June 25, 2014 CB's Birthday, Madrid

The royal palace in Madrid where king Felipe and family live in 2800 rooms

all she wanted for her birthday lunch was a calamari sandwich

From the jumping devils town we traveled four hours south to Madrid, the capital of Spain. a very large, sprawling city with wide streets and large majestic buildings.  we visited two of the most famous museums in Europe, The Prado museum, and the Sophia Reina (queen's).  The feel of Madrid is very laid back compared to Barcelona.  It reminded me a lot of Los Angeles, if LA had 500 year old buildings and a Palace where the King and Queen of Spain lived.  Last thursday the Ex-King of Spain abdicated and turned over the Kingdom to his son, the new King, Felipe.  We missed the coronation celebration by one week. The ex king is well respected in Spain.  in 1976, upon the death of the dictator Franco, the king was expected to step in and continue the dictatorship.  Instead he insisted that Spain become a modern democracy, then he made it happen.  The Royals in Spain, much like England, are figure-heads of tradition, supported by the people. We spent a fun three days in Madrid, visiting museums, walking and riding bikes in the large Retiro park in the middle of the city, and seeing other sites.
Cindy's birthday was on the 25th,  we celebrated by going to a  Spanish opera "Zarzuela" and a nice dinner afterwords.
When we decided to spend this year abroad, Madrid was seriously considered as a place to live, so we were happy to have the opportunity to visit the city that could have been.  In the end, we made the correct call locating ourselves in Barcelona.

the famous Prado museum  (not Prada, there are no hand bags in there)

Madridians claim Madrid is the largest, bestest, and greatest in spain.  this is their post office.

they claim this is the oldest bookstore in Europe. 

and this is the oldest door 

June 23, 2014 El Colacho (baby jumping)

In my last blog I mentioned that we were going road tripping to see some priest jump over babies.  Well i was mistaken. No priest jumped babies.  The devils did all the jumping.
We traveled north west from barcelona to the very small town of Castrillo de Minerva, population 500.  This town hosts a festival once a year called "El Colacho" (baby jumping) on the first Sunday after Corpus Christi.  The mysterious black clad Brotherhood of Santisimo de Minerva has put on the event every year since 1620.  The "brotherhood" parade thru town to the beat of a big drum, led by a member dressed as the devil.  The devil chases townsfolk  and whips them with his whip. It does not hurt much.  The devil spends most of his time chasing children who tease and  taunt him then run screaming  for the hills when they get his attention.  They all have a great time and  a lot of local wine is involved.  They do this parade around town once an hour, with a two hour siesta break at 2 pm.   At 6 pm the whole town meets in the church at the top of the town, much beating of loud drums and genuflecting followed by a procession down to the town square.  Meanwhile, mattresses have been layed out in the town square and all babies born in the last year are put on the mattresses.  When the procession reaches the square the devils proceed to jump over the babies.  The belief is that the devil, while passing over the baby, draws "original sin" from the babies, because all sin would, of course, follow the devil. After the devil does his leaping, the priest follows with the eucurist and blessing.  Its all very festive and fun, however, it must be pointed out that this type of baptism is not sanctioned by the Catholic church.  Church officials, including  Francis,  do not approve of the ritual, insisting that baptism with holy water is the is the only way to achieve purification in the eyes of God.  Regardless, these babies and their families felt purified. And everyone continues the festivities to the wee hours.

represents all babies of the world

Brotherhood of Santisimo de Minerva

el diablo

here come the devils

the babies are ready

and the jumping begins, some babies fight the purification

We returned to our peaceful Camino Pension in the middle of some wheat fields.  CB had a glass of wine and I asked for a gin tonic. The young lady proceeded to pour me a very full glass of gin and said they were out of tonic. I never want to offend the locals, so i drank it. Whats a fellow to do. I
I'm pretty sure we had us a lovely evening.

update june 16, 2014

Barcelona Spain

santa caterina market, barcelona spain

 I have not been too motivated to blog lately because in the last few months we have hardly left the country.  But, we are coming to the end of our stay here in Barcelona so I thought I would try and catch everyone up on our lives, if interested.
since our trip to Ireland in April we have been been doing a lot of local traveling.  we spent a very nice weekend in a small, ancient, French port city of Collioure just over the border of Spain.  it was a beautiful little town on the water, with (of course) an old castle/fort protecting the port.   our little pension had a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean.  hard to beat that.

