reyes Católicos, Ferdinand and Isabella, expanded the fortress to defend their faith against the Moors. This visit I made it over to the far side of the monument, where the high stone walls have the usual round holes carved out to let cannon balls through, in case predators attempt to approach. They make good peep-holes these days through which one can view the lovely Almería harbor. But the cross on the top of the cannon hole serves as a good means of reminding modern visitors that it is not the Muslims alone who have waged holy wars.

The Princess of Canton, Ohio

We started out last Friday morning to visit the Alcazaba in Almería city but needed a cup of coffee to strengthen us for the steep walk. At 10:30 AM, folks were streaming in to a dark cafetería on Calle Real near the corner of Calle Infanta, so we joined the crowd, even though we had to wait a couple minutes for a table. There was plenty to look at while we waited. For no apparent reason, the walls were covered with ancient barnboard and pictures of old advertisements from the United States of the nineteenth century.


We found a place at a narrow wooden table that looked as though it once had been a wooden sewing machine base; on the end was a metal plate advertising Sears, Roebuck & Company. But what took my attention while we sipped our café con leche and shared a media tostada con atún y tomáte was the huge poster, composed of five broad barnboard planks, depicting "The Princess of Canton, Ohio."

On a separate poster I read that the Princess Plow Company was the successor to the Gibbs & Ball Plow Company and laid claim to being "Queen of the Turf" and "Pride of the Farm." But there was competition: An adjoining wall showed a much smaller announcement from Plano, Illinois, boasting that "We have captured the Gold Medal at the World's Industrial Exposition. Simplicity of construction. Small number of working parts....Good materials." I could not find the name of the Gold Medal manufacturer, and there was no mention of date or location of the World's Industrial Exposition.

Back at my desk this Sunday in Spain, I've determined that the World's Industrial Exposition was likely that held in New Orleans in 1884-85. The Miami University Libraries have put photos of some Victorian Trade Cards of the Princess Plow Co., up on flickr, and there are others available on eBay. And an Encyclopedia of American Farm Implements & Antiques, by Charles H. Wendel (2004), lists two Princess plows: one from the Carnegie Plow & Mfg Co., of Carnegie, PA in 1905, the other from the Princess Plow Co. of Canton, OH in 1892.

Perhaps the Princess Plow Co. improved on the Gold Medal winner at the World's Industrial Exposition. In any case, I know more about 19th-century farm equipment manufacturers, and Canton, Ohio, now than I did before stopping for a cup of coffee last Friday morning.

Roquetas de Mar

Very careful readers of this blog may have noticed a subtle change in subtitle. I started writing Sundays in Spain when we were living temporarily on Spain's Costa Blanca, near Torrevieja, in Alicante province on the east coast. We have recently moved back to the original place we started living in Spain more than five years ago, Roquetas de Mar. We have a large apartment in Roquetas that we have decided to sell, but like most real estate worldwide these days, it's not moving at lightning speed. Until such time as we sell and return to the Costa Blanca, we decided to settle once again in Roquetas, which is not at all a bad place to be.

Roquetas de Mar is located in the province of Almería, which in turn is a part of the comunidad of Andalucía, that broad region at the south of Spain that extends almost all the way from its eastern to its western border. The capital city of Almería is also named Almería and is a short twenty-minute drive by car or local bus from Roquetas center. Roquetas itself has about 80,000 inhabitants, spread among the villages of Aguadulce, El Parador, Roquetas old town, and the Roquetas urbanization (resort). It sits just next to the desert of Tabernas and in the midst of thousands of invernaderos, plastic greenhouses, which give three growing seasons for the agricultural industry that, with tourism, supports the area's economy.

I've written previously about the underground tunnels below Almería, and you will no doubt hear more about Almería, Roquetas, and Andalucía, in the weeks ahead.

"Tu Papel es Importante"

One of the first public phrases that I thought I understood in Spanish was the polite "Tu papel es importante" sign on the paper recycling container, reminding all that "Your paper is important." In other words, please place your used paper here, not in the general trash bin; recycling is important, and you can help.

