Afternoon of Tapas

Last weekend the annual Rueda de Tapas in Benijófar took place. We made arrangements with friends to take it in--or at least as much of it as we could hold--on Sunday afternoon. Actually some of us started a little early, at 11:30 Sunday morning, where we were lucky enough to get a café con leche (or for me, an agua con gas) with the featured tapa at the featured price, 1€ for the drink and .80€ for the tapa. That's what we started with, to the left: Pastel de pollo tailandés, con salsa chili dulce (Thai chicken patty with sweet chili sauce). Yes, a Thai tapa. This was at the Plaza Diferente, a Dutch restaurant. It was different from traditional Spanish tapas, but it was light and refreshing, the chicken patty served on alfalfa sprouts and the salsa on some pretty greens, and all on a stylish slate plate.

Furthering the international flavor, we moved on to the bar El Mundo (The World). We opened the place and had our choice of seats on the upstairs deck with a view over the recently created municipal park. El Mundo, run by a Belgian, served Pan con atún claro encebollado y boquerrones (tuna with anchovy). One of us didn't care for quite so much fish, so he was served chicken wings instead, still at the special price. By now it was after 12:00, so I switched to a glass of chilled white wine.

At 1:00 the second couple phoned to tell us they were arriving, so we moved quickly across the street to Restaurante Cambalache, an Argentine restaurant well known to us, and arranged a table for six. One of the newcomers is vegetarian, and we weren't so lucky with a no-meat substitute for the sausages that were the featured tapa here. On to what we thought would be a more vegetarian-friendly choice, but we were out of luck again in terms of the tapa, though the white wine and conversation , both Spanish and English, were flowing nicely. A leisurely walk from Benimar across to the Benijófar plaza brought us to Bar Lucas, a family establishment that was offering sports-themed tapas--at least the Friday night tapa had been named Nadal. Sunday's was Alonso. Here we sat inside for the first time during the afternoon and enjoyed the typical Spanish bar atmosphere.

Next stop was Restaurante El Gusto, which won last year for the best tapa of the festival. We were away and didn't attend that one, so I don't know what they served then, but this year was also good: another elegant tapa of cangrejo con manzana, cebollino y pan con ajo (crab with apple, chives and garlic bread).

And then we agreed that somehow we could manage just one more, so the ladies continued their energizing stroll up the main street of the village, while the men went back to fetch the cars and move them to the opposite end of the town. When we re-assembled at El Granaino we sat outside again to enjoy the sun and the cool breezes that have finally made their way here during this warmer-than-usual autumn. By this time it was getting to the end of the afternoon and the end of the tapas route. I switched to a red wine for the last drink of the day and gave a silent thanks that the restaurantes have seen fit to include non-alcoholic drinks in the regular price of the tapa+drink, because I would have had to stop far earlier if the tapa came only with alcohol, as was the case in the old days. We sat for a long time, We chatted. We laughed. The music wafted out from inside the restaurant, and the chef came out to greet us. I remember dancing with him for a moment, but fortunately no good pictures developed from this once-in-a-lifetime event. We filled out our cards, having carefully gathered a stamp at every establishment we visited, to vote for our favorite tapa, and deposited them in one of the voting boxes.

I am sorry to say that now, a week later, I can't remember the details of all I ate, but I do remember thinking that the quality of the tapas this year in Benijófar was the best of any tapas route that I have been on: more variety, excellent presentation, and a good quantity per serving--more than a morsel, but still light. And the day was a perfect one, with sun, pleasant temperatures, interesting conversation, and comfortable friends.

100 Montaditos: "The True Taste of Spain"

Two or three years ago we discovered a new cafe bar at the Habaneras shopping mall that we go to only occasionally in Torrevieja. It was 100 Montaditos (a montadito is Spanish for a small sandwich). There were 100 numbered selections on the menu, ranging from sandwiches with tuna, to ham, shrimp, salmon, beef and all sorts of good things, accompanied by salad and/or a sauce. Best of all, each sandwich only cost 1 euro, or €1.50 , or €1.80. You selected from the menu, wrote down your choices, and delivered your list to the counter, where you also paid and picked up your drink--most probably a caña of beer for €0.90 or a jarra (mug) for €1.00. A little bit later--well, perhaps longer than you would have wished, but this is Spain--your name would be called and you would get up from your table to collect your little plate of montaditos, which in addition to the sandwiches had a few potato chips on it. Just the thing for a light, interesting, inexpensive and not totally diet-wrecking snack while out shopping. We made it a practice to stop there whenever we were in the area, but alas, that was not often.

About a year ago we started driving to La Condomina shopping mall in Murcia, a city about 45 minutes away. This is a much larger mall, but the main attraction was an Apple store, where I was learning how to manage my new computer and where not much time went by before Johannes bought an iPad. We were pleasantly surprised to discover a 100 Montaditos in La Condomina and it became a tradition that every time we went to the Apple store we would get a montadito.

And then we took a trip to Zenia Boulevard, the new mega-shopping center that opened last September on Orihuela Costa. This was a bittersweet expedition, because I am convinced that this grand shopping center was supposed to be "ours." When we bought our house in Algorfa, we were told that the plans were approved for a great new shopping center within walking distance, and that construction would begin soon. That was pre-economic crisis, and the space for which our shopping center was planned is now an empty eyesore. Presumably more money flowed to the developers from the other location than from our town, so there is now a fancy shopping mall just 20 minutes down the toll road from where "ours" was supposed to be. And it's just aggravating that the toll is so unreasonably high that, on the four or five times we've gone to La Zenia, we drive out of our way to go through the free countryside and avoid the tollgate. The important thing about Zenia Boulevard, though, is that it also has a 100 Montaditos.

We made a quick trip to Murcia and La Condomina a week ago. We needed a connector for a new camera bought in Singapore to replace the one that is now resting on the bottom of  Halong Bay. We got that quickly, and we stopped for a montadito. As I scanned the 100 selections, I was surprised to see a few new ones on the menu. (Presumably some of the poorer sellers had been removed to make way for the new). The new were five sweet montaditos (numbered 95-99, all involving chocolate and all on "chocolate bread.") One was with "cookies and cream" and another was with "grageas de chocolate," which looked very much like M&Ms. Well, I didn't indulge in a dessert montadito that time, but I didn't forget them, either.

On Wednesday of this week we went to La Zenia for a very specific purpose: to look at bathroom fixtures at Leroy Merlin to replace a shower and vanity in our upstairs bathroom. We got out of the house early and were at Leroy Merlin just after they opened at 10:00. We spent a fair amount of time there and when we completed our work, we were more than ready for a cup of coffee. Does 100 Montaditos even have coffee? I had become so used to having a meat or seafood montadito and a little beer that I didn't remember if they made coffee. But as we entered, Johannes spied the coffee machine and so we ordered coffee. And I thought one of those chocolate montaditos would be just the thing to accompany coffee.

So that is what I had, a chocolate montadito composed of just-baked, or at least just-warmed, chocolate bread, chocolate cream and a thin chocolate sauce, and several M&Ms. I seldom indulge in such a treat, but chocolate genes run in my family, and every once in awhile, they assert themselves. As I bit into the chocolate montadito, I almost swooned, grinned, and said, "My father would have loved this," for that is where my chocolate gene came from. Until he died, my father enjoyed a little piece of chocolate every day, he told me--just a little piece.

As I was looking for links to the 100 Montaditos site to embed in this post so you could see the menu, I found one that I did not expect to see. In addition to the Spanish menu, I found another menu, in English. It seems that 100 Montaditos has opened in the United States to offer "The True Taste of Spain." There are several outlets in the Miami area, and one has made it as far north as Orlando. In an ironic twist, the 100 Montaditos in Orlando is located less than a mile from where my parents lived for almost 20 years. My father would have loved it.

Culinary Challenges

From my pile of unpacked but not-yet-put away stuff from my summer vacation, I located this week a very slim cookbook, nearly just a pamphlet. It is Homestyle Vietnamese Cooking, by Nongkran Daks and Alexandra Greeley (Periplus, 2002) and it is an excellent little collection of about 35 recipes, with full and half-page colored photos, three pages of explanations and tips on ingredients, and international measurement conversions that speak to U.S., U.K., and Australian audiences, at least.