corri learning to skip rocks

on the way back down the coast of north/east Spain we stopped for a night in Costa Brava to hang out with friends,  the family Swifts.  The Swifts were there taking a scuba certification course because they have plans to scuba dive in Zanzibar this summer.  Zanzibar, go figure.   the scuba school offered an hour long intro class that we signed Corrinne up for.  not our best idea.  the class took place in a pool, 4/5 feet deep.  The teacher first talked about the necessity to always continue to breathe,  don't hold your breath or you could damage your lungs.  all corrinne heard was, what we got her involved in could hurt her lungs (she wants to have healthy lungs, thats why she does not smoke).
So she was not to pleased with what we signed her up for.  to her credit she did man-up and finished the class.  she even dove to a depth of 4 feet, but then she got the heck out of there as soon as she could.

from costa brava we continued down the coast of spain toward barcelona.  about ten miles out of barcelona we stopped to fill the rental car with gas.  I always wondered what happens when you fill an unleaded fuel car with diesel fuel.  in retrospect, i should have just googled the answer.  it was a joyous end to our weekend, involving tow-trucks and taxis. lovely, lovely

The next weekend we traveled north again to the city of Girona for their annual flower festival.

a whole city of flowers and all she wanted was to have tiny little fish eat her feet

in the last six weeks Cindy has taken two meaningful trips to hike portions of the "Camino de Santiago," (the way of Saint James).  The CdS is the1600'sh mile trail that Saint James took from the coast of France to the east coast of Spain,  through forests, fields, mountains, and towns, ending in Santiago.  thousands of pilgrims walk "the way" each year.  CB walked the last week of trail with her friend Tori O'Malley from the states.  then a few weeks later , with friends from barcelona, she walked the first week of the trail, which started in France.   walking "the way" can be a spiritual experience that touches people in different ways. Cindy really enjoyed these hikes and has every intention to come back to spain and do other parts of the trail.

meanwhile back in barcelona CB continues her flamenco dance lessons in preparation for her class dance recital june 30th (all are welcome), Corrinne continues to flourish at the international school, and me, i'm still doing a lot of reading, hanging at bakeries and cafes, guitar lessons, sometimes I dance in public with my wife.

sometimes we just hang out in front of yummy bakerys

sometimes we just walk around

in May, while CB was on the Camino, Corri went on a two night field trip with her class.  Overnight field trips are normal and expected in Spain, and the kids look forward to them all year.  Corrinne's class went north to the border of France.   They did a bit of hiking into France and back to Spain, zip-lined, stayed in hotels, had buffet meals, and disco partied into the wee-hours.  all returned safe-and-sound.

Corrinne and two friends, Nadia and Elli, were team # 9, competing in the annual science fair.  They won First Place with their entry "Uh-Oh, Oil Spills." They researched,  and determined the best way to remove car oil from salt water (Ocean water), then presented their conclusions verbally to the judges.  they even worked in an oil-spill song at the end of the presentation.  how can you lose when you sing to the judge?  it was a big, proud day for the girls.

Corrinne also participated in her Spanish class play.  She was the narrator in a modern version of Cinderella.  the whole play was in Spanish.  I am sure of it because I did not understand a word of it.
she, and all the kids did great.  She came out 7 or 8 times and delivered her lines perfectly. I can not believe the amount of spanish she has absorbed in just one year.  I do get a little tired of her correcting my Spanish though.

Two weeks ago, Corrinne and I hopped a train to San Sabastian.  A small coastal town on the north/west coast of Spain.  We stopped in Pamplona for 4 minutes to pick up Cindy who had, the day before, ended her second hike on the Camino in Pamplona.  Then we all continued to San Sabation to meet up with my brother Tom and family and their friends, the Conways.  Tom and his group were starting a three week trip through Spain, Portugal, and Morocco.  San Sebastion is a fun, famous, foodie town with great weather and great beaches, and therefore, popular and crowded.  I have never seen such a crowded beach, but the water was great, and the waves were the perfect size for corrinne so we had a great weekend.  It was fun hanging with the Hobans and the Conways.  Currently they should be in Portugal sipping port.

the boardwalk

san sebastian tapas

Corrinne and four of her girl friends from school call themselves the “C NAME” club (Corrinne, Nadia, Annika, Margaux, Ellie).  The C NAME club had a sleep-over Friday night at our place that started with a treasure hunt from school, and ended with pancakes Saturday morning.  The girls had a blast and they will remember each other the rest of their lives.

