A Wow weekend!

For the most part, life here in Spain is fairly normal. For my part, I go to the grocery store, cook meals, pick up around the house, take Katie to & from school, etc. The same sort of things I did in Texas. Often life here is even difficult as we still adjust to living in a foreign culture (though thankfully this is much less true than it used to be!). This is why you don't hear much from me: normal is not necessarily newsworthy :-)

But then there are times like this weekend and all I can say is WOW!! How could these adventures all be really happening, and on the spur of the moment besides?!?

I mentioned last week that we were headed to Milan for the weekend to join Jason on a business trip. We were excited to go b/c it is northern Italy after all, and seemed exciting. Well, when I looked at the guide book to see what we should do there - and yes, this was after I'd already made the plane reservations - it just didn't seem like there was that much to do in Milan. Milan is full of fashion and business, neither of which interest me all that much :-). And we were going from Wed to Sun so we'd be there awhile. Also, after 2 weekends of touring museums and beautiful churches, we were kind of museum & churched out. Now when Katie hears that we're going to visit a new city, she says, "Are we going to see a beautiful, old church there?" :-) But I figured how could northern Italy be bad - at least we were looking forward to some really good food :-).

Well, sure enough, we toured around Milan on Thursday and saw all we needed to see of Milan :-). It was nice, but we saw it all - and we mostly ate our way around the city on Thursday. :-) (and yes, their beautiful old church, the Duomo, is beautiful) We saw on the map that Lake Como & the Swiss border are not very far from Milan, and an easy train ride away. So we planned to do that for 1 of our remaining days, but weren't sure what we were going to do the other day. The other cities of interest in Italy are at least 3 hours away from Milan, so it just didn't seem feasible to go to Venice or Florence or Pisa.

But Friday morning we get up and Jason says, "Why don't we just go to Venice?" Well, why not indeed. :-) So in the space of a couple of hours Friday morning, we called and found a hotel to stay in, packed up our stuff, checked out of the Milan hotel, and navigated our way onto the proper metro and trains to get ourselves to Venice :-). It was a bit crazy. Rich, Katie & I went on ahead and Jason joined us after he finished work on Friday night. I didn't really get excited until we were on the train b/c it just didn't seem like it was all really going to work out.

Jason & I were talking: I'm not sure that Venice has been on our short list of places we have to see before we leave Europe. (that we haven't actually made such a list is one of the problems, I think :-) ) So, for me, it made it even more amazing that it just worked out for us to go there. It is truly one of the most remarkable & unique cities in the world and once we were there it was truly overwhelming. As we pulled into the Venice train station, I was reminding Katie of a time we joined Jason on a business trip to Vegas when she was 2 and we stayed in the Venetian hotel. I was just trying to help her understand what we were going to see by telling her of the fake canals and gondoliers inside the hotel. I couldn't even finish talking about it b/c I almost started crying out of amazement that we were actually there in the real place!

I don't even really know what else to say about Venice. It is just truly a magical place. There are no cars on the island - only little bitty narrow streets to walk on (lots and lots of walking :-) ) intersected with river roads throughout. The main "street" that snakes around the islands is called the Grand Canal (at far left) and it was so cool. The taxis are boats, the buses are boats (you can see one of these with the red seats in the front on the left side of the picture of the Grand Canal), the police "cars" are boats. I even saw several trash truck boats :-). It is unlike anything else I've ever seen!

The main square is called Piazza San Marco and it was beautiful. We did not go in the church, but we did go up in the tower across the square to get a beautiful birds-eye view of Venice. BTW this is Katie's favorite mode of taking pics these days - she wants every picture to be a "silly face" picture. Oh, and there were SO MANY PEOPLE in Venice! It was by far the busiest place we've visited!!







One of Katie's highlights was getting to ride in a real gondola. She was soooo excited! (I think the look on her face says it all!) We had told her that we were going to ride in a "beautiful boat" before we left, so she asked about it constantly. (The other pic is with another gondolier who was kind enough to have his picture made with her.) It was really a surreal experience and so hard to believe that we were really in a gondola rowing through the canals of Venice. What an experience! Sadly, we heard no singing gondoliers in Venice, though we did catch one bearing an accordion player that was quite nice to see.

To cap it all off, Grandpa watched Katie for us last night and Jason & I got to go out to eat by ourselves - in Venice!! It was a very special evening to finish up a weekend I will never forget.

We are truly blown away by the opportunity we have to experience Europe like we are getting the chance to experience it. We are so thankful for the chance we have been given to live here! Words fail me :-)

Day 1 in Sevilla

The tower Giralda on one corner of the Cathedral in Sevilla. There are ramps all the way up - it was fun to climb!










The view of the white city from the top of the tower.








The Moorish arches at the exit of the cathedral.











The Plaza de Espana - it was beautiful! It had 2 of these big towers on either side of the semi-circle with the fountain in the middle. And everywhere was this beautiful blue & yellow tile - on the buildings, on the bridges, etc. We were there at sunset and it made it even prettier.


