November, 27 bedroom forest

corrinne had a friend over this weekend and they were looking for something to do.  its cold here in barcelona, and all the leaves are falling, so this is what we came up with.

Corrinnes room is a forest for a few weeks.  Happy thanksgiving.

Granada november 18, 2013

wow,  it has been a month since my last post.  we have been living a regular life for the past month. nobody wants to hear about taking corrinne to/from school, barcelona vs. madrid big game, martini party with the slackers, researching future trips (mostly CB), reading in the park, great walks around barcelona searching out the best pastries.  the other day i walked past a small pasteria that had  a floor-to-ceiling window with an unobstructed  view of the guys setting up dough into loaves and sliding them into the oven.  i  stayed and watched the bakers for over an hour. they put the loaves in the oven and i was still there when they came out.  after a while the bakers started giggling about something.  pretty sure it was about the wack-job with his face glued to the window.  foreigners, what are you going to do with them.

Slackers: a group of men living in barcelona with plenty of free time.  about six years ago some of the fathers at Ben Franklin school decided to get together at a bar to watch a barcelona football game.  it was probably their wives that instigated the gathering, tired of their men hanging around the apartment.  so the guys named themselves "the slackers" (or their wives did).  the group changes yearly, as new guys move to barcelona and embrace the slacker lifestyle and some leave to re-enter reality. this is a group of guys that are happy to hang out with all comers, so it is not really limited to the non-employed.  regardless,  they are living large. it is not uncommon for them to meet for lunch at 1 pm,  move the party a few times and end up on a slacker's boat playing cards @ 2 am the next morning. i can't say i am a frequent slacker participant, but the times i have shown up i have been welcomed.

Granada, Spain.  we went there this four day weekend.    Katharine, Daron, and their two children Lucy and Malcolm invited us to tag along with them to this lovely, very cold city, in the south of spain.  in granada, is the ancient palace compound of "Al Hambra" (not named after a city in southern california). Al Hambra was the palace of the moor kings until the moors were driven out of spain in the 1400'ishes.   it is considered the most beautiful biulding in spain, if not the world.  it is indeed, pretty amazing.  the moors were muslems  from Arabia who conquered spain  around  1000 AD ( i think (give/take 100 years)).  the buildings are of arabian decore with an amazing amount of detail. you could spend the whole day going thru the various buildings.  the detail is amazing. the place was so compelling that the monarchy that conquered the moors did not destroy the palace.  they just moved in (after making the conquered moor king sign a "declaration of defeat" in his own throne room).  Ferdinand and Isabel ruled spain from here and columbus came here to make his pitch to ferdanand for help discovering a new route to India.  as we know, Chris dropped the ball and discovered the americas instead, and the spanish moved into california and names a bunch of california places after spanish places.  the city of granada spain is located in the foot-hills of the sierra nevada mountains.
it was a very nice trip with some very nice people.  what else could you want?
unfortunately, as it is, we have no great pictures of granada.  we are working with an i-phone camera that does not take the best photos.  it is posable that Daron and Katherine took some better photos, if they send them to me i will add them to this post in the future.

Lucy with a plate of churros waiting to be dipped in chocolate

churro maker,  much like dads donut machine

just one of many doors

another door

dinner overlooking Al Hambre palace in the background

the three musketeer, Malcom, Lucy, Corri

Al Hambra from one hill over 

Valencia. Oct 15 2015

another three-day school holiday weekend, so we found a train and headed south a few hundred miles south to my new favorite spanish city: valencia.   growing up in southern california,  valencia oranges are plentiful.  i have a tree in long beach that i miss very much.  store bought oranges (like tomatoes) never taste as good as home grown.  Well, come-to-find-out (after 51 years), the valencia orange is not named after the city in california.  valencia orange  trees were brought to california from valencia spain during the time of the spanish occupation of cal/mexico.  these lovely oranges are named after an equally lovely city.  spain's third largest city, with  900,000 people.  relaxed and laid-back, valencia has miles of Mediterranean beaches, Europe's largest aquarium, a science center, a central cathedral (of course), and most importantly, an excellent market with fabulous pastries.  in any city i am always drawn to its market and cathedral.  the cathedral in valencia, ingesia de san agustin  (church of saint agustin), has, in it's possession, "The Holy Grail."  true story, no rumor. The Holy Grail, is the chalice (cup) that Jesus drank from at the last supper.  they claim to have it.  The Holy Grail is prominently displayed, with security, in a small chaple off the main floor of the cathedral.  your eyes are probably skeptically rolling around in your head, as were mine.  but i did very little research and found that the experts think that there is a lot pointing to the authenticity of this challis.  there is a documented trail to follow, starting with the owner of the house where the last supper took place.  so who can say? not I, and being the base coverer that i am,  i asked El Padre if i could have a tiny sip, you know, in the interest of saving my soul and all.  he was not to keen on the idea.  it was worth a shot.

