San Isidro (also known as the marching oboe post)

A few weeks ago, this appeared in our mailbox:

It was a species of the weekly governmental missive, the one that tells us about the wonders of our city (Alcobendas), assures us that the pinwheel graffiti doesn't mean we have active Nazi gangs, lists weekly events, features photos of our growing youth, and so forth. But what was on this particular cover? An absurdist can-can dancer? An advertisement for drinking, gambling, and androgynous PeeWee Herman lookalikes in high-water pants?

The words on the flyer didn't help; we didn't know most of them, and a trip to Google Translate-land was unhelpful: "The schottische in a tile, the rest, in all the track."

From what we could gather from the inside (more on that later), the flyer seemed to be announcing a 2-week festival named after San Isidro, the patron saint of Madrid. We took our friend the absurdist can-can dancers' friend, and attended many of the offerings. Here are some scenes. 


Part I: The Fair


This particular festival came with an old-fashioned carnival-type fair. We took all three kids over several nights, to mixed effects.


Seth's eyes were bigger than his stomach -- or so we infer from the fact that he'd beg excitedly to go on a kiddie ride, look worried when it started, crumple his face when it got going fast, then sob loudly until the burly carnival worker pulled him off.  The worst was the baby bumper car, where he seemed to forget that he controlled the actual car and almost ran himself off the road, weeping and wailing.


Nathan found his heaven in the form of a giant hamster wheel that turns on water:

And Nora got to drive the big-kid bumper cars. Don't have a picture of that one, but her face said "This is the BEST THING EVER. I'm SO DOING THIS when I'm a teenager!"  the whole ride.


Mommie and Daddy were intrigued by the civic culture on display -- not just lots-of-women-dressed-up-in-Flamenco-costumes, but hundreds of little stalls selling not tzotke, but instead, beer. Not in a bad way -- in fact, it looked like each beer stall was sponsored by a different civic organization, perhaps as a place for their members to hang out or a way to make money (or both). Robert Putnam, ditch Italy and study Spain; apparently, nobody bowls alone here.


Part II: Actual Saint's Day


One of the pleasures of living in Spain is that the Spanish have lots of holidays, and they take them seriously. And they take them wherever they fall -- there's none of this "move the day around to fit the corporate vacation schedule" kind of thing. So if the holiday happens to fall on a Tuesday, for instance, you're going to observe it on Tuesday. And Monday. Because there's a fondness for creating "puentes," or bridges, between mid-week holidays and the weekend.


In any case, San Isidro's day fell on a Tuesday. My sister (Carrie) and her boyfriend (Colin) had just arrived back in Madrid from their ramblings around Spain, so they were in the mood to be entertained. Actually, no wait -- Colin woke up quite sick and went to the ER with Jon. But that's another story.


So Carrie, the kids, and I went off in the morning to enjoy some park time in the cool of the day. Our friend the absurdist can-can dancer had also mentioned a parade at 11, so the plan was to make our way back from the park and enjoy the parade. Our friend the roulette-topped dancing can also noted that a) the parade would take place in the Piñar de San Isidro;  b) buses would be available, because there's no parking in this particular Piñar; and that c) following the parade, they'd be serving a local treat. A three-fer for the Starhills, who love treats, parades, and bus rides, in that order.  Jon googled Piñar de San Isidro, and to our delight, it's apparently this very large man-made hill that we overlook from our apartment. So we took the bus back from the park at 11:00 to find....nobody. Not a soul around. Definitely not a parade.


We walked back up toward the center of town, hoping to locate said parade. And as we came up onto Montes, there was a giant bus with about 100 senior citizens clamoring to get on. The sign on the bus said "Piñar de San Isidro," so we ran for the bus (me carrying Seth) and hopped on. 