I had really enjoyed the food I had in Vietnam--indeed, throughout the entire trip--and so had Johannes, so I read through all the recipes and explanations, and made a shopping list of typical ingredients that I did not have on hand. I knew my selection of what to make would depend on what I was, and was not, able to find. Among other things, my shopping list included:

• fish sauce
• hoisin sauce
• oyster sauce
• tamarind
• rice paper wrappers
• star anise 
• five spice powder
• fresh lemongrass
• fresh daikon
• red chilies
• fresh papaya
• coconut cream 
• rice vermicelli
• rice wine
• rice vinegar
• Asian, lemon, and/or holy basil

I had seen few, if any, of these ingredients in the various grocery stores I frequent in Spain. Some of them, like rice paper wrappers for spring rolls, I had no recollection of seeing in my life. But I was determined to find what I could. The best candidate, I thought, was the local hypermarket Carrefour, which has multiple ethic food shelves for British, Belgian, Scandinavian, Russian, U.S. (think Betty Crocker fudge brownie mix) and many more cuisines, including Asian. Off we went to Carrefour on Thursday morning.

But first we stopped in Ciudad Quesada to go to the bank, and since the bank was just around the corner from Jumerca, a nice little German specialty shop, I decided to pop in there first. It was a great idea. I found hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, canned coconut cream, and rice vermicelli. Not bad at all, and I hadn't even set foot in Carrefour yet.

We proceeded to Carrefour and went directly (well, almost) to the Asian food section. There were lots of things for Indian food--there is a very large British population here. There were a couple things for Chinese and Japanese. A demonstration area was even giving away free samples of sushi. But I found not a thing that was still on my list! There was hoisin and oyster sauce, coconut milk (not cream) and several kinds of rice vermicelli--all at prices higher than I had found at Jumerca. Oh yes, I did find the papaya, but it cost four euros for a scrappy-looking one, and since I wasn't sure when I would be able to get the other ingredients for the recipe, I put it back in the produce section. I could have bought sake, too, at the sushi demo, which my little cookbook--that I had brought with me--said that I could substitute for rice wine. But it also said I could substitute dry sherry, and I had some excellent dry sherry at home. By this time, we were exhausted and I was discouraged, because the one ingredient that I absolutely had to find, and had not as yet, was Vietnamese fish sauce. We settled for a cup of coffee and went home for the day.

Friday I had to do regular shopping and scoured the shelves at Consum and Mercadona, my two usual groceries. Again, I saw some repetition of the jars I needed, but except for the red chilies, which I could get anywhere and any time, I thought, I found none of the fresh produce. Well, my Vietnamese dinner was getting pushed back into the weekend, because I would have to look at the Sunday open air market. But of course, if I failed to find fish sauce, which the book says is essential, the fresh ingredients were moot, anyway.

I went to the Internet to find out whether fish sauce and oyster sauce were the same thing, by chance. At least I wasn't the only one who had hoped that they were. But the answer was no, fish sauce is thin, oyster sauce is thick, and there are undoubtedly other differences. Some people said that soy sauce could substitute for fish sauce, but I didn't really believe that. We went for coffee with a friend who has lived in this area for several years, and I asked her if there was a local Asian food market. Not too many Asians live here, she said, and she is right. But she thought there might be one in the poligono industrial in Torrevieja. I knew approximately where she was talking about, and Saturday morning I looked it up on the Internet and did indeed find the name of an Asian food store, its address, and phone number.

Forget the phone number, we just set the GPS and were off to the specialty store. When Gloria, our GPS lady, told us we had passed it, I was apprehensive. We parked and got out and asked a young woman who was hosing down the chairs in an outdoor cafe. ¿Hay una tienda de comida de Asia? No, she said, there used to be one on the corner, but it's closed. It must have closed a long time ago, because there were no remnants of its name, although there was a "For Rent" sign on the window.

Well, we were in Torrevieja, so we might as well at least go to Iceland, the British frozen food specialty supermarket where I buy a couple pre-cooked items for emergency dinners, and by the way, that's where I am able to get canned condensed cream of chicken soup for the American casserole that Johannes loves. We looked all through the Sauces/Salsas section and found nothing we had not found before. But there was another aisle, and in that aisle were some Asian things, and on the top shelf there was a jar labeled Fish Sauce. No brand name that I could discern, but it said "A Splash of Nam Pla Fish Sauce," so it sounded Vietnamese. And in tiny letters, I found out after I got it home, it said Waitrose,a good British brand, I thought, but I wasn't going to discriminate anyway.

When I returned home with my prized fish sauce I read through my little cookbook again and chose a recipe for Sunday night. I am making Tangy Prawn Salad with Carrot, Cucumber and Mint Leaves. Of course, now I had to go out and buy the prawns and the spring onions, but I had the mint and coriander, lime, chili, and shallots. I would have to buy the roasted, unsalted peanuts at the Sunday market.

I did. I am all ready. This will be my first attempt at cooking authentic Vietnamese, and I do have all the ingredients. I hope we like it. It's already been a lot of work and I haven't started preparng the dish yet!

I am still on the lookout for rice paper wrappers, but that's for another dish.

Pomegranate Pearls

Last year at about this time, a neighbor came over with a small dish containing a mass of red, jellied pearls. She had harvested several pieces of fruit from her pomegranate tree, she said, and this bowl represented the fruits of her labor peeling one of them. I believe this was the first time in my life that I had seen pomegranate fruit in the raw.  It was a very small bowl. I sensed that it had taken more than a little time to retrieve the pomegranate seeds, and I thanked her. After dinner that evening we devoured the unaccustomed dessert with about two bites apiece. It was a strange but pleasant combination of sweet and tart tastes, with an unusual texture. Nice, and I wondered whether the tree in our backyard that we had recently discovered was a pomegranate tree would ever bear fruit.

A year and a severe pruning later, there are no signs of pomegranates on the tree in the back yard. So I was pleasantly surprised this week when another neighbor, while walking home from book club, asked me if I liked pomegranates. She had been given a whole bag of them and there was no way she could use them all. Just the thing for our lunchtime fruit salad, I thought. A few minutes after I returned, there she was again, with three pomegranates for me. She just peeled them in strips, from top to bottom, she said by way of advice, and then scooped the seeds out. She agreed that they would be a nice addition to fruit salad.

I was already late for lunch that day, so it wasn't until the next noontime that I tackled peeling the first pomegranate. And it was only after I did so that I truly appreciated the gift from my other neighbor the prior year. Even I, who normally slices peaches, nectarines, apples and more into fruit salad, skin and all, knew that I didn't want to eat the skin of the pomegranate. I tried to make a slice to enable removal of the skin, but I found it hard to penetrate. So I ignored the advice to peel the skin and simply cut the round globe in half vertically, crown to foot.  In each half, it seemed as though the skin was holding about a thousand barley-sized seeds, all nestled tightly in a red gel in three or four compartments separated by white pith. I assumed that the pith was inedible, and set to digging out the seeds with a little, tiny coffee spoon. It was time-consuming to scoop out the seeds, separate them over the fruit bowls, and pull out the white pith. The pomegranate was only the crowning fruit in the salad that already had chunks of banana, pineapple, red apple, golden plum, and red and green grapes,  so I put away half for the next day and gave us each a quarter of the seeds.

We enjoyed the salad, but the pomegranate's sweetness was distinctive, and the next day I only used half of the remaining half. That provided a nice garnish to the salad, and left the last quarter for Saturday's salad. This Sunday morning, as I contemplated starting to tackle the second pomegranate, I thought, there must be a better way. There is, supposedly. A 2006 NPR story advises slicing the whole fruit into quarters under water, then scooping out the seeds with your hands, still under water. The seeds will sink to the bottom and the peel will rise to the top. You pour off the water and peel, and there you have the pearls of pomegranate, presumably with a little extra diluted pomegranate juice.

That NPR story also mentioned a chicken-walnut-pomegranate main course, Khoreshteh Fesenjan, that is also one of the recipes from the Pomegranate Council, provider of the pictures here. That recipe sounds adventurous, and just maybe I'll use one of my remaining pomegranates to try that. Pomegranates provide three different antioxidants and are one of those superfoods, according to the Pomegranate Council. And after my experience with harvesting the seeds, I can fully understand why pomegranate juice is so expensive in the market.

Reading in Translation

It has been a week of getting back into the groove of regular activities after being away for three weeks. The two important social engagements I had on my mind (after an appointment at the hairdresser) were my Spanish class and my English-language book group, which meets this coming Wednesday.

I had a lot of preparation for book group because it is my turn to write the questions and lead the discussion--and I still had a few chapters to read in the book that I had lugged half a world away to read. It is The Time in Between, also called The Seamstress, by Maria Dueñas. Reading it while on vacation kept me thinking at selected times about Spain during its Civil War and the early Franco era, the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco, and Portugal. It did not keep me thinking in Spanish, as I am reading it in English.