Today Corrinne graduated from elementary school.  They had a fantastic graduation ceremony where every fifth grader stood up and did a 60 second speech to their classmates and parents.  they were all very nervous, but not one of them faltered.  amazing the poise these kids had.  fifth graders have come a long way since I was eleven.   Congrats to Corrinne and all her classmates.

And so we near the end of my life of leisure. But not quite yet.  Next week we are off to Madrid.  Before Madrid we stop in Burgos to watch a very obscure ceremony where priests jump over babies (more to come on that, I have to see it first).  From Madrid we return to Barcelona for Cindy's dance recital (all invited), and our last few days in Barcelona.  it is going to be very sad to say goodbye to our home of the last year.  I am ready to go, but not ready to return to reality.  what I would really like to do is go live in Rome for a while.  

From Barcelona we are off to the island of Sardinia, Italy for a week (kayaking and white donkeys).  Then to London to see brother Ed and family where niece Kami’s soccer team is playing.  Then to Boston USA to visit friends, the family Barnards.  On July 14, 2014 we fly southwest air back to long beach.  we will see how long that lasts.

Meanwhile, She keeps growing

Tis Grand, april 20, 2014

we went to Ireland for spring break.  i did not blog about it right away because i did not know what to say.  nothing specifically spectacular happened, but it was the most fabulous trip ever, and  i did not know why.  i needed to marinate on it.
this trip was not easy.  I spent a good amount of time driving on the opposite side of the road, in a stick-shift car with the shift on my left, grinding gears, the lovely shotgun red-head insisting that i stay on the road.  what the *!*#.    it was beautiful.  Ireland is the most beautiful place on earth.  ok, many will argue for other locations, and I will concede, but as a whole, this island can not be matched.  it's a postcard.  every time i ground a gear around another corner, i was presented with another amazing scene.  i loved the  place.  i can not explain it, but i need to go back.  I have been to Ireland before, but i rode the train, i did not see the land.  patchwork-quilted fields overlooking the ocean.  it's a beautiful place.  and the people? if i had a euro for every time someone told me "it's grand."
I have been reading a lot about the civil war in spain 1936. i have to get  my info from books because you will be hard pressed to get a spaniard to talk about the civil war and the franco-ruled forty years that followed. it is a time to be forgotten.  this is because the spanish civil war was not regional like the american north/south civil war.  the spanish civil war pitted,  neighbor against neighbor, father agains father.   sadly, it is not inconceivable that your neighbors grandfather killed yours.  it is something that all spaniards would rather forget.
I think that is happening in Ireland.  this beautiful country has decided to forget about it's sad past and move forward to the "grand."  I can not help but feel the beauty in this attitude. any problems i may have are a pittance to their past, but still they say "everything really is grand."  this place touches me.  i want to go back to Ireland.

9am on the second floor of the bus.  it was pretty cold by the way

the place hauls beer by the truckload  

we went to Trinity college to see the "book of Kells",  the line was this long. we did not see the book of kells.

James Joyce

we started in dublin.   after two days in dublin i had decided that the folk song "dirty old town" was written about dublin.  it did not help that the all the busses we rode played the song on their sound system  (fyi, the song was originally written about a town in england). our hotel rate included a bus pass for the big green city tour bus.  there is a big (place color here) tour bus company in just about every major european city.  CB & corri loved the big green bus. the bus started at 9 am, and so did we.  we drove all over the city for a few hours while the driver pointed out landmarks, talked history, and sang "Molly Mallone" over the load speaker. it was a grand time, just ask the driver he'll tell you.   later, we visited the Guinness brewery.  the holy grail of beers.  the original Guinness factory was established on the site in 1752, thats before the USA was even born.  the founder, Arthur Guinness, signed a 9000 year lease for the site with one of the king Georges of England.  we took a self guided tour,  and then they gave a tutorial  on how to pour a perfect pint of the lovely brew.  then we drank it.