The bus took the scenic tour of Alcobendas, then it took the scenic tour of the road to the airport, then it took the scenic tour through some actual farmland. I was starting to get nervous: on a bus with three kids, no idea where we're going, no food, 100 seniors and my sister (Carrie loves to chat up random seniors, which usually required intervention on my part, as her Spanish was sketchy). Plus I had a 1:00 meeting. Would we end up in Madrid? Carrie maintained that the parade was there. Would we end up deposited in the middle of nowhere? Possible, because that's where we were.  Would we end up a casino named San Isidro in Barcelona? Given the average age on the bus, I couldn't rule that out. 


As it turns out, it was option (B). The bus pulled over next to a farm, let everyone out, and we commenced following everyone up a very long dirt driveway to the Piñar, which turns out to be a picnic ground with lots of pine trees and a tiny little church. We arrived to find this in progress-- the town band, complete with marching oboe section:

Now for those of you who don't know, I played the oboe in high school (and a bit in college). I still have nightmares of breaking my reed on the music stand just moments before a solo, turning to my reed case, and finding only duds. A scarring experience, replayed a few times a year right before dawn. I imagine that marching with the oboe would only be more nerve-wracking. But perhaps there's been some new reed technology in the last 20 years. 


Following the oboe section were some folks dressed up and carrying various artifacts, including a statue of the baby Jesus.

They proceeded to the church, held a service, and served the treats. As a measure of how exhausted the Starhills were after all this, they actually declined the treat to go wait in line for the next bus home. In the line, predictably, Carrie charmed the 80+ crowd. 


So the lesson here, and this is an overarching lesson for our year in Spain, is that the unofficial motto of the place (and especially of our erstwhile guide, the absurdist dancing can) should be "Whatever happened last year, it'll happen that way again this year." There doesn't seem a need to do anything, for example, like provide directions or tell people exactly where events will occur, because most people here have been there/done that, and why waste the ink?


Part III: Children's theater


OK, I promise this one will be short. In the US, we've taken the kids to see a particularly excruciating children's band. The scenario goes something like this: seven young adults, dressed up as robots (or mice, or whatnot), playing too-loud rock music, elaborate set, some plot involving outer space. Jon and I have no idea how any of these adults make money off the show, given their numerosity and expensive sound equipment/set.


On a day that the big kids + Jon were out of town, I took Seth to a children's show here. The scenario went something like this: eight young adults, dressed up as rat robots from outer space (I kid you not), a trampoline (on which bounced a very buxom rat-robot), loud rock music, and plot involving the smelling of cheese. Which they did, admirably. 


Part IV:  Orchestra Blue


So after departing from the children's theater, Seth and I decided to wind our way home via the main drag in Alcobendas, which consists of a plaza outside of the Montes bakery. There, our little absurdist dancing can friend had promised that there's be "Orchestra Blue" performing at 8. So we pulled into the square, and it looked a lot like it does during the day -- seniors all lined up on the benches around the square, except they're all squished in because their wives are actually there too, rather than home cooking lunch. 


The orchestra starts playing. They look remarkably unlike an orchestra. In fact, they look like a rock band:

And in fact, their first song is a roots-rock American tune. 


The good citizens of Alcobendas sat still on their benches, impassively staring at the scene. I wondered what they'd do next. Continue to be polite but non-expressive? Ignore the band and start to talk about politics or futbol? Get up and wander off? Riot? 


Nope. They got up and danced:

The music did eventually turn to Spanish standards, which only encouraged more to come out.

So that's San Isidro, 2012. And the long-promised marching oboe section post. Next up: the Wildflowers of Spain. Don't laugh -- they're very, very beautiful. You'll see.

 

The Montes brothers

I walked into the store the other day, and all three were there. I took it as a sign from above and got them to pose for a picture.

 

Not the best picture, but I didn't want to push my luck. The one on the left (Antonio) is one who seems to be in charge of the shop. The brother who has a habit of arguing with the seniors is on the right.

Notable

We are winding down the school year as well as our stay here. Jon and I are both in denial -- I convinced him that we could easily pack and clean the entire apartment the day before we leave, so that we don't have to disturb our otherwise perfect lifestyle with suitcases and the like. I STILL owe our loyal readers (i.e., the grandparents) a long story about the local marching oboe section. However, before getting to that, here's some more scattered thoughts about our last couple weeks/last week here. Sort of organized by theme....