I have felt a little guilty about reading a novel originally published in Spanish, and written by an academic at a university less than an hour from where I live, in English. However, this book is 600 pages long, and given the time I had and the other activities I was devoting attention to, I'm lucky to have made it through in English in a month. And the native language of all the book group members is English (of varying sorts) and the discussion was to be in English. And I had previously read one of the book club books, originally in English, in a Spanish translation and had an opinion about the book that was markedly different from those of my colleagues--the Spanish was better. So I stuck with an American English edition of The Time in Between, though I intend to find a Spanish copy and look up some passages to compare, because some of the dialogue I read in English just did not ring true. I've asked my fellow members their opinion of their translations, and I'm looking forward to hearing what they say.


I don't need to feel guilty about reading a Spanish book in English, I decided, when I realized, as I got ready for my Spanish class, that I was reading an English book in Spanish translation. Muerte en el Seminario (literally Death in the Seminary but the published title is Death in Holy Orders) is the first book by P.D. James that I have ever read. I have heard about James, of course, with her renowned writing style and riveting mystery novels. It's really sort of crazy to approach her through a translation, but it's an excellent and entertaining way to learn Spanish. My Spanish teacher and I have wonderful talks--though halting as I search for words--discussing Dalgliesh and the various characters in and around St. Anselm's in East Anglia. It's going to take us a long time to get through this one though. We can only do about 25 pages each week, and my copy runs to 494 pages. We are approaching page 200 for class tomorrow.

Home Again

We arrived home from our Southeast Asia trip last Thursday evening at about 7:00, very tired after traveling for 40 hours without seeing a bed (that included a 10 hour layover in  Singapore's Changi airport, which does offer beds, but we opted instead for shopping, garden tours, movie theater, dinner, and a short rest on one of the free lounges). The first thing we noticed was that the front porch wall light that we had left on was off. Oops, bulb burned out, we said. Then we noticed that the small accent light in the dining room with the 7-watt bulb was also out. Odd that they both went, but we had been gone three weeks. Then we went to put the air conditioning on and we realized that all the power was off, so we went to the master switch and flipped the switch, and there was light. And air.

Then I opened the freezer door to pull out the ready-made frozen Spanish salteada, which we call Spanish biksemad (diced potatoes, onion, tortilla, bacon, and peas and red pepper--throw it in some olive oil in a saute pan and it's ready in 7 minutes). I had carefully made sure I had a bag of this emergency staple, because I knew I would be tired and hungry when we returned. But as soon as I opened the door, it dawned on me: the power to the refrigerator/freezer had also been off, of course, and for how long? While on vacation we had read about severe storms in Spain, and our taxi driver from the train station in Alicante had said that there were tormentas and lluvia "last week." Depending on when the winds and rain came last week, the refrigerator had been off for anywhere between four and eleven days.

I shut the freezer and didn't even open the refrigerator.

Back in the last century when we were first married and my culinary standards were lower than they are now, I used to buy boxed macaroni and cheese at the Stop & Shop in Arlington, Massachusetts, for 20 cents a box, or maybe it was 25 cents. Even adding milk and frozen peas to the mix brought the dish to about 50 cents, which was a real cheap meal--necessary on a student's budget. That's sort of what we had the night that we arrived back from Vietnam. I found a Spanish equivalent of dried macaroni and cheese in my larder--actually a German version, since I vaguely remembered buying it at Lidl--and cooked it up, using dried milk, water from the tap (at least we could drink tap water again!), and a strong dose of Penzey's Southwest seasoning. It was edible, but I don't need to repeat that experience.

I waited until the next morning to approach the refrigerator again. We had decided to go out for breakfast and buy replacement groceries on the way home, but of course I needed to get the old crud out first. When we flipped the master electric switch the night before it had turned on the power to the fridge and freezer, and we had left it on. That may have been a mistake, but who knows for sure?

I tackled the freezer first. I have a three-drawer freezer, with vegetables at the top, meats and fish in the middle, and anything else at the bottom. Out it all went. The pork tenderloin and a turkey tenderloin had refrozen overnight. The vegetables had also refrozen, as a solid block in each package. None of this was irreplaceable or even terribly expensive (I was glad that I had used the frozen duck breast recently), but it hurt me to throw out the whole cranberries that I had brought from the U.S. and keep stored in the freezer for cranberry bread. However, there was a layer of them that was no longer whole cranberries, but something resembling a frozen cranberry jelly. It must have gotten very warm in the freezer over the course of several days.

The freezer was a breeze in comparison with the refrigerator itself. No need to go into detail here, but I have deduced that mold does not grow--or at least become visible--in frozen temperatures, whereas refrigerator temperatures are another matter.

Everyone, I am sure, has lots of little partially filled jars of condiments in their refrigerator door and maybe even on the interior shelves. I remembered distinctly that I had two open jars of Dijon mustard, one obviously purchased by accident, and I had diligently been working to empty one of them. I won that battle--now they both went out. Also tossed were a jar of peanut butter also imported from home, and a small jar of maple cream from Polly's Pancake Parlor in  Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. And a few fruits and vegetables that I had never expected to use again, but that I had run out of time to clean out before I left on vacation and chose to keep them in the fridge so they wouldn't rot and stink up the kitchen. And the eggs that I had left to fry for the top of the welcome home night biksemad.

I did not take the food from its container, nor did I separate the cans and the plastics and the glass, as we normally do for recycling. I took three kitchen garbage bags to the dumpster and heaved them in.

There wasn't much I kept. Two bottles of white wine that had never been opened, and three small splits of cava. An unopened can of salmon bought for our Saturday night smorrebrod that, when I got to the checkout counter at Lidl had cost 5 euros instead of the 1.29 that I had seen on the shelf, so I was saving it for a special occasion. A small can of fruit cocktail that Johannes bought while I was in the U.S. last time and that I had still not opened. A tube of tomato paste and an unopened jar of spicy hot preserved peppers, though I intend to look at them closely when I do open them to see if they are still preserved. Three bottles of water and an opened bottle of white vermouth that we use for fruit salad. And an envelope of Penzey's Sunny Spain seasoning.

That's what I put back into the refrigerator when I finally finished reassembling it. (Washing and disinfecting is one thing--figuring out how to get the shelves together again is another!) I didn't put anything into the freezer except a small ice cube tray filled with water, and that only after the tray had gone through the dishwasher.

It all took a lot longer than I thought it would, so we went out for brunch instead of breakfast, and we only stopped at one grocery store on the way home, to get the necessities for breakfast, lunches, and dinner for one night only. Saturday we went out grocery shopping again, this time to Mercadona, which is where I buy most of my frozen vegetables and prepared dishes like the Spanish biksemad and the rice and vegetable mixes, for those nights when we need to eat in a hurry and I don't feel like cooking. I am still at that stage when I can see everything that I have in the fridge and freezer without moving things around, and I hope to keep from buying too many of those little jars of condiments that seem to collect and multiply.

I have yet to buy any Dijon mustard.

Cartagena and Mar Menor

One of the fun aspects to living on the Costa Blanca is that there are several low-cost day bus trips to various sites in the area. We were ready for a day out one Thursday recently, so we signed up to go to Cartagena and Mar Menor. We had been before to Cartagena, an old port city about an hour south of us; but for some reason we had never been to the inland lake, Mar Menor, that stretches near the coast between us and Cartagena.

We hopped on the bus at 9:30. Of course we made a number of stops on the way south to pick up other tourists out for the day, so it was almost 11:00 by the time we rolled into the port area of Cartagena. That didn't matter to us, as we were most interested in the train ride to Mar Menor, and for that, we were told, we did not have to appear again until 2:45. A nice amount of time for strolling through the old part of the city, having a special lunch, and relaxing, we thought.

One of the first things we saw was the huge ceramic plaque pictured above, which depicts the two thousand year history of Cartagena, or Carthage as it was called in the Roman times. In fact, the first date is 227 a.C. (ante Cristo, or before Christ, as we might say). At various times we walked by and around the Roman theater, which is in the process of being restored, but we didn't go in, as we had visited that before. We just looked through a few holes in the walls surrounding the area. It hadn't changed any that we could tell.