The Holy Grail

no sipping, but for 2 euros we could climb the cathedral bell tower and view the city from on high.

while we were up there the bell chimed 12 noon.  those big bells are loud.

cathedral tower in background

almost to the top

they must not have gotten a sip either,  they are still searching

Valencia also claims to be the birthplace of the classic spanish dish "paella," and a shake made of tiger nut called "horchata".  i am not a big fan of either, but corrinne really likes the horchatta.

fresh valencia orange juice in the square

Paella,  is a slow-cooked rice dish with spices and  assorted additives,  sea food, chicken,   veggies, etc.

horchata is  milkless, but they call it a shake.  it's ground tiger nuts, water and spices (cin, nutmeg)

we went to the beach and our last morning we spent some time at the market where we found some fantastic pastry.

at the end of the day i was still standing.  some people just don't eat enough

i am fifty-one

who would have thought that i would be living in spain when i turned 51.  thanks to all for the birthday greetings.  we have not been gone long, but long enough that it is fun to hear from those back home.   my birthday was on monday, so we where in town because corri still has to go to school.  we have not let her drop out yet.  I had a very relaxing day.  cb and i went to lunch at my favorite pizza place, and we had a quite dinner at home.

looking pained because CB will not let me eat until she takes a photo

tuesday we joined some friends to see a guitar recital at a cathedral in the heart of barcelona.   the gothic cathedral, esglesia santa ana, was built in the 12 century.  attached to the cathedral is a monastery with a small gothic chapel in it's courtyard.  the recital was held in this small chapel, under candlelight.  very intimate, very very cool.  cindy later surprised me with a promissory note good for a bread baking course of my choosing.  i am looking at a course in northern italy.  seeya.    not a bad 51st.

$$$$$

i have my first blog request.
from a financial standpoint, whats it like living in Europe?
well it's not that joyous.
 i am unaware of all the factors that go into currency valuation, but i am pretty sure there is a lot of politics involved.  after hearing about the economic difficulties that Europe has been dealing with over the last five years, how can the US$ be so weak against the european euro??  the current exchange rate is 1 european  euro costs US$ 1.30'sh.    add the weak $, to taxes on goods that go as high as 21%,  and you begin to miss america really fast.   we knew living in spain to be more expensive then the US but it is much more expensive than we expected.  additionally, you do not get as much for the same amount of money.  my US1.30 that equals 1 Euro will buy 1 pound of broccoli in the US but only 1/2 pound in spain.  the  $4 starbuck frapachino  cost $7.5 here.  i have not been to starbucks since i left the states.  interesting fact,  a can of coke here costs about the same as a can of beer, and a bottle of water costs more than both.  priorities baby, priorities.
we where frustrated because it took us a while to find a place to live, but there was an unexpected bonus in the delay.  it gave us time to get aquatinted with the expense realities we were facing, and we were able to adjust our housing budget to offset other costs.  we opted for a small apartment instead of the dream house, so we expect to be able to keep corrinne in food & clothes for the duration of our stay.  
although she's making it a challenge.  all of a sudden she is eating a lot more, and i think shes growing.
we have only been here a 6 wks and have had to buy two new pairs of shoes.  once, after spending most of the day walking neighborhoods,  she started doing the tired thing.  she cried loudly, "you guys don't feed me enough, and i'm going through a growth-spurt."  i assume bystanders did not speak english.  she got some strange stares,  but no-one turned us in. in foreign lands you can get away with malnourishing your kid.
conclusions:  you got to love America. the land of plenty, and tasty things.
i posted this and then went to pick up corrinne from school. it is wednesday, which is after-school treat day for corri.  this reminded me of another interesting expense.  more irritating than interesting.  businesses here like to charge more for nothing more than perceived value.  so today corri picked gelato as her treat.  a small cup of gelato is about the same as one scoop of ice cream back home.  here that cup is 2.6 euros, a little more than US$3.  but how many children want just one flavor of gelato.  well, for two flavors in the same size cup you are charged 3.4 euros, over US$4.  but you receive the same amount of gelato at either price.   go figure.

this is how i look after paying $4 for a scoop

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.