Things I am proud of:

- I managed to memorize neither my cell phone number nor my home number this year. Little slips of paper with these things written on them = wave of the future.

- Our kids speak Hebrew with a Spanish accent

- Our kids speak Spanish. It is like a miracle to me, I swear, every time I hear them chattering on with their friends. Seth can't conjugate a verb to save his life and has a Texas accent, but he can at least get by and the other two are regular locals. Our Spanish friends have in fact gleefully commented "No accent!" about the older ones. Which I take to mean "Not only no American accent, but none of that terrible South American accent either!"

Part of the miracle is that our kids now know how to do something that we have had very little hand in teaching them, and they are in fact far better at speaking/reading Spanish than either Jon or I. I feel lucky to have reached this point so early on in our kids' lives.


Things I will miss
- Montes bread. And the occasional verbal brawling that take place between the owners and clientele.

- Being able to order beer with breakfast. Not that I do, but it's just strange to me that neither Dunkin Donuts nor Starbuck's has beer on tap. All the similar institutions in Alcobendas do.

- Loooonnng social gatherings. Some friends organized a picnic for us a couple weekends ago, and it was just a lovely day -- feed kids, watch them play in mud, sit in shade, talk, eat, talk some more. No wonder Americans never feel like they never get a chance to know people -- we don't spend enough time together doing nothing.

- The generous and wonderful Jewish school community. Especially upon leaving, it's become even more clear that we've been so lucky this year to land in a fabulous school, one where everyone (teachers, aides, office staff, principal, parents) have been so kind and thoughtful toward our family and children. Just as an example, Nora was sick for 4 days last week, and she received numerous emails and phone calls from friends and teachers. There's also been many parties and presents for kids leaving the school, which is very touching.

- We've also been impressed by the quality of instruction at the school. There's nothing like reading the Torah (or listening to oral stories) to get your kids thinking and talking (and occasionally debating) about important issues. The math, as well, has been particularly strong -- Nora's book is well-designed, conceptually grounded, and even (I think) challenging for her, in terms of requiring some out-of-the-box thinking. Nathan has flourished as well, we think because the teachers have seen that he's far ahead in some subjects (especially math, where he occasionally likes to try Nora's homework) and met him where he's at.

Miscellaneous

- Seth can't seem to keep his girlfriend straight. There's a few blonde preschoolers at the pool, so it's easy to see how difficult a task this would be for a 3-year-old. Carolina, the object of his affection last Friday, appeared at the pool a few days later. Jon pointed her out but Seth shrugged, commenting "That's not Carolina, that's Olivia." Carolina speaks Spanish and Olivia speaks French, so they're kind of hard to confuse, but oh well.  Seth went back to playing with the boys, ignoring Carolina even when she came over to talk to him. Maybe this is how he's chosen to mend his broken heart (see last Seth-related post).

- So upon hearing some friends talk about scheduling something for the "afternoon" -- and it being already 3:00 PM, I finally inquired about what constitutes morning and afternoon here in Madrid. Morning = before 2; afternoon = what my parents could call a Late Dinner -- perhaps 6 PM.

- We have a new observation to place in the sociological/phenomenological category titled "Why plan ahead?" School lets out on a Wednesday--tomorrow, in fact. Our kids have after-school sports on Wednesdays. For weeks, we asked the kids' after school teachers what the last day of after-school would be, and for weeks, they replied "The last day of school, of course." Last week I thought I'd give it one more shot, and asked the director whether we'd have class on the last day of school. Here's what transpired:

Me: Do we have class next week?
Andy: Of course!
Me: But it's the last....
Andy: Oh wait. Wait here.
[Goes into office, comes out 5 minutes later]
Andy: No after-school sports next week

This was decided, by the way, AFTER Seth and Nora's classes had let out. So there was no proper picture-taking or whatnot [though Nathan got one done for his class].