We did, however, find a few stores, and since this was the first day of August, the August sales were on. I bought a pair of black leggings, definitely out of season, and I hope I remember them next fall. We also found a delightful corner cafe bar and went inside to take advantage of the light air conditioning. We each chose a tapa, and in addition they brought bread, and we called that and a tinto de verano to drink, lunch. The president of Spain was on television; they were beaming live pictures of his questioning by the Congress in the messy financial scandal that is filling the front pages of the newspapers now. I was reading one of the newspapers that are always hanging around the cafe bars and saw that the black box recovered from the Renfe train that had derailed at high speed a few days earlier showed that the engineer (el maquinista) was talking on the phone immediately before the accident with the interventor. What is an interventor? I wondered, and since my companion didn't know, when we went to the bar to pay the bill, I asked the man behind the bar, "Quien es el interventor?" "Rajoy!" he spat out, obviously more  absorbed by the current political scandal than the train tragedy, and none too pleased with the president, either. I tried to explain that I wasn't talking about politics, but the train derailment, but something got lost in the translation, because he assumed I was asking him who his interventor was. "¡Yo!" I am, he said indignantly. I was unenlightened; we left still mystified.

Testing the water in Mar Menor.

The train trip to Mar Menor was on a local carrier, not on a Renfe train, and we did not go at high speed. Nor did we start on time--we were delayed by at least half an hour. I had brought a paper map of the area with me, so I was able to find our location and the end station on the map and follow along as we stopped at, I think, nine or more isolated stations. We were driving through rural areas, old mining towns--the bus tour operator had told us that this was a tin and silver mining area in former decades. Because of the delay (never explained) we had less time to enjoy the lakeside at the end of the run--only 45 minutes, but we all dutifully trooped out, walked to the only cafe bar in town, and sat with another tinto de verano, watching swimmers in the water and enjoying distant views of buildings on a narrow strip of land that turned upward like Cape Cod in Massachusetts, although this is called La Manga (the sleeve). There were cooling breezes, and it seemed like a perfect, lazy summer day, and I can understand why people go to La Manga. Maybe we will go again some time, but in our car.

The train ride back was made in a half hour after the train finally got there...and then we climbed on our bus and were back in Torrevieja in a little more than a half hour. Of course, there are always a lot of drop-offs after a day out, so we had missed the regular news on TV by the time we got home. I checked my regular dictionary for interventor and found that it can mean auditor, or supervisor. Or ticket collector on a train or metro, as I have found our from other dictionaries since.

Goldie

Last Sunday morning we knew that it was time to take Goldie for her last trip to the vet. She had been lethargic for a couple weeks and not eating as much as she used to, especially of the hard dry food, "crunchies," she had during our lunchtime salads and her happy hour at 6:00. We thought she was just under the weather, which was very hot. Then she started missing her sandbox and she didn't even come back to the house for lunch when I opened the can of tuna for our salads--the smell of which, or a sixth sense, had always attracted her from as far away as the other side of the street. And then Saturday we saw that her face was swollen and puffed out on one side, and we made plans to take her on her final journey on Monday morning, because events like this always become clear on the weekend, don't they?

She was worse on Sunday. She would not go outside at all, and wandered slowly around the house, looking at her old favorite spots--the middle of her dad's bed, under the desk in my office, the rug in front of the window on my side of the bed, the rug in the upstairs bathroom--but not finding any of them satisfactory for a place to rest. And occasionally she cried a short, pathetic, little peep. By chance the vet was in his office Sunday afternoon, so we packed her up in a comfortable old towel and her carrier, and drove to Guardamar to a different office that we had never been to, and we drove home two hours later without the towel and carrier, and without Goldie.

She was sixteen years old and had come to us when we lived in New Hampshire. Johannes went to the shelter and brought home Goldie, one of six kittens of a litter, then just six weeks old. He looked at several, all lined up in little cages on a shelf. But the shelf was full and there was no more room; one lone cage stood on the floor with a tiny creature in it, and that was Goldie. And there was no contest after seeing her.

Goldie loved the freedom of her house in New Hampshire and quickly learned to conquer, frighten, tolerate, or run faster than all the various types of wild life on our mountainside. She was truly queen of the mountain and she reigned there for six years. Though she loved New Hampshire, she also went on vacation every summer, to Denmark--her first overseas trip she was allowed to ride in the cabin and, since it was her first plane ride, she got the window seat. She survived getting "forgotten" by the airline once in New York and arrived by taxi 24 hours later at her destination, a tiny summer cottage outside Copenhagen. Goldie also roamed freely in the kolonihave garden community in Skovlunde. But she didn't know what was ahead of her.

For one year she commuted weekly between New Hampshire and Connecticut, being driven down and then up I-91 for four hours and bearing the frustration of actually being locked indoors on the Connecticut end of the commute. Then we sold the house in New Hampshire and moved to Indianapolis and Roquetas de Mar, Spain, moving back and forth across the Atlantic seasonally. Goldie moved with us each time, earning her frequent flyer miles and something her mom never got--a European Union passport. Sadly at both ends of these trips she had to stay indoors, because who could expect her to acclimate herself to a neighborhood so quickly for such a short time at each stretch?

Four years ago we moved to Montebello, and here she was finally able to get outside again practically whenever she wanted, as long as she stayed svelte enough to glide gracefully through the slats in the front grate. She loved it here, and while we only own one house, she owned three properties--one on the corner and one across the street that were both empty until recently. She also regularly visited the house next door, because it was only used from time to time as a vacation place by its owners, so why shouldn't she? She jumped the balustrade from our property and then sidled through their grates and would sometimes stay for hours. She was never bothered by the many dogs around her, and she learned to coexist with one neighborhood cat as long as it didn't come too close.

She woke us every morning at 6:00, she entertained us at lunchtime with her "catch the crunchie" game, and she came in most nights at 6:00 and enjoyed her happy hour crunchies as we sat through the evening news, and then at some point in the evening she would disappear to a bed or a rug and sleep until early the next morning.

She gave us many hours of enjoyment, and she made this house in Spain her home, and our home, and we will miss her for a very long time to come.

Thanks to our many friends who have sent understanding and comforting words to us in our sorrow.

Foreign Aid

When I had to roll my very heavy Spain-bound suitcase from house to car in Cincinnati earlier this month, I was lucky that two of my sisters were there to help. They insisted that they do the deed, perhaps because they didn't want me to damage the threshold, which I had done under similar circumstances on a previous trip. And after they got the suitcase out, and closed the door so the cat would not escape, they were lucky that a maintenance man was within steps on the other side of the door--a very polite maintenance man, who offered to help and had the suitcase in the car in a jiffy.

"He spent a year in Spain when he was in the service," they reported to me after scooting back in and closing the door so the cat would not escape. "A year! It must have been at that U.S. military base I've heard of over in the western part of Spain," I said, though that pretty much summed up my total knowledge on the subject, and not wishing to expose my ignorance, we didn't even stop on our way out to chat with him. Anyway, it was hot.

So when I got back on Spanish soil and opened up one of the newspapers that had come in my absence, I was rather surprised that the first article that caught my eye on the inside cover was "Spain paid to host missile shield." It started out by saying that Spain and the U.S. are expected to formalize  a 200 million euro agreement allowing the U.S. to station four destroyers at the naval base in Rota, Cádiz. I've been to Cádiz, way over to the west on the relatively short Atlantic coast of Spain. I did not know about the base then, but according to one of those "needs improvement" articles in Wikipedia, this is the largest U.S. military community in Spain, with Navy and Marine Corps personnel, along with small Army and Air Force contingents.

Those who share my sentiments about the U.S. single-handedly erecting defenses outside its own borders will be glad to know this is a NATO effort. The destroyers will be equipped with "Aegis combat systems capable of intercepting ballistic missiles." Two ships, the Ross and the Donald Cook, are scheduled to arrive in 2014, to be joined by the Porter and the Carney in 2015. The 1,100 military personnel and their families who will arrive with the ships will be greeted warmly as long as they provide the expected boost to the local economy.

Common Sense

We were shocked this week to hear that an English charity is under attack by the Spanish tax authorities.  Paul Cunningham Nurses is a registered charity in Spain; it was founded years ago by Jennifer Cunningham in honor of her son, Paul, who died of cancer at an early age. Paul Cunningham Nurses (PCN) provides free nursing and care to terminally ill patients and their families. It gets much of its funding through sales in several shops of donated clothing, DVDs, and household articles. We have taken several cast-off items to the shops to donate, and we have also made many purchases. I particularly like to stop in before I take a little vacation to northern climates, because I can usually find a couple pieces of warmer clothing in good condition there, that I can't find in regular stores here in southern Spain.