St Patrick's cathedral

St Patrick's

corrinne & CB in Guinness advert

CB learning how to pour the perfect pint.  

from dublin, south to waterford, where we toured the famous waterford crystal factory.  that was cool.  tourists are still able to watch every step of the process, including glass blowing.  we spent the night in a see-town named Youghal (y'all).  having dinner in the local fish place i watched an older man having his supper.  dressed in old wool/tweed cloths, speaking Irish, and holding his fork in the fist of his hand, just like my Grandfather used to do.  this guy could have been Papa's brother.

they are watching Patric engrave a piece of waterford for us.  

we drove thru Cork and stopped to meet a relative of mine.  my Mothers cousin, Sister Mary Martin (born: Eileen Healy).  Sister Mary is around 80'sh.  a semi-retired nun who spent her carreer teaching the youth of Nigeria.  she returned to Ireland because, "I got the arthritis you know."  she was a kick.  I was teasing her a bit and she just laughed and gave it back at me.  corrinne was showing her how her pillow-pet was a stuffed animal that turned into a pillow and she replied "well how bought that, tis handy isn't it." she talked about her family and all the relatives that had passed away, and still said everything "was grand" at least five times. we walked around the convent grounds.  "it's good for my arthritis".  it was a grand visit, and i am glad we got to meet her.

Sister Mary Martin

Noreen Collins and her two grand-daughters

Papa's old house in Knocknagree,  two rooms, no bath.  

from cork we traveled north/west a bit to visit knocknagree, where my grandfather John Duggan (Papa Magee) was born.  The old two bedroom house that he lived in is still partially standing.  from the back it looks in great shape.  the front, unfortunately, is in disrepair.  the wall has fallen down and the interior is open to the elements.   the old house is on it's way to falling down.  Another of my Mom's first cousins (Noreen Collins) still lives on the property (in a newer house).  Her son, and his family also live there.  as should be expected,  they were the nicest people.  the kids played with corri, and at the end of the visit they gave her two chocolate Easter eggs that they were not able to eat because it was still Lent.
man,  where do these people come from?  when I was little and my Papa would visit, he would slip us kids a shiny dollar, or half dollar, when he was leaving.  he always did it when my parents were not looking.  well here comes Noreen Collins.  as we drove away, i find out that she slipped Corrinne a few euros.  it was very sweet.

from Knocknagree we spent the night in Killarney.  just another of the hundreds of picturesque towns all over Ireland.  we spent the whole next day in killarney because, as it turned out, Killarney was hosting the world championships for Irish dance.  what timing!!  we went to check it out the night we arrived but the competition had just ended for the day.  there were a few thousand girls in the auditorium waiting for the results from the last competition.  they where all full of energy after the stress of the day.  popular modern music began to play from the loud speakers and the place erupted.  thousands of girls  dancing in front of the stage, in the  aisles, on their chairs, screaming their heads off, taking over the place.  talk about girl-power.  corrinne loved it and decided then-and-there that she was going to be an Irish dancer.  she had not even seen a dance.  the girls where all dressed in colorful costumes and wore bouncy curly wigs, what's and eleven-year-old not going to like?

Ross castle in Killarney

from Killarney north, Galway the goal, but overnighted half-way in a hotel that had donkeys on it's front lawn an a river running thru it.  the drive was beautiful. every five kilometers, another town that could be on a postcard.

she has food in her pocket and they know it

corrinne has taken an interest in barcelona football.  her favorite player is Messi.  barcelona was in the playoffs.  the game was on the teli in the pub and CM insisted on watching it (i know there is not a game on the screen, it's a commercial.  she like commercials too)

Lahinch was a town we actively sought out.  our friends DeeAnne and Keith brought us t-shirts from lahinch 15 years ago.  my t-shirt recently fell apart so we needed to replace it.

t-shirts from Lahinch

cold & windy in Lahinch

we drove the coast. stopped in doolin next to the cliffs of Moher, a a lot of other fab little villages.  we eventually made our way to Galway.  another great town.  it was Easter weekend and they were holding a food fair.  Galway is all about Irish football (rugby).  we did not see a game because it was Good friday,  all the pubs where closed on Good Friday, and if there is nowhere to drink after the game whats the use in playing?  saturday we headed back to cork for a sunday flight.  my nephew Shawn and family were in cork somewhere.  we looked for them at a huge Viking festival to no avail.  then we went to a football game that he expected to be at.  he did not make the game,  he was stuck at the viking festival.  we probably walked passed him a few times.  but I did get a chance to watch some Irish foodball.  this is not a game i would want to play.  what a bunch of beefers.  seriously, these guys were a bunch of bricks, and a lot of them had bloody bandages wrapped around their heads.  I do not understand the game, but it was fun to watch.

it was cold & windy in Ireland.  but it was grand