Recycling containers of all types are ubiquitous throughout Spain. On practically every block you will find a long string of large containers in the street. Yellow containers are for Envases, including plastic containers for soft drinks; the heavy-duty tetra/brik boxes for milk; tin and aluminum food cans. The blue-accented "Tu papel es importante" containers are for most clean papers: newspapers, magazines, office paper, cereal boxes, cardboard, and carton. Green containers are for glass: wine bottles, beer bottles, glass jars that formerly held olives, condiments, and other prepared foodstuffs. Finally in the lineup come the "Other" containers, the army-green dumpsters for whatever else you may have to throw away--encased in a plastic bag, of course--which often means garbage, otherwise known as basura, from uneaten food, etc.

Signs often limit the dumping of basura to 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM at night, for sanitary purposes, especially in the hot summer months. In truth, this admonition is not always observed, and in truth, it may not be so important that it is. Invariably, an army of trash collectors descends on the common trash containers every single night, lifting the contents into a huge container truck and returning the container itself to its proper place in line. A battalion of uniformed foot soldiers follows along, tidying up any spills and leftovers that the careless public or a strong wind may have left outside the container. Depending on where you live, trash collection occurs usually between midnight and 2:00 AM--you can set your clock by it. There seem to be no holidays for the trash collector army--they are there seven nights a week and on Christmas and New Year's and every other of the many Spanish fiesta days.

There are disadvantages to having so many trash and recycling bins in so many prominent places throughout metropolitan and village spaces. Pretty they are not, even when they are well-maintained. It's hard to see around the lineup to find out whether a bus or cars are coming down the road. And they take up far too many parking spots.

But the advantage is that, with a bank of trash and recycling containers within walking distance of everyone, no one can make the excuse that recycling is too hard or too inconvenient. No one has to drive a car to the recycling center or the town dump. The containers are a visible, convenient, and ubiquitous reminder that we all dispose of stuff and should do so responsibly.

Which brings me to the double meaning of the sign on the paper recycling container. As I developed my Spanish, I learned that papel is not just paper; a papel is also a role, or a part in a play or theater piece. Participation.

Tu papel es importante. Your paper is important, Your role is important.

Greetings from the TSA

Every time I return to Spain from the U.S. I bring two crammed-full suitcases. Every time when I open them on arrival, one bears a now-familiar Notice of Baggage Inspection from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). It is usually the larger of the two suitcases that has been inspected, and I never--until this time--have seen evidence that the second piece of luggage was inspected.

I've often wondered what the TSA officials think when they see the hidden treasures I choose to bring back. I know that some people think that placing dirty underwear at the top of the baggage will ensure privacy. I doubt that and anyway would not waste space and weight on such trivialities. My limited baggage space is reserved for small family mementos, work and personal records that cannot be sent digitally or trusted to postal systems, books in English, a mini drugstore, and the odd comfort item that cannot be bought easily in Spain, or at all. Here's a selection of what may have raised eyebrows at the TSA this time:

• A box of Betty Crocker Dark Chocolate brownie mix, perhaps to be shared with dinner guests (and perhaps not)
• Kroger brand Crunchy Peanut Butter, a brand presumably not on the recall list
• Valentine candy hearts, from Necco, the New England Confectionary Company
• A five-month supply of generic multivitamins, calcium, and vitamin C and E supplements--generics don't seem to exist as an economic alternative in Spain
• A couple bottles of a vision supplement--Ocuvite can be purchased here, but at a much higher price
• An incredible number of Tums peppermint antacids and Extra-Strength Excedrin, for the man who presumably finds it rather trying to live with me
• A total of five 2009 calendars, three where the week starts on Sunday, and two (from OCLC and Wolters Kluwer) where it starts on Monday, as calendars do in Spain
• The Book of Sent Sovi: Medieval Recipes from Catalonia, which I intend to give to an academic library in Catalonia
• The New Spaniards, by John Hooper, a book I can't recall buying but I think it's time for me to read

The TSA looked at all my stuff this trip. My original flight was cancelled, and I had to collect my baggage and repair to an airport hotel before the next day's rescheduled flight. Even though my carry-on would have sufficed for the night, I couldn't keep myself from sneaking a peak at my bags at the hotel. Sure enough, the TSA notice was already in the larger one. I simply replaced it, resisting the temptation to add a clever note. And when I got home in Spain and opened the bags again, there they were: this time a TSA flyer in the small bag, too, and a second flyer right by the first in the larger bag. The TSA didn't pen any clever note to me, either.