Wading in the fountain in the middle of the Plaza. It was rather hot in Sevilla, and the water was nice & cool :-).





Even our hotel room was beautiful! It was a wonderful trip! Tomorrow we are off to join Jason on a business trip to Milan. I am looking forward to eating some yummy northern Italian food!! :-)

Day 2 in Sevilla

2 Highlights of Sevilla for me:
- Taking Katie to the flamenco show
- Seeing the Alcazar with all the Moorish arches and beautiful tile.

The flamenco show was so fun! Katie was beside herself all day and could not wait to put on her beautiful dress. This 1st pic is just before we left - she was so proud! And the show did not disappoint. Truly all of us enjoyed it more than our 1st experience with flamenco - I think this was a bit more commercial and accessible to those of us who know nothing about it! (plus it was at a reasonable time of the evening - starting at 7:30 instead of 11!) They demonstrated several different kinds of the dance, including a scene from the opera Carmen. Katie did a pretty good job sitting down - every now and then she couldn't help herself and she would get up to begin dancing herself. But for some reason they put us in the very front row, so she willing sat down again each time. But afterwards, there was no stopping her! Many people stopped to watch her, some even clapping along with her in the flamenco rhythm. She attracted a lot of attention :-) Right at the exit to the show, a man was selling castanets, so Grandpa bought Katie a pair of her own (yes, that guy knew his market well!) Too much fun for our dancing girl!!

About halfway through the show, Katie started getting a little antsy, so I started telling her how each song & dance is telling a story and we have to imagine what they might be. So of course she wanted an example - whoops! Mom had to think quick, as most of those stories are probably not G-rated! So we made up stories about the men having to leave their mommies and daddies, etc. :-) In the scene from Carmen, one of the men that the woman character was trying to pick between had a knife. So again, Mom was not thinking and I said "What do you think he's going to do with the knife?" Ay Yi Yi! :-) So I quickly tried to recover, saying maybe he didn't have any scissors and needed to cut some circles or squares or something :-). Katie didn't think so b/c "I think he is going to do something bad." :-) So she decided that maybe he was going to cut the woman's beautiful shawl into 2 pieces :-). (he actually kills the girl b/c she picks the other man - thankfully that went right over K's head!) It was quite entertaining at the flamenco :-).


The royal castle Alcazar was my other personal favorite - I could have stayed there all day! One of the reasons I love Math is to find the patterns - and there were patterns galore at the Alcazar! On every wall and ceiling was the most amazing tile work, carvings or Moorish arches. It was truly breathtaking. It was built around 1365 when the Moors still ruled this part of Spain. (tho part of the castle dates from 913!)

And the gardens of the castle were also amazing - we never did find the end of them! They went on and on with beautiful ponds, trees and flowers. There was a maze made of hedges in one section and Katie & I had a great time chasing each other through the maze (with Daddy occasionally jumping out of nowhere to scare us!).

OK - I'm realizing that Sevilla needs 2 posts b/c I'm afraid this one got a bit long :-). (or at least chock full of pics!) So out of order, I'll post pics from Day 1 in the next post!

Sevilla

We are currently in Sevilla, enjoying this amazing city. All I can say is: WOW!!!! Sevilla is really amazing - we may never go home :-) We decided today that much of what you think of when you think of Spain can be found here in the region of Andalucia where Sevilla is located: the Moorish arches, the waves of white houses, flamenco, palm trees. It is really beautiful! We visited the cathedral today - the 3rd largest in the world after St Peters in Rome & St Pauls in London. It is also where Christopher Columbus is buried. The Moorish influence is everywhere in the city (the Moors occupied Spain for 700 yrs from 700AD till 1492) - they left really beautiful architecture! We also walked around a beautiful neighborhood called El Barrio de Santa Cruz and saw the amazing Plaza de Espana. This plaza was a semi-circle of buildings completely tiled with blue & yellow tiles. Absolutely beautiful! There was a fountain in the middle that we enjoyed wading in :-)

Tomorrow we are headed to see the Alcazar (a castle) and to enjoy a flamenco show in the evening. Katie is SOOOOO excited about this! She bought a flamenco dress for herself today with her spending money and is looking forward to wearing it for the big show. I hope she is not disappointed! (and I hope she can stay in her seat during the show :-) )

Pictures to come when we get home!

The First Day of School!

Well, we have successfully navigated the 1st Day of School! (the drop off anyway :-) ) Katie did GREAT! She seemed pretty excited about it, but was still throwing in lots of skeptical comments on a pretty regular basis. So I just wasn't sure how she was going to do. Since we ended the year on such a rocky note, I thought there was a pretty good chance she would have a hard time. Plus it just didn't work out to get together with many of her friends over the summer like I had hoped to. She was most excited to wear her new school clothes & shoes :-), but the rest she was not so sure about.