We first heard of the Paul Cunningham problem from friends who had read it in one of the free weekly newspapers. When we went out the next morning to do errands, we looked, unsuccessfully, for the newspaper, and we also stopped in one of the PCN shops to ask about the situation. The attendant gave us some information about the problem, but not in detail, and I was a little hesitant to sign a petition in support of the charity with so little knowledge, but I did. Since then I have found two written articles which generally say the same thing, so I'm taking them as a fairly accurate statement of the facts.

A year ago, one of the PCN shops was approached by a Spanish official from Social Security (Seguridad Social), who asked the two volunteer workers to show her their national identification and Social Security papers. Social Security is the system in Spain that provides national healthcare: either your employer pays your social security premium, or you as an independent contractor/freelance worker pay your own (and it starts at a minimum of 320 euros per month, I have heard from various sources).

The volunteer shopkeepers, older English women, did not understand the detailed Spanish and contacted the PCN accountant, who explained, in Spanish, to the Social Security representative that PCN was a registered charity, as indicated by a G above the door of the shop, and that the "workers" were volunteers and thus should not pay Social Security. The officer, however, levied a fine of 6,000 euros and demanded that the charity present all relevant paperwork to an authority in Alicante city--and accused PCN of violating the human rights of the volunteers by not paying salaries.

In due time the charity's official papers were taken to Alicante, the papers were accepted, and the fine was withdrawn. However, another fine was levied: 10,000 euros--for obstructing an officer in the carrying out of her duty.

PCN appealed the new fine twice, then heard nothing until recently, when a registered letter arrived saying that if the 10,000 euro fine--plus 2,000 euros in interest--is not paid within 21 days, the bank account of the charity will be embargoed and money withdrawn to pay the fine and interest until it is paid in full.

PCN is continuing its appeals, to the European Court, it says, if necessary. For the time being, as far as I know, PCN shops are still open and accepting donations, people are still buying--and signing petitions, and nurses are still attending to end-of-life needs of any resident of Spain--not just English or foreigners--who asks for help.

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When I first heard about this absurdity I thought, "It's because the Spanish system does not understand volunteer activities and charities." And it is true that the extraordinary system of grassroots fundraising by charity shops, lotteries and raffles, entertainment benefits, quiz and game nights, and all sorts of activities routinely offered by the British population here has no equal of which I am aware. But I have checked, and my English-Spanish dictionaries do show Spanish words on this topic. A charity organization is an institución benéfica or an organización benéfica. A charity shop is la tienda de una organización benéfica. A charity sale is una venta benéfica. A volunteer is un voluntario or una voluntaria, as in a volunteer army or to volunteer information. But the verb for volunteer is ofrecerse, to offer oneself, which does have the aura of self-sacrifice about it. And I didn't see anything at all about volunteer workers.

All of which does reinforce my feeling that the concepts of volunteering and charity are not something that Spaniards have in common with the Anglo world as I know it. But I do hope that common sense will prevail in this case, sooner rather than later.

Summer Again in Spain

Last Sunday I was packing up a very heavy suitcase--heavy enough so I had to pay extra at the airport check-in and too heavy for the TSA to want to fuss with it, I concluded later--and headed back to Spain. I arrived in Madrid Wednesday morning early, and after waiting a few hours there, I continued to Alicante, where I was picked up and delivered by car to the house. It was good to get back "home" and to my regular routines. The weather, I discovered, was not much different from the heat and humidity that I had left in Cincinnati and Chicago, although there is a notable absence of air-conditioning here.

Since then I have been doing the things that I always do to get back into life in Spain. One of the first, and the most fun, was to meet friends in my book group for a discussion of The Angel's Game, which I had finished on the long airplane ride between O'Hare and Barajas. I also cleaned out several science experiments from the refrigerator and in the last several days have gone to three of my favorite grocery stores to replenish the refrigerator, freezer, and cupboards. That meant, of course, that we had a café con leche and half of a tostada at the outdoor café in front of the Benijófar Consum, and when we went the next day to Ciudad Quesada on an errand, we had to have another café at the Halfway House, our usual haunt close to the post office.

I've also completely emptied--in record time--the large suitcase I brought with me, and have put the books, medicines. toiletries, clothing, and paperwork in their proper places, and actually dealt with some of the paperwork (and all of the laundry). I've caught up on some work that was pending, suffering the trauma of transferring files that are supposed to be compatible but aren't always, back to my regular computer. This morning we went to the Zoco outdoor market to buy almonds, prunes and raisins for breakfast, and whatever fruits and vegetables looked good for the coming week, or at least the coming days, because the heat now means that fresh produce doesn't keep as fresh as it does during the cooler months. Strawberry season has definitely gone by, so I was glad that I had had strawberries in Cincinnati,, and though raspberries and blueberries are available here at high prices for tiny portions, they don't taste as good as the ones I enjoyed while away. We sat this morning in a bit of shade with another café con leche and listened to the various languages around us and watched the people all dressed to withstand heat in various ways, while still enjoying their holiday or daily lives.

I am moving slowly and the days seem long because, well, they are. It always takes a few nights to adjust to six hours' time difference between Eastern U.S. time and Spanish time. It's even harder this year, because it's time for the Benijófar summer festival, and that means that just as I am ready to settle down to try to sleep through the night at 11:00 PM or so, the thumping music of a fiesta in action starts up, and it continues into the wee hours--until 7:00 this morning, according to Johannes, but I had finally dropped off to sleep some time after 3:30 and slept peacefully until 9:00.

Tomorrow I will see my Spanish teacher/book discussion partner and Tuesday I will go to play petanca, and by then I hope to be back in this time zone and back into the regular routine of summer, which often involves staying inside in air-conditioned comfort (not central, but effective and quiet on a room-by-room basis) and generally taking it easy and not moving too fast. We have a few weeks before leaving again for a summer vacation together, and I intend to enjoy them in a suitably leisurely fashion.

The Angel's Game

This Sunday my body is not in Spain, but my mind is. I am catching up on reading The Angel's Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, the July title for my book club. I started it more than a week ago, on the plane from Madrid to Chicago, and I figured then that if I read 25 pages per day I would be able to finish it before the discussion day. It's a long book--500 pages--and that fact, plus the fact that we are discussing it in English, means that I am reading it in English. I beat my goal on the flight over, reading three days' worth. But then I laid it aside and didn't pick it up again until yesterday. As of Sunday mid-day I have made it to page 204.

Like Zafón's previous Shadow of the Wind, which I have also read, this book takes place in Barcelona. There is lots of description of the city, with so many street names named that I feel I should be reading it with a city map open next to the book.  Thanks to our mini-vacation in Barcelona last Christmas, I am familiar with more of the city landmarks than I was when I read Shadow of the Wind. The Angel's Game starts in December of 1917, and it was particularly interesting to read of David Martín's excursion to the building site of Sagrada Familia cathedral, then apparently a deserted building site, before more recent construction, which had been on-going in fits and starts since 1882, was begun anew and continued more regularly. He also spends time near the architect Antonio Gaudi's Park Güell,  which I visited for the first time last December, and I understand perfectly what the cab driver meant when he dropped David off late one night and asked if he was sure he wanted to be dropped off there.

I am not now making notes of all the addresses in The Angel's Game, but I am making a note to keep the book. I think on my next trip to Barcelona I'd like to take one of those historic tours that point out sites from Shadow of the Wind, and presumably now also, The Angel's Game. Or at least find the tower house in which our protagonist lives in the Borne district near the Rambla. To say nothing of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

On the Road to Albir

We started out to Albir on Friday this week. It had been a long time since we took a day trip to see something new in this part of the world, and Friday petanca had been cancelled, and I was ready to get out after sending a lot of time at the computer through the week.

Albir is on the Mediterranean coast, north of Alicante and north of Benidorm. We were curious because we knew a lot of Norwegians live there--it seems that every time we read either of the two free Norwegian newspapers, they are always mentioning attractions and services in Albir. We also knew some people who had lived there once, and we wanted to see what it was like.

There is a choice of roads leading north of Alicante, though whether you end up on the free coastal N-332 or the inland toll road, AP-7 (or 70 as it inexplicably is sometimes called on road signs but not on our map), can be a matter of chance rather than choice, at least for us. So it was on Friday, when we suddenly found ourselves at a wide string of toll booths strung across the highway. No matter, we knew we would be driving for another half hour or more, so we didn't mind taking the toll road. Of course, choosing the right lane to go through is always a challenge, because the icons that indicate electronic payment or credit card acceptance or cash or a human attendant are never very clear, especially when they flash in the strong sun. We picked one that looked as though it would have a human attendant, but when we got to the little cabin where we expected to see a human, there was nobody in sight. It took a couple minutes, but then we realized that all we had to do was push a button and take a ticket, just like you do when you enter a parking garage.