English First? English Only?

I was saddened this Sunday in Spain upon reading the New York Times story about Eric Crafton's efforts to prohibit Nashville city government workers from using any language other than English.

I am lucky to be living in a country that welcomes its many foreign visitors and residents and makes some effort to communicate with them in languages other than Spanish only. It is not unusual for me, as a foreigner, to be replied to in English in the supermarket, the bank, restaurants, and hotels. Younger people especially tell me the cost of my groceries in Spanish and then automatically convert the sum to English to speed up the transaction. Not everyone knows English, in fact, it is not even wide-spread. English was prohibited under the Franco regime, so few people middle-aged or older understand or dare speak it.

Of course I've been studying Spanish since I first came to Spain in 2003. Within a week I was hunting for the free evening Spanish-for-foreigners course sponsored by the local government in Roquetas, where we had settled. I didn't take that one, but I started a series of private classes and have since studied with other foreigners in three different schools, usually taking two classes a week. I'm motivated to learn, and I've put a lot of time and money into it. I'm not perfect in Spanish, and I never will be. But I can make myself understood, as long as anyone cares to try to understand me, and as long as I don't get too stressed about it.

But it's pretty easy to get stressed when you are trying to do complicated or bureaucratic things in an environment that is not native to you. Right now I'm working on getting a driver's license, and though I think I'll eventually be able to pass the theoretical test in Spanish, I'm more than a little worried about what will happen if I don't understand the tester's directions or accent when I'm in the middle of the practical test. So even though I don't plan to take advantage of it, I appreciate the fact that a neighboring province offers driver's tests in English as well as Spanish.

My husband, who grew up speaking Spanish in South America, frequently accompanies English and Danish people who have chosen to make their winter or full-year home in Spain, when they need to go for medical appointments or to government offices. Even if you are working hard to learn the native language, the idiom spoken when you need to purchase a house, pay a water bill, inquire about taxes, register a car or a pet, request a no-parking notice, report a theft, ask about a local charity, or purchase a cemetery plot can easily go beyond what you as a new Spanish speaker are sure you understand.

We have now lived in two different towns, in two different provinces, in Spain. Both Roquetas (Almería) and Torrevieja (Alicante) use municipal funds to offer Spanish courses. A year ago Roquetas issued a handbook of the law in six foreign languages for its immigrant populations. In Torrevieja recently, when we stopped to assist an English couple who had been in a minor traffic accident, the police who responded were able to use a few words of English to clarify the facts and send the couple on their way for a medical check-up. Being met in this fashion in English--as tentative and infrequent as it is--is not expected by most of the foreign population in Spain, but it is appreciated.

Los Belenes - Ancient Worlds in Miniature

It's the eleventh day of Christmas. Since last Sunday in Spain we've managed a few other festivals. The Day of the Innocents is a sort of Spanish April Fool's Day. Las Moragas in Roquetas de Mar is a giant beach-front afternoon and evening picnic, where groups light bonfires and cook fish in honor of the town's past life as a fishing village. Of course, we've also observed New Year's Eve and Day. Also during the week we went downtown in Torrevieja to view the annual municipal Belén, literally, Bethlehem.

The Belenes, which appear in every town during the Christmas season, are in the tradition of nativity scenes, but much more. A Belén shows not only Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the stable, not only the shepherds watching their flocks by night, not only the Wise Men coming from distant lands to Bethlehem. Belenes are small-scale reproductions of entire towns in ancient times. So you will see common houses with cooking facilities and laundry hanging on a clothes line, a bakery, the outdoor market, perhaps a school, carts and animals, and always something unique to the town in which the particular Belen has been constructed.