- In a similar vein, we got the graduation notice about 2 weeks ago. Just a note saying there'd be graduation, where it would be held, and that's pretty much it. Jon went up and engaged in extensive intelligence-gathering ("are we supposed to come?" "What goes on at these things?"), which led to the conclusion that the whole school is supposed to show up at said graduation. If we'd been better at writing on the blog this year, there'd be a whole entry on city- or school-based social events organized on the premise that "things are the same this year as they were last year, so we're not providing details because you should already know." This seems to be a common occurrence here. 

- As an aside, a few days ago the graduation time was actually moved to a bit earlier -- Spain is playing in the semi-finals of the EuroCopa, can't have anyone missing that.

- Speaking of the EuroCopa, I mostly haven't been watching the broadcast, but can always tell when Spain scores, because for a few minutes it sounds like I'm sitting in the middle of a soccer stadium. A loud cheer rises in unison from the city, followed by honking horns, hollering, fireworks. Why pay the big bucks for a ticket when you can watch on your large-screen TV and get pretty much the total experience at home?

Town band

So it's 9:30 pm, and I'm sitting in bed after a loong Saturday with the kids. Thinking about going to bed early. When out of the blue, I hear (we all hear) booming song, apparently coming from the nearby park.

We rush to the windows but can see nothing, because the other part of our ubanizacion is in the way. Nora conjectures that some folks are singing the Eliyahu, but Jon notes that it's pretty unlikely that there's a group of Jews gathered in a Madrid park for Havdalah services.

So I venture out and here's what's going on:

No, that man second from the left isn't wearing a kippah, that's just a reflection of light off the iPhone lens. No, this is actually the town band, with a chorus backing them up. I can tell because we've seen this conductor with his flock at every parade in Alcobendas (by the way, I owe you all some pictures of the marching oboe section).

Sound check was at 9:30. Concert started at 10. Here's part of the song that Nora thought was the Eliyahu -- I'm sure Nana can ID it for everyone who's interested. Some American composer, no doubt.

The pool is open!

Our urbanizacion's pool opened yesterday, much to the delight and excitement of the kids of the complex. We went down around 5, and by 5:30, the place was teeming with the under-10 set. Major happiness.

In particular, one of our children was especially thrilled:

Seth has a girlfriend. Her name is Carolina.

He spent the whole evening making googly eyes at her, playing with her, mooning around after her when she went to visit her parents, and teaching her how to use his toy squirter (in Spanish!). Here they are in the pool:

 At one point, they joined hands and promenaded down the entire length of the pool deck, stopping only briefly to grapple for a toy like the preschoolers they are. Once that spat was resolved, they continued their stroll:

When it came time to leave, Seth asked me whether he could hug Carolina (yes), then asked Carolina's mother whether he could hug her (yes) and then asked Carolina. That didn't go so well:

The good news is that Seth has a couple more weeks of pool dates to try to convince her for that hug.

In other news, Nora looks better in my glasses than I do:

Nathan was recently Harry Potter in the school play:

We have discovered a giant species of dandelion here in Madrid:

I'm sure our neighbors are hoping those seeds don't sneak across the Atlantic.

Fitting in

Not enough time to write -- we are getting ready to leave, which means the to-do list is mission critical. Throw in some travel and computer problems, and that's pretty much all the time I have. But here's a few thoughts on fitting in, after almost a year in Spain.

1) So at some point this spring, boys of Nathan’s age started carrying around futbol (soccer) cards from the Spanish, and more recently, European Cup leagues. It turns out that when these cards are stacked to 2-3 inches high, they act like magnets. Nathan will be walking along from school, pass a boy with such a stack, and the next thing you know the two are nose to nose, stack to stack, flipping through their decks like experienced Wall Street bond traders trying to close a deal.

The problem is that Nathan is an innocent. There have been many weekends when he opens a pack of cards at the store, screams with joy (“I got a SuperCrack for Ronaldo!”) and proceeds to crow about it all day. Then Monday comes, and he comes home from school sans Ronaldo—and all of his other good cards. This has been repeated for weeks on end.