And then, 45 minutes later, when we were ready to exit the toll road--at the exit closest to Albir but beyond it, at Altea--we had to once again play the "which lane do we go through? game. We wanted to pay with cash, or if necessary, by credit card, as we don't have an electronic automatic deduction account. We were poised for the lane on the far right--that would be where a human would be, wouldn't it?--but then we saw a car go sailing through, obviously with some sort of sticker being sensed automatically. I looked and didn't see any human--anywhere, in any of the lanes. Oh, well, there was another lane with two cars ahead of us: we would just get in line and watch them closely to see what the procedure was.

The car in front of the car in front of us was having problems. I could see that the driver slipped the ticket into a slot on the left. Then she opened her car door, because apparently she wasn't close enough to reach the money slots, and put a bill in a basket for money on the right side of the toll booth. The basket didn't move. Neither did the lane barrier. Neither did the car. But we did. We backed out...and tried the next lane. I could still see the driver that was stopped. And I thought I could hear a disembodied voice giving her instructions on what to do.

But now we were at the business part of our toll booth. We put the ticket in the slot on the left. Either something flashed or we heard another disembodied voice--I can't remember--tell us that we owed 5 euros and change. Ah, that was the problem, we could see immediately. The other driver had put the 5 euro note into the change basket, which was, of course, unable to sense its value.With the benefit of quite a few minutes of observation by now, we slid the 5 euro note into the slot for bills, which sucked it up immediately. Then we fished around until we found some coins for the centimos that we owed, and threw those into the small basket on the right of the machine. They made a lovely rattle as they went down a chute.

Bingo! The barricade went up, and we never got the disembodied voice giving us instructions, although we did wonder where the voice had come from, whether there was actually a person in one of the ten or twelve lane cabins or whether the voice was completely manufactures. Hopefully we will never have to find out!

Another technological challenge met! We proceeded on our way. But we can't help but think that one way to help the Spanish unemployment situation would be to employ a couple humans at the toll booths.

International Living

This Sunday marks a week that we have been back in Spain since returning last Sunday from a short week's trip to Copenhagen. We had an even better time in Denmark than we usually do, for the weather was glorious--sunny every day, from before 6:00 AM or earlier, and it was light to well after 9:30 PM. We had to remember to close the curtain in our top-floor hotel room so as not to be awakened too early when the sun made its appearance. All in all the weather was as good as, and maybe even better than, what we had left behind in Spain that week.

There wasn't a lot to write about Spain while in Denmark. We heard a few Spanish voices as we came into town from the airport (the plane, after all, had brought us--and others--directly from Alicante) and as we walked through the city for the next four days. Once we happened upon two couples in animated Spanish discussion about which direction they should go in, and without much conversation we gave them one of our maps and left them to come to some sort of agreement among themselves.

Every year when we go to Denmark we try to do something a little different, and this year it was a canal tour. Amazingly I had never been on one, although I have walked by the canal tour boats in Copenhagen's Nyhavn (the New Harbor) countless times. This one was a guided tour of an hour and a half, and the brochure said it would be narrated in three languages: Danish, English, and "another" language. I wondered how they would choose the third language and what it would be--German, perhaps, or French, or maybe Russian or Polish or another east European language, for there has been much immigration from eastern Europe all over western Europe, including to Denmark. Maybe even one of the Middle Eastern languages, though the immigrants from that part of the world have done a wonderful job of learning Danish, it seems to me. It was none of those languages, though, for as the narration started we were welcomed first with Velkommen, then Welcome, and then Bienvenidos! The first, and maybe the only time in my life when an official tour is conducted in the three languages that I understand. I felt right at home.

The evening before we left on our trip we were in Torrellano at our favorite hotel there, where we often stay when we have a flight leaving or arriving at some ungodly hour (this one left at 6:30 the next morning). A couple that we have gotten to know in Spain came out to join us for a light and early supper, so we could get back to the hotel for a little sleep before getting up at 4:00. It turned out to be a farewell dinner of sorts. We were, of course, off on our annual or (lately) semi-annual one-week trip to Denmark; they were scheduled to leave the following day for two months of touring in the cities and along the rivers of Europe, something they have done every summer that we have known them. But they also noted that this year, they would not be returning to Spain at the end of the summer to live.

Our friends' marriage, somewhat like ours, involves two nations, but they have lived in Spain more years than we have, in three different parts of the country. They are not the only people we know who have made a decision to move on because of new financial reporting requirements that have gone into effect in Spain, but they are the closest to us. The new "declaration of foreign assets" requirements put in place by Spain, or the European Union, or just by the fact of modern international living in a post 9/11, post-Economic Crisis of 2008 world, have been making life difficult and uncomfortable for almost everyone in the various expat communities, but especially for those who are living off investment income earned and/or maintained outside of Spain. Which would be most retired people, of course.

 I won't tell you exactly what the financial declaration requirements are, because I don't have a prayer of stating them correctly. Every newspaper and advice column, every financial adviser, and  every government official gives you a different interpretation, and that is a large part of what makes this new reality difficult and uncomfortable.

So the four of us sat together for a couple hours and enjoyed dinner (I had a wonderful salmorejo with jamón serrano) and talked about life and change and travel, and speculated about what country we might be in when next we saw each other.

This morning the two of us made our usual Sunday morning trip to the outdoor market to get fruit and vegetables and frutos secos (almonds, raisins, and prunes) for the coming week. We had missed the market last Sunday, since our plane had not brought us back to Spain until the afternoon.  As usual, we stopped for a café con leche, this time at a different little coffee shop, where we were delighted to discover that we could still get a good cup of coffee--and a big one, though it came in a glass instead of a cup--for just one euro. So we sat in a shaded area with a front-row view of all the shoppers strolling by, and enjoyed watching the different people, residents and visitors--you can often tell the difference by their clothing. We listened to the Spanish bread stall owner next door calling out pan del pueblo, pan de leña, and just buenos días, quieres pan? and to the stream of other voices in many languages. We felt at home.

The Earth Moved

The earth moved at 5:15 this morning. I was awake. I had already been up and downstairs, as I had heard Goldie getting sick on a piece of grass and went downstairs to comfort her and clean up the floor that had just been mopped clean twelve hours earlier. Johannes was also awake and made coffee. I showed him the Newseum app for his iPad and then took a cup of coffee back to bed with me, upstairs.

I was reading when suddenly I heard a terrible roar and simultaneously felt the house shake. I don't know exactly how long the sound and the shaking  went on. It was long enough for me to feel startled, look up from my book, and then to think with a great deal of certainty, "This is an earthquake." The tremor and the roar stopped, however, before I had a chance to wonder whether I should get out of bed and go downstairs. I looked at the clock; it said 5:15.

The earthquake did not cause us to lose power or our Internet connection, so we started immediately to try to find information about what had happened. A second rumble and tremor came, more distant, at 6:00. It took another 15 minutes before our searches for terremoto España hoy (earthquake Spain today) began to show results from today. The Instituto Geográfico Nacional was reporting an earthquake at 3:18 GMT.  Well, the minute seemed right, but the hour was off. Was what we had felt the first time just an aftershock? Had I slept through the real earthquake?

No, we felt the real earthquake, at around a quarter after 5:00. As the IGN helpfully reminded us on its page, Spain is at GMT+1 hour during the winter, but at GMT+2 when Spain and the Continent move to summer time, because Greenwich Mean Time never changes.

This was not a big earthquake in the realm of possibilities. It measured only 2.7 in magnitude. But 2.7 is definitely noticeable when the epicenter is only a couple miles away from where you are. On the map above, the epicenter is marked with the red star in the town of Rojales, which is where we go to the post office and the banks and the travel agency and frequently for morning coffee. Our house sits on the left side of the yellow highway to the left of Rojales. a little below where the r in Benejúzar is printed.

Fortunately we never heard any emergency sirens after the terremoto this morning. But we'll go out later today and check the house for cracks, just in case. And we'll probably drive over to the hilly area of Rojales and see if there was any damage there.