But when we got to school, she did great! She was so excited to see all her old classmates, and could hardly wait until it was time to go to class. (They had a looong intro period where the principal welcomed the students to a new year and then they called out the names of the students one by one. Yes, for the whole school! It is relatively a small place... but still) She barely looked back at me when it was time to follow her teacher up the stairs to her new classroom. So, I am praying that she has a good day, and a much better time starting off at the beginning with all the other students.

I am glad to have some free time today (!!) but it does feel a bit lonely around here! We had such a good summer together, Katie & I! :-)

These 2 pictures are the only ones that necessarily requires explanation... In the 1st one, she is saying "1st Day of School" with the silly girl slant. :-) The other one is her headed off up the stairs w/o a backward look (see the green backpack?).

A foreign city

Jason had a week-long business trip last week in Brussels. Since I've never been there and Katie has not yet started school, we decided to join him for the last part of the week.

Brussels is a beautiful city and we enjoyed our time there. It is, however, the most "foreign" city that I've explored on my own. In Dublin, they speak English; in Paris, I had been there before with Jason; but in Brussels, I really had no idea what I was doing :-). They speak French and Flemish in Brussels, and although many people speak English, not all do :-). The first day Katie & I sat at an outdoor cafe to have some lunch. The menu board was in French and I could tell from the little I did understand that there were several options available that we would NOT care for. So I was a little scared to just point and hope for the best :-). The only staff person outside did not even acknowledge us for several minutes and did not speak English besides. I asked for a menu and he brought me the wine list (for Katie?). I just didn't know what to do! Every time I tried, I was getting nowhere. So finally he realized the problem and brought out another waiter who spoke English. He was able to translate the menu and explain to me how it all worked. It was a bit of an awkward time getting there tho!



We also usually travel with a Frommer's guide book, but since this was more of an impromptu trip, we did not have a Frommer's guide for Brussels. I did look a little bit online at Frommers.com and had asked friends for suggestions on what to do while we were there. But I took for granted the "background" info that we usually get from Frommer's that I did not bother to read in their online version. Several times we took the LOOONG way to someplace that was actually only a block or two away. The map I had was pretty bad and got me way turned around several times. I wasn't sure what their "convenience stores" looked like when we just needed a bottle of water or a small snack. One afternoon we stopped at a bar/cafe for a glass of water and a snack b/c we couldn't figure out where else to go. There was no "snack" food on the menu - and the water bottles were $3 each. Just after we left the bar, I walked across the street and belatedly noticed a nice little store selling water for a mere $1 or so :-). But on 1st glance, it just hadn't looked like the kind of store that would sell water. And who knows what kind of a place is an appropriate one to ask for a public potty? Hmmmm.....

All this is NOT to say we did not have fun - we were very glad we went! It was fun getting to be with Jason even while he was on a business trip! And in our sometimes directionless wandering, we did stumble onto some fun things. We went to the Comic Strip Museum - apparently Belgians are very into comic strips! Tintin comes from Belgium (not that I'd ever heard of it... but apparently it is quite famous...) and the SMURFS do as well! They had a special Smurf exhibit at the museum - it was very fun to see & to show Katie since I grew up watching the Smurfs every Saturday morning. The Smurfs started as a comic strip in Belgium and only later migrated across the pond to American Saturday morning TV. I remember that my mom was never quite convinced of the benefit of us watching those particular cartoons, but we liked them :-).

Another fun "accident" was stumbling on a free concert in the park in front of the Royal Palace. Who knows who the band was or what they were singing about... but they were good :-). We also really enjoyed a science exhibit in the Royal Palace. Not sure why it was there, but it was fun. Katie especially enjoyed the part where you could make your own rocket out of paper and then blast it out of a air-pressured rocket to try to hit the target. Of course we also found a carousel - here is Katie blowing kisses as she rode past :-). Katie was such a good sport with my lack of preparation, so we had to do one or 2 super fun things just for her.

We very much enjoyed the food in Brussels - YUM! The 1st morning we set out, Katie & I had to have Belgian waffles for breakfast. We were undeterred when we discovered that it seems Belgians don't eat these for breakfast exactly... but we didn't let a little thing like chocolate sauce stop us from enjoying them for breakfast anyway :-). (hey, they do it at IHOP!) Katie actually only finished half of hers before she was a bit disgusted by all that sugar so early in the morning! :-) We also enjoyed mussels (haven't you heard of the Mussels from Brussels?), and some other yummy traditional Belgian food like green mashed potatoes with veggies called stoemp. The last night we ate on a super fun street where there were cafes on both sides of a very narrow cobblestone street. It was fun! And yes, we also enjoyed our fair share of fine Belgian chocolate :-).

I think primarily this experience increased my empathy: for Jason, since this is the sort of thing he deals with ALL the time in all sorts of countries; for Katie, who does not know what's going on around her most of the time when we're out; for other friends here who know little or no Spanish and feel like I did all the time. Mostly, it once again made me thankful we came here with as much Spanish as we did. We have language difficulties on a regular basis. But it could be much, much worse. This has been my main emotion since returning from Texas: just a deep gratitude that we have a life set up here that runs fairly smoothly and that we more and more are feeling at home. Thank you, Lord!