There’s other disadvantages to the trading scene at school. There have been rogue traders, boys who take a great card and promise  to get “the card I left at home," and then don’t deliver. Then there’s the Federal-Reserve-type kids, who are willing to let their friends see their stash but don’t trade.

Mommie’s opinion about this situation has been that such experiences will give Nathan a deep and authentic understanding of the free market. Through such deep and authentic understanding, he will learn better how to operate in the real-world context. Daddy’s opinion has been that Nathan is losing all his good cards. Finally, while Mommie was gone on a business trip, Daddy broke down and provided direct instruction on how to keep the cards that are important, and trade up the chaff. We’ll see whether the direct approach means the Balon de Oro he got last night is intact later today.

2) Spanish word of the day: Ladron (thief)

So some of you may remember that Seth has a fondness for the caps on magic markers. He has spent a lot of this year spiriting them out of his classroom in his coat pockets, often adding comments like “Reina (his teacher) got two of them, but she didn’t get this one.” Now, perhaps because his teachers are searching the pockets more thoroughly, here’s what transpired today.

Seth walks out of the school, all sunny and happy to see Daddy as usual. When he gets past the perimeter of the teacher surveillance area, he reaches into his SOCKS and pulls out two marker caps. And some playdough. 

Unfortunately, Seth has no special love for the marker caps (or playdough) when he gets home – which means he’s not motivated by love of the object itself. Instead, it seems to be the thrill of the steal that drives his behavior. In 15 years, he’ll be the guy taking the SAT for every rich kid in town.  

3) So after almost a year here, we think we have finally figured out how to relax, Spanish-style. This was all sparked by a weekend daytrip down to our friends in Aranjuez*** which, to these Americans at least, was pretty much the height of social perfection. We met our friends and some of their friends, then played in a park*, saw a kids’ puppet show about starving kids in Africa**, played some more, went for a long lunch while the kids played soccer, went for coffee in a park while the kids played soccer and Uno, and then went to a street fair to collect dinner and see the fire-stoking iron man (let’s just say on this topic that there was iron in several senses of the word). Total elapsed time: 10 hours.

So this, in the 40-something American experience, is totally unheard of. We’re lucky to schedule an hour coffee date with a friend, much less spend a couple hours at their house for dinner. In fact, 40-something Americans may be somewhat freaked out by the idea of spending that much time in one social location. But here it’s actually pretty common (as far as we can tell), and there’s a lot to recommend it: when your kids are bugging you, it’s not like you need to choose between tending to your kids and talking to your friends, because you can do both. The combination of several families means there’s big kids and little kids, and they all play together, mostly nicely, leaving adults to conversation. Conversation is interesting because, well, you’re in España and people have interesting things to say. And best of all, this feeling of “I’m really doing nothing except enjoying the day” comes over you, which is pretty unheard of in 40-something America. And highly recommended.

Jon and I have discussed whether we could potentially import this custom back to Boston -- and I think the answer is no. Even if we were willing, there'd be a shortage, no doubt, of friends willing/able to wander around Arlington/Cambridge with us on account of everyone's crazy weekend schedule. Another reason to come back.

* The only downside to the day was that our friends’ daughter fell off the swings at said park and broke her collarbone – in two places. She wept a bit at the park, went to the ER, and came back pretty much her normal self – happy, smiling, and asking whether the 3-week ban on sports included playing goalie (her Mom: Yes, that includes goalie.). She didn’t complain once, which is either a tremendous personal accomplishment for elementary schooler, or a cultural difference, or both. If our kids (well, some of our kids, anyway) broke a bone, we’d be hearing about it for years afterwards.

** Mommie napped during the puppet show. Even better. 

*** Aranjuez is a kind of Spanish Ann Arbor -- college town, adorable and vibrant downtown, restaurants, good public transportation. Oh, and a royal summer palace.  With peacocks, whose name translates from Spanish as "Royal Turkeys."

Congrats, Noah!

In honor of cousin Noah's high school graduation.... Congratulations, Noah!