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Postscript on Saturday, June 15: We did drive over to Rojales on Thursday after the earthquake to see if there was damage. We didn't find any, but we talked with some of the artists who lived in Las Cuevas, the caves in the hilly part of the city above the river. Carmen reminded us that caves are one of the safest places to be in an earthquake, and also that it is better to have several small earthquakes occasionally to relieve the underground pressures rather than one big one.

And then we had another one Thursday afternoon at 3:24. Again, I was upstairs, this time in my office at the computer. The rumble was just as loud and the house shook just as it had before. This time I started wondering whether I should go downstairs. But it stopped. This one was centered in Guardamar del Segura, further away to the east of us. Actually it was a little outside Guardamar, in the Mediterranean Sea. At 3.4, it was stronger than the morning one, though I see now that the first one has been upgraded to 2.9 on the Richter scale.

It's been quiet since then.

Playing Cards

Spanish deck printed in Valencia in 1778. Credit: Wikipedia.

Now I can say it is summer: Last Monday was the last Spanish class of the year and we will not meet again until classes start anew in October. My class in conversation celebrated by learning to play the popular Spanish card game Chinchón. It is a variant of gin rummy that can be played with any number of players; here each player is dealt seven cards, and in turn each player takes and then returns one card from the deck (either picking up the last card discarded by the previous player or drawing a new hidden  card from the deck) until one player successfully has turned all the cards in his hand into a set of three of the same number (or more) and/or a run of the same suit (four or more).

I am not much of a card player and it had not occurred to me that this card game would be played with a deck of cards different from the standard deck that I know: four suits (hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs), numbered from 2 through 10 plus the face cards of jack, queen, and king, and plus the ace--52 cards in all. Of course I know that not all card games are played with the standard deck: Old Maid and pinochle come to mind, only one of which I have played in my lifetime, and not recently. But all my myriad solitaire games use the same deck, and I thought it was universal.

It's not universal. The standard Spanish card deck comes with 48 cards: 4 suits numbered 1 through 12, though the 10, 11, and 12 are also face cards. But you don't play chinchón with 48 cards: you play it with 80. It requires two decks, but you take out the 8s and the 9s. Lest you think that means that you can't make a run of 5-6-7-8 or 7-8-9-10 or the like ... technically you can't, but you can make a run that jumps over the missing cards: 5-6-7-10 is a legitimate run, as is 6-7-10-11, and 7-10-11-12. As if it weren't difficult enough to remember the rules without remembering which cards are missing and which come in "sequence"! I was still trying to remember how to say "deck" in Spanish (baraja) and the names of the four suits: oros (gold coins), bastos (clubs), espadas (swords), and copas (goblets). They are said to stem from the Middle Ages.

We were five class members playing, and we went through five or six hands before the first person was knocked out. The object of this game is to get the smallest score. At the end of each hand, when someone successfully gets complete sets, that person gets minus 10 points. The other players count up the number of points in their hand minus the cards that make a set, and that's the number of points each gets. It only takes losing once with face cards in your hand to make you realize how chancy it is to collect those. The first person to get over 100 points is dropped from the game. As each person gets 100, they are dropped, and the winner is the person who still has under 100 points. Betting occurs, though we didn't progress that far in two classes. I did manage to win one hand, with low cards, but that doesn't matter because you still have ten points subtracted from your total score, and I had some to subtract from. I did not win the complete match.

But I did go out and buy a baraja. The cards are quite colorful, to the point of distracting, not at all as easy to manage as two red suits and two black. Then I read the explanation of the Spanish cards in Wikipedia, and I decided to try to enlist some others in playing chinchón and get used to the different system. My teacher says that chinchón is played at most family gatherings and goes on for hours amid talking, drinking, snacking, and gambling. That, undoubtedly, is why two decks are required, though it certainly doesn't explain why you would take out the 8s and 9s. With only one other player, I think we can manage with a single deck for learning.

"Lay Flat to Dry"

When we lived in our dream house in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, our next-door (across the street) neighbor would often hang her laundry out to dry. Even in the dead of winter, if there were a sliver of sunlight or a breeze, or (rarely) both, she would march out to the square metal laundry line structure with a heavy basket of laundry to hang the clothes out. Later she would retrieve them--at least they disappeared. Last week they emailed us that they had moved from their dream house in New Hampshire and were now living in Florida. I imagine her still hanging out clothing, but she has a lot better weather to hang it out in now.

I never hung laundry out until I moved to Spain. I didn't even hang it out when I first moved to Spain. When we lived in Roquetas we were in a second-floor (third to Americans) apartment, and although some of the apartments had laundry lines strung outside their kitchen/utility window (I did, too, now that I think of it) I never used an outdoor clothesline except for the occasional kitchen towel. I had a clothes dryer, a tumble dryer as it is usually called in English here, in my utility room, and that is what I used to dry the clothes.

When we moved to the Torrevieja area the first time, we rented a tiny house with a terrace that was larger than the house itself, and there was no utility room. I learned to hang the laundry outside. When we moved to our present house four years ago, the clothes washer was, as often is the case in Europe, in the kitchen, and there was no room for a clothes dryer.

Fortunately the washing machine gave out soon, and I quickly took the opportunity to relocate the laundry to the upstairs terrace. Now the new washing machine and a new tumble dryer happily live inside a large polystyrene structure originally designed for storing outdoor furniture or garden equipment; but a washing machine and a dryer fit in there comfortably, both the top and the front doors open to provide access, and they are out of view when not needed.

But I rarely use the tumble dryer, because I also have a four-line clothesline on the wall above the washer/dryer shed, and I can pull out the lines and hang the laundry on them to dry. I have gotten used to hanging the laundry. I like the break it gives me from my work in my office, the short exposure to the sun and fresh air, the mild exercise of stretching to pull the lines out and hang the clothing. And neither of the two European clothes dryers I have owned--nor any of their competitors that I looked at--have anything that resembles a permanent press cycle anyway.

So I hang my clothes, and over time I have come to prefer wooden clothes pins (pegs to the British) over plastic, because the plastic ones seem to snap and break easily, and I have learned to hang shirts and nightgowns and the occasional dress inside out, to minimize fading in the sun and also in case the wooden clothes pin stains the cloth. I hang pants with one leg on each of two lines--different from any of my neighbors, I realize, but I like it that way. Lest you think I am immodest by hanging pants with the crotch up and open, I assure you that I hang underwear one side up and one side down, behind shirts or other outer garments. I have myself driven down the road when the laundry was out and know that you can't see the line from the street, and the only neighbors who might see the line would have to walk way out to the corners of their terraces to do so. But I still preserve the niceties.

Recently, however,  I have realized that two or three of my favorite old sweaters and jackets have developed extra-long sleeves and are beginning to droop lower down on my hips than they used to. That must be from hanging them on the clothesline to dry, I finally figured out. I had forgotten about that admonishment in the inside label on sweaters in my youth that said "Lay flat to dry."

That's because I never had hung anything out to dry; I always used a clothes dryer. By the time in my life that I might have been paying attention to the "Lay flat to dry" instructions, I usually bought miracle fiber sweaters that dried quite nicely without shrinking in the clothes dryer. If they didn't go in the dryer, they went to the dry cleaners. And then we got home dry cleaning, with bags and a scented cloth for three or four garments at a time--in the clothes dryer, on the gentle or permanent press cycle.

I have enough room on the top of the washer and the dryer in their shed to stretch out a "Lay flat to dry" garment if ever I buy a new one. It's too late for the old ones. I have tried washing them and then putting them in the clothes dryer on hot to try to shrink them. That doesn't seem to work, but I'm not giving up yet, and will continue to dry them that way, or to lay them flat, so they don't stretch out even more. One is a nice white natural cotton pullover sweater that I wear a lot in the spring. The other is a beige and white all-natural cotton cardigan jacket that still has its Vermont Country Store label visible in the neckline. It is older than I care to admit, but I love it, and I have bought two pairs of slacks to replace those that came with it when I purchased it during the days I drove I-91 between Connecticut and New Hampshire to work each week. I can't throw that away.

"The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming"

Never in all my wildest dreams when I was growing up during the Cold War did I envision the Russians coming to save an economy in trouble.  They probably aren't going to save Spain's economy single-handedly now either, but the new prosperous younger Russians (who were not around during the Cold War) are certainly having a positive effect in tourism and immigration to Spain.

