Andorra 9/23/13

after watching the castleres on sunday,  we rented a car and drove aprox 150 miles to the pricipality of Andorra.  Andorra is a very small (maybe 50 square miles), land-locked, principality, situated in the Pyrenees mountains between spain and france.  it is a duo-monarchy.  i only learned of it's existanc a few months ago.  a whole country between spain and france that i did not know existed .  so much for high school geography.  a few hundred years ago several monarchs in the area could not decide who would rule andorra.  so they agreed that it would be ruled by two people/positions, the current bishop of andorra, and the current president of france.  that makes a democratically elected president of france, a monarch.  interesante.  andorra is always neutral during war, so it was very  important to the french resistance during the WW's, and much like Switzerland, it's a place the stash cash.  andorra's main source of income is tourism.  the city's (there are only a few) are giant outdoor shopping malls.  seriously, we crossed the border, drove a few miles to the capital, which turned out to be miles of stores on every street we drove on.  i have never seen anything like it.  I've been to malls, but this one never stopped.  people like to shop here because it has a low tax rate, but prices were pretty high, at least to me they were.  so you may pay less tax on the higher priced items you buy.  the only real savings i saw was on smoking products and alcohol.   i saw at least 150 shops that sold tobacco and liquor.  so i loaded up on smokes and drink. ya baby.  being in a valley, as soon as you leave the city you are in the mountains.  during the winter skiers flock here to ski the Pyrenees.  this was the off season, so there were plenty of vacancies.  we did enjoy a nice hotel with a great mountain view about 5 minutes out of the city. on the way home we stopped to check out some very cool sunflower fields, and a then drove up a very steep road to about 8000 ft to visit famous mountain monastery.  it was very nice but flooded with tourists. i am not sure what their current mission is?

sept 24 merci

seems like every time i turn around there is a school / business holiday.  corrinne has been in school for three weeks. two of those weeks included time off to party.  this week it was the two days off to celebrate  one of the co-patron saints of barcelona.  i assume the future will provide a few days off to acknowledge the other of the co patron saints.  this celebration is called "Merci".  a four day weekend of concerts, fireworks, parades, tall ships, and my favorite, casteller.  casteller is one of the more exciting pastimes of the catalon people.  it is basically  teams of people called catellers who form human pyramids.  they are similar to what we might see cheer leaders do, but they take it up quite a few notches.  we went to the square at the correct time to watch the castellers.  the square was packed.  we were in the middle of a few thousand people all pushing and looking for position.  three teams of castellers squeezed in with us.  in turn, each team builds a human pyramid/tower.  first team starts with an easy formation, challenging the next team to do a better/higher/more complex formation. they started with maybe four people high,   largest people on the bottom, smaller and smaller people as they get higher, topped off by the smallest which looked to be a three or four year old who climbs like a monkey up one side and down the other.  the  monkey has to pause at the top, hold on to whoever he is standing on with one hand and raise the free hand to the sky to show he is in control at the top.  the crowd goes wild as the castellers quickly reverse the build until the last level is safely down.  it looked like between 40 and 60  team members use their bodies to support the whole structure.  they create a very tight scrum which supports the others who climbed on.  the taller the formation, the bigger/tighter the scrum. it was crazy and the formations kept getting taller & taller.  i would never have let my child do it. someone said that one team had over 1000 members (not all show up to each event).
after a while we moved out of the crowd to get some air.  watching from about 100 feet away i watched a formation that was trying to quickly un-build, implode.  it was very fast. i think there was four levels still up.  a load gasp from the crowd, then the castellers raised arms to show their well being, and the crowd clapped support.  much like an injured footballer who gets an ovation when walking of the field.  I have asked several catalonians why they do this thing.  they seem perplexed by the question and do not have a real answer. they just always have.  im going to google the history of it.
i just googled it ,  there is no mention of why it started, just that it started in south catalonia in the 18th century.  maybe it started as a way to get solders up and over castle walls.  try googling  "castell" for some more / better pictures and info.

sept 19 date night flamenco dancing (not me)

corrinne is sleeping at a her friend lucy's house tonight so cindy and i went out on a date.   cindy found a performance of flamenco dancing.  cant say that i was looking forward to this.  I was not sure if this show was geared toward tourists or not.  i still do not know.  but it was fantastic.  one of the best shows i have ever enjoyed.  Spaniards do some things with passion.  they play football with passion, eat, drink, fiesta & siesta with passion,  and they dance with gusto. i was expecting a bunch of ball room dancers .  this was not even close.  there was a man and woman doing incredibly fast tap/clog to music lead by a the best guitarist i have ever seen.  i could not see feet dancing or fingers strumming. thats how fast they were going.  fantastic and looking forward to our next flamenco outing

kicking pigeons

my daughter is a pigeon kicker. we have a 20 minute walk home from school everyday. our walk takes us through an old village (now updated and swanky) called sarria. its a nice cobblestone walk to the bottom of Sarria where we live. on our walk home we view many pigeons hanging out doing what pigeons do. corrinne has decided that the sarria pigeons are very lazy (she calls them spanish pigeons) and she wants to help them get some exercise, so she chases and kicks at them until they fly. she has never been able to connect.  they are not as spanish as she thinks.

  she calls this activity "kicking pigeons, .........for their own good." corrinne's a giver.