Getting wacky

From Nora, Nathan, and Seth: Mommie went on a trip today and so things started to get a bit wacky at home! We documented the craziness using an app on Dad's iPhone. These pictures make us giggle!

Our Roman Holiday

It has been a very long time since I blogged. While last semester felt like a sabbatical for me, the past few months have been enjoyable but more ‘normal’ feeling in terms of work – which means it has felt busy.

A big highlight of the past few weeks was our trip to Rome. Just as Nora, Nathan, and I went to Paris to celebrate Nora’s birthday in November, we decided to go to Rome (the city of 7 hills) to celebrate Nathan’s 7th birthday.

The kids’ primary goal was to eat gelato 7 times and to eat in 7 different restaurants – both of which were quite challenging since we were only there for 3 full days (and 4 nights). We only had gelato 6 times – two of which at a place near the Pantheon called Della Palma Gelateria that was truly amazing. We also had tartufo twice, including once here. 

Because we were in Rome over a holiday (Tues May 1), we weren’t able to see some of the more famous (adult) sites of the city. We didn’t go to any museums (many were closed for the holiday). For the days that we were in Rome, the Vatican museum was only open on Sunday, and it was mobbed. But luckily Rome is so full of outdoor sites that we had plenty to do.

We had a fun visit to the Bocca della Verita 

as well as the usual sites of the Colosseum, the Forum (where we pretended to be conquering victorious Romans - see below), Pantheon, the fountains, and the Spanish Steps. The kids liked a movie that we saw about ancient Rome called the Time Machine. And there was even a church that they liked, Santa Maria della Concezione, where the crypt rooms are decorated with the bones of thousands of monks – kind of macabre but very interesting. Nora and Nathan also went with me to to visit several other churches, to see Caravaggio works. And we had a nice visit at the main synagogue of Rome, which is built on the site of the old Roman Jewish ghetto.

We ate some amazing pizza. Our favorite was the square thick crust pizza that you can get just about everywhere.

Overall, it was a very fun trip and hopefully one that both Nora and Nathan will remember!

A few random thoughts

So it's time for a few random thoughts. Forgive me if I've covered any of this territory before -- I'm not good about keeping track of old blog entries.

More on the 10K race this past Sunday:

1. At a certain point while everyone was lining up, I realized I felt terribly, terribly inadequate. Was it the fact that I was surrounded by completely fit, muscular runners, many of whom had just spent the last 15 minutes "warming up" by doing sprints up and down a hill? Or the fact that I had really no idea what to do, this being my first race and also me not understanding so much Spanish? No to both. The inadequacy in fact stemmed from the fact that our bibs listed our names. And I had, on average, two fewer names than most Spaniards in the race. What's a measly "Heather Hill" when you're surrounded by people named "Jose Ignacio Wert Ortega" or "Alfonso Gonzalez Hermoso de Mendoza?"

2. While out and about running during the day, I rarely see women. It's maybe a 10-1 ratio, men to women. But somehow, over 75 women show up for this race. Where are all these women training? And why don't women run for exercise on the streets? Or just run for exercise more generally here? In the US, running seems fairly evenly split by gender.

3. Spanish race spectators are a little more, shall we say, "encouraging" than American race spectator (or at least, Americans as I imagine/remember them). Cheering mainly takes the form of "vamanos!"  or "Anime!" As far as I can tell,  both mean "get moving!"

 Weather-related comments:

1. I finally have figured out the weather in Spain -- and it goes something like this: What you see today, you'll see tomorrow, and all this week, and perhaps all month. Bad weather seems to come in spurts; April was a cold, wet, windy month. All of it. February was horrendously windy and cold. The whole thing. Good weather similarly comes in spurts; late February-March was lovely (not usual to see people sunbathing beside the pool, which was a shock on February 28). And May is shaping up to be hot.

2. This consistent weather probably explains the almost total lack of Spanish weather technology. On some days back in April, you could kind of see on the regional radar that it's raining somewhere in your section of Madrid.  But often, it's raining and the radar claims it isn't, or it isn't raining and the radar claims it is. And the technology is fairly crude -- no street-level radar, or even names of towns on the map.