We sat this morning in one of the outdoor cafés at the Sunday market, enjoying sharing a bratwurst and a beer, listening to the voices of what sounded like a Russian couple at the next table, and reading a story in RoundTown News reporting on a group of 30 Russian travel agents that had visited Torrevieja this past week and, apparently, painted the town red. They saw more sights in their week-long junket than I have seen in the four years I have been here! Well at least I have a number of events to put on my "to-do" list--the "floating museums" in the port area being at the top.

There are now almost 5,000 Russians on the padron (the town register), which means that they stand second only to the British as the largest group of foreign residents in the area. Lots of Russians are coming here to make this their permanent home, and lots more are coming to buy second homes--there are reportedly two direct flights each week between Alicante and St. Petersburg during the summer season.

I have never studied Russian and am not really sure that I can distinguish the language from some others, but I may have an opportunity to get more familiar with it in the coming years.

The New Look

Sharp-eyed readers may notice a new look for Sundays in Spain this week. I would like to say that this redesign is the result of considerable introspection and planning, but in fact it comes after I managed to destroy the old look while trying to refresh my memory about how to create a blog. I am setting up another blog to archive some professional writing I have done over the years, and I was playing around with the different templates that Blogger offers when suddenly I realized that I couldn't get back to the original one.

Fortunately all was not lost. I have been writing Sundays since October 2008 and I can see now by my statistics that as of today I have published 245 posts. There is nothing earth-shattering in these web pages but nevertheless I would have hated to lose the content, as it constitutes the best record I have of the last four and a half years of my life. I have also begun to use my writing as a reference, so, for example, I can search it to find out when the next tapas festival can be expected to take place, or what was the name of the town where we took that interesting bus trip to the winery. So I was glad that all posts survived the mishap, and I spent enough time investigating the software, which has changed in the last few years, to see that I can download the content into a backup file on my computer, and I did that. One can also back up the template, I read, but too late.

While catching up with new features, I found two to incorporate in my impromptu redesign. The one of broadest use is the list of Labels on the right column, below the Blog Archive of dates of previous posts. Although I usually assign two or three tags, or subject terms, to each blog post, I have not been terribly rigorous about keeping the subject listing orderly. I've pruned some subjects, so it's only the top 40 or so that appear here. They correspond to my major themes and concerns (bureaucracy, celebrations, economy, and Spanish language, among others; they also list a number of places: Alicante, Barcelona, Madrid, and Montebello. Clicking on any of the labels brings up the posts where that label is assigned, thus providing another way to search my written memory in addition to the long keyword search bar at the top of the page just below the banner. I hope to re-think the labels and go back through the postings to reclassify them at some point in the future--in my old librarian days we called this a "recon project"--retrospective conversion--but no one calls it that anymore and not many do it, either.

The second feature is perhaps the most immediately noticeable. It is the Translate dropdown menu near the top of the right-hand column that says Select Language. You can pull that down and choose Danish, or Spanish, or Azerbaijani or just about anything else you care to, and almost instantaneously the blogpost will be translated by Google into that language. I've been watching Google Translate for several years now, and it's not perfect but it's getting better. I've had fun browsing the translations, though I haven't yet read anything closely enough to take them up on their offer to provide better words.

As I said in another post way back in October 2008, I started this blog for discipline and to force myself to learn something about blog and image software. I'm still learning! But the primary reason is to keep my family and friends informed about my life here, should they care to check in now and then. So I am especially delighted and flattered that the Google Translate gadget has already brought me a new regular reader from among my family in Argentina.

Overnight in Madrid

We made an overnight trip to Madrid this week, just for the purpose of picking up a new passport at the Danish embassy and then leaving it, together with my own new passport, at the Vietnamese embassy. They needed these to process our visa application for the trip we have planned in late August following the World Library and Information Conference of IFLA in Singapore. Our train left from Alicante just after noontime on Thursday and we arrived in Madrid's Atoche Renfe station at 3:15. Amazingly we managed to catch the underground metro mass transit to Serrano station and get into the Danish embassy before 4:00. It took about a half hour there and then we were back in the metro to Santiago Bernabeû station. When we came up to the surface I saw a huge structure. If I were a sports fan I would have known earlier that we were headed for the stadium where Real Madrid plays. I am not a big fan of professional soccer, but even I can recognize an important landmark like this one. There were several groups of people in the green median on one side, photographing themselves and their friends. We could have stopped and spent time there, but we had to walk a few blocks to the Vietnamese embassy, and they were staying open a little late just for us.

We found the embassy after having walked the full length of two sides of the stadium and then three or four more blocks, up a hill. The business didn't take long, and when we were finished, moving on toward 6:00, we stopped finally to catch our breath and rest with a cold drink and a small montadito sandwich at a café back toward the stadium and station. Then it was back underground for yet another metro ride to the hotel, more correctly the hostel, where we had reserved a room. As we made our way through a couple subway connections we realized with glee that we had absolutely nothing else that we had to do before our return train left at 2:00 the next afternoon.

Every time we go to Madrid we stay in a different section of the city, depending on where we need to be in this huge metropolis and what Booking.com has on offer. This time we got off the metro at Sevilla station, one stop past Puerta del Sol, the Times Square of Spain. We walked south and realized soon that we were in a very old part of Madrid. Many of the buildings along the very narrow streets had intricate ceramic tile designs at their gates, and even the street signs were ceramic. We found the small hostel after passing right by it the first time, so intent were we on observing the various restaurants we passed by, wondering whether we should have an Indian or Peruvian meal later on this evening.

For that is always the issue with us when eating dinner out in Spain. Just how late would we have to wait for the restaurant to open its doors for the evening cena? Since many people work until 9:00 it is no at all uncommon for a restaurant's kitchen to be unavailable for hot meals until 8:30. On occasion we have observed that a place may open at 8:30, and in very extraordinary circumstances, 8:00. After checking in and finding our room,  I spent an hour browsing Maps on the iPad in search of what was interesting, within easy walking distance, and opened early.

When we left our room at a little after 8:00 it was still light and pleasantly warm outdoors and we stepped into a bustling evening world. I had despaired of finding a convenience mart in his old part of the city, but on the first corner we spied a cellar store and popped in to buy water and a little wine to take back to the hotel. But, revitalized now, we continued walking among throngs of people of all ages out enjoying the early spring evening--hundreds at sidewalk cafes or, like us, moving along the streets to do some end-of-day shopping or to meet someone. We sauntered through several blocks, pausing on occasion to check a menu--I had decided by now that I didn't want much to eat--not one of those voluminous three course Spanish evening meals--but I wanted something hot. Pizza would do, so would soup. Trying to decide among a huge selection of tapas would be too much trouble.

Finally we found ourselves on Calle de las Huertas, Orchard Street would be the direct translation, though I think first of a garden of vegetables (hortalizas) rather than fruit trees when I hear the word huerta. And I found vegetables. The picturesque brick-walled restaurant that we wandered into after seeing pasta on the menu posted outside the open doorway was full of people at the bar but had no one else in the dining area. It was, after all, not yet 9:00. Johannes had the pasta, but I spied a vegetable wok dish listed as one of the house specialties. In meat-heavy Spain, this may have been designed as a family side dish accompaniment to more protein-heavy entrees, but I had it alone, with just a small glass of warm soy sauce for dunking. My hortalizas on Calle de la Huerta included long thin slices of peppers in three shades, onions, mushroom, carrots and green beans, at least, all stir-fried to perfection, still crunchy. It was delicious, and I felt satisfied and virtuous--at least until the excellent bread came when I was almost finished--then the virtuous feeling disappeared, though satisfaction did not.

During our entire supper we were entertained with the sound of a street music duo just outside the open door, a young woman playing oboe and a young man playing a trombone. Their selections were eclectic and lively, some jazz, some klezmer, some haunting, some indescribable. We talked with them when we left the restaurant. He is from France, she from some country that we did not find out in Africa. They are two-thirds of a group called Conchindon (the third plays banjo).  They gave us some links, so you can listen and catch the spit, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oK56qMI3ts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=ydSHJ4O75cs&NR=1

They were packing up as we talked, or rather, they looked as though they were packing up, because the police had been by and I guess they didn't have a license to play street music. Indeed if everyone who plays street music in Spain had to pay money for a  license, there might not be a financial crisis going on. On the other hand, if the police really make young, struggling, but enthusiastic musicians keep quiet if they can't afford a license, the city is going to be a much more somber place.

We continued on our way after wishing them well. We meandered back to our hostel, people watching all the way. There were still people in the streets and at cafes, and now in restaurants in large groups having dinner. We had found a delightful part of the city and looked forward to exploring it more in the morning, when it would be equally interesting but not quite so magical.