Sept 8 2013

What do you call cheese that does not belong to you?? Natcho cheese!! Get it? If you visit france, italy, and greece, where should you go in november? Turkey!! get it daddy, get it?? Thanksgiving duh.  lets go swim in the pool.       Corrinne, cindy and I have spent our first two weeks in barcelona living in a hotel.  Very together.    As you would expect, each of us has had our 15 minuts of "leave me alone," but we have survived with no regrets.
 So this is our blog. It will probably justs be the ramblings of cindy and i as we live these 10 / 11 months in spain. You can tune out when it gets boring. I am trying to document our time here hoping we can read and remember it thirty years from now. Corrinne's kids may get a kick out of it. They will probably be telling her the same jokes.
On aug. 20, 2013 we presented ourselves to barcelona spain. We are well received. The city begs to be explored. Old enough to be interesting, modern enough to be easy. Exploring would have to wait (we thought). There was so much to get accomplished before corri started school on sep. 2. First priority was to find permanent accommodations. Our usual travel accommodation M. O. Is "wing it", find a place when you arrive. This may work when you are lugging a back pack, but not so joyous when 12 bags follow you everywhere you go. Four of them where 49 pounds (Ask american airlines). We arranged a hotel, unseen, at the airport. Moved in and fell asleep. Jet lag was a bit difficult. When we were up we were combing the city for a place to live. Hard to do in the Barcelona humidity. Actually i do not think the humidity is that bad. Spoiled, dry climate so-californians, just need to get used to it. Walking a few blocks and finding perspiration on your forehead is just inconvenient. So while not sleeping we were walking, sweating, and, Inadvertantly exploring the city as we looked for a place to live. Our search was hampered by the lack of businesses that remained open in aug. Turns out, in spain, most businesses (including rental agencies) close down in aug and everyone goes on vacation. Omg, dont these people know we need service now!! The agencys that did remain open were mostly geared toward tourist looking for 1 -2 weeks stays. We eventualy did find some agencies managing longer term rentals. Unfortunately, in barcelona, the agents only show properties that are listed by their offices, usually limited to the neighborhood were they where located. We had to work with several different offices to look at apartments in different neighborhoods. By our standards, majorly ineficent. Joe american will notice many inefficiencies in spain. Tradition takes precedence here, and barcelonians seem less stressed , perhaps because of it. We quickly found that we would exceed our accommodation budget if we were to rent our dream apartment. After two weeks of looking we settled on a smaller, two bedroom flat in a very nice, family neighborhood. As luck would have it, the apartment had just changed ownership. The new owner had just put in new everything. New beds, furniture, kitchen ware, etc. We unwrapped brand new, unused, sheets and blankets. Major bonus. A lot of the things we were expecting to buy ourselves were provided by the landlord. Any unexpected savings is a nice surprise. Everything is more expensive. Not much value for the us$.
 corrinnes school started monday 9/2. we moved into the apartment 9/4. finally, home cooked food. restaurant eating gets tiring very fast, and its hella $$$. corrinne is attending benjamin franklin international school (BFIS). as you would expect, it is chock full of international kids. k thru 12th grade. the school charter requires it be at least 30% local spanish kids. there are aprox 500 kids attending. there are more american kids then i expected. seems that taking time off to live in barcelona for a while is more common than we knew. the parents are very present. especially all the newbies. everyone seems very nice and welcoming. we are all in the same boat, and most are more than happy to enjoy the ride with us. there have been many opportunities for me to practice my social skills. i'm holding my own thank you very much.
sept 13, corrinne is having a rough time adjusting to her new environment. she was doing pretty well at first, when she was on a mission with mom & dad looking for a place to live. then she started fifth grade at a new school, in a foreign land, without her usual friends, then the bella-missing started, the daisy-the-fish worrying, then bri's bunny had bunnies, then this, then that. we are trying to help but its slow going, day-to-day stuff. i am sure she will be fine soon. meanwhile Cindy and I are staying busy getting our ducks in a row. among other things we are personalizing the apartment, working on resident documents (the US embassy charged us $60 for a notary) , gyms are being vetted and joined (no we are not just sitting around drinking wine, though one of the dads at ben franklin owns a vineyard in Washington State and has promised a wine experience soon), getting cindy's arm worked on(its looking good) and ferrying corrinne to-and-from school. all this is being done in-between social engagement. there is a very small upscale roman pizza joint a few blocks from our apt. they have a master baker who is making the best (most $$$) pizza i have ever had. i am lobbying them to let me work/learn with the baker. like an internship. its a new venture for them and they feel its to early to add an intern to the mix. maybe before i leave though. i will stay on them, we shall see what comes of it.
ok, i am posting this today 9/13. there is more to say, we have been able to visit a few of barcelonas sights, but i will keep you in suspense. we have some photos to post, but that's a job for IT personnel to look into for another post. I don't like to spend time capitalizing ( my writing professor sister-in-law is going to love that). Kevin
fyi, "be no dust" refers to a poem read at our wedding: 10,000 miles, no dust.    i'm not sure what mile we are on. kch