The Torrevieja Belén filled more than a third of the area of a city block in the plaza in front of the church and town hall. The landscapes and buildings, with bonsai-sized vegetation and miniature human figures, were mounted on waist-high tables in a long rectangle. Some observers proceeded in an orderly fashion through the entire story around the rectangular block. Others milled in and out to view specific scenes, which were not necessarily in historical sequence. The Torrevieja Belén showed more religious history than I have seen before in a Belen, or perhaps I recognized more because scenes were labeled: the tax decree, Mary visiting her sister Isobel, the couple asking for lodging at the inn, the announcement to the shepherds, the three kings on their travels, Jesus at the temple, the flight to Egypt.

Each town has its own Belén, and part of the tradition is to celebrate the daily life of the specific municipality itself in ancient times. Torrevieja got its industrial and commercial start from its two salt lakes--the industry continues and people tell me that Torrevieja still supplies salt for the removal of snow from New York City streets. So the Belén showed laborers hacking out salt and loading it up for transportation. Especially in the eastern areas of Spain, I learned this year, at least one scene is created to connect the spiritual with the mundane. The Torrevieja Belén showed the consternation of a driver of a horse-drawn cart, fully laden, that had just lost one of its wheels, and in another scene, someone had slipped on steps and was tumbling head over heels. A nearby town, I understand, offered a young man relieving himself behind a tree.

You can find Belenes in many places during the holiday season: department stores, hotels, restaurants, offices, senior citizen dwellings. The largest and most elaborate Belén in each community is sponsored by the local government--not the church. No concern about mixing church and state in this regard! Since the death of Franco (1975), sentiment has grown against Catholicism and the Church, which was complicit in his dictatorship. Spain has officially guaranteed its citizens religious freedom since the 1978 Constitution. But no one demonstrates against the Belenes. In fact, there are competitions and museums to highlight the best. The Belenes show history, and Spaniards acknowledge, respect, and hold in affection the common history of mankind as they see it in the Belén.

Twelve Grapes for Good Luck in the New Year

I had observed last year that the price of fresh grapes, always high in my area of Spain, seemed even higher the last week of the year. Especially seedless grapes. But the price of fresh grapes was nothing in comparison to the price of the small cans of seedless, peeled grapes that appear in mountainous displays in the grocery stores in the days leading up to New Year's Eve (Noche Vieja).

The Spanish custom of eating twelve grapes at midnight on December 31st began almost a hundred years ago. By most accounts, 1909 unexpectedly produced a bumper crop of grapes in Alicante, so the grape growers came up with the superstition that if you swallow a grape at each stroke of the clock as the old year passes into the new, you will have good luck for each of the twelve months in the new year.

I bought my supply of green, seedless grapes several days ago, because I saw them for 1,50€ for a half kilo and I thought that was a bargain. Sure enough, later in the week I saw them elsewhere for 1,75€ or even 2,25€. My first New Year in Spain I had bought a package of three small cans--three individual servings--for €3 or 5€, thinking there must be something special about them. Individual servings of 12 grapes are also now packaged, conveniently enough, in tall fluted plastic glasses that can be filled with cava, the very acceptable Spanish answer to champagne, immediately after the grapes are gone. At Eroski, a local hypermarket, the individual cava glasses with grapes were selling for 1€ each two days ago. New Year's Eve afternoon, when I stopped by at 5:30 to pick up a fresh baguette, they were already marked down to 30 euro cents apiece.

The standard timekeeper for the turn of the year in Spain is the tower clock on the Correos (post office) building in the Puerta del Sol plaza in Madrid. I'm not sure whether the twelve strokes of midnight actually toll at the rate of one every second, but I am sure that they are not spaced long enough apart for me to down twelve grapes in a row and be finished by the start of the new year--I haven't made it yet. I have learned that seedless grapes are required, and next year I am going to further prepare them by peeling the skin away.

Even though I didn't make it through my twelve grapes by the end of 2008, my glass did get filled with cava, which tastes remarkably good with green grapes. That's an auspicious start to a new year, and marking the end of the old one by listening to the clock strike twelve certainly seems more appropriate that watching a ball drop.

Happy New Year! ¡Buen año nuevo!