3. Spring came super-early here; we saw our first blooming trees in late February, and now (early May) we're heavily into wildflowers, honeysuckle, and very very green trees.

4. It's been fun to feel the return of hot weather. The strategizing about how to get from point A to point B while staying in the shade as much as possible; the sweet smell in the air in the mornings; the cool breeze in the afternoon. I've also been very thankful, as I was last summer, that our apartment is somehow designed to stay very cool, even on hot days.

New additions to our household:

1. So one of the French boys calls upstairs during dinner on Sunday. I couldn't really understand what he was saying, and neither could Nora, so she went downstairs to see what was up. And she returned, 10 minutes later, with a shoebox filled with silkworms (gusanos de ceda). I was a little surprised to be in sudden receipt of a box of worms, especially since my guess was that they require care and feeding (and thus violate my edict "no new living things in the Starhill household.") I ran into the French mom the next morning, who gave me the scoop on where to forage for mulberry leaves, and ever since we've been enjoying feeding the little things over breakfast. The mulberry tree, however, has seen better days -- it looks like it's food for several families' worth of silkworms.

2. Barn swallows have taken up residence either in our complex or nearby. They're not technically new additions to the household, but they do make the courtyard look like the fight scenes from Star Wars most mornings. 

Running

Our sabbatical is drawing to a close, which means Jon and I are starting to assess what we’ve accomplished this year, and what we hope to continue learning and doing when we arrive back in the US. When I started this year, I had a few goals: improve my Spanish, learn Spanish for elementary mathematics, relax, not work nights, write a novel, vanquish my to-do list once and for all.

As you’re probably guessing by now, most of these didn’t come to pass. I did improve my Spanish, but never got off the couch to find a school that would help me observe/learn elementary mathematics lingo (though Nora’s math-related fits of ire have helped a ton). Jon will corroborate that the relaxing mostly didn’t occur, and given the time differential between the US, it ended up that we frequently had either meetings or played email catch-up between 9-11 PM.

However, this year had one unexpected benefit: I became a runner.

I actually began this year thinking that I already was a runner. I ran between three and four times a week in Arlington, usually about 3 miles a pop. [As Arlingtonians will attest, too, it was up and down a loooonnnggg hill].  I didn’t really come here planning on becoming better at running, but one day, while trying to avoid work and curious about why my friends all seem to be running marathons, I visited a runners’ training website.

What I discovered there is that I wasn’t a runner at all. The site seemed to suggest that unless you’re running 16 miles a week, you’re “below beginner” – meaning (horrors) a jogger. Being a jogger is so 70s. And the name is so suggestive of slogging – “a slogger” --  not exactly glamorous. The website suggested that 16 miles a week was the minimum respectable distance to be called a runner, and 25 put you at the basic level.

I didn’t read much more, figuring that I was pretty happy with whatever it was I was doing (slogging) and I’ve never had any sort of ambition in the area of marathoning or whatnot. But by two months later, I was running 25 miles a week. And really, really enjoying it.    

As a bonus, I also spent most of the year changing from a heel-strike running style to a ball-of-foot-strike running style. According to the New York Times, which writes obsessively about running style every 2-3 weeks, the ball strike will protect me from bad knees over the next 20 years or so.

So the capstone to this story is that the kids came home one day brimming with news: there’s a 10K in Alcobendas, and they’d decided that I should enter it. And I did. My time: 54:45.   

Benzi's visit

So in Seth’s classroom, there is a tradition called Kabbalat Shabbat. On each Kabbalat Shabbat, a parent or pair of parents comes in to help celebrate Shabbat. The child gets to sit at the Shabbat table, dole out Shabbat implements, and help light the candles/say the blessing.

One of the bonuses of Kabbalat Shabbat is that the star of the show also gets to bring home a stuffed animal named Benzi, a giant turtle born Israel and thus who speaks only Hebrew. The goal (other than speaking Hebrew at home) is for the child/parent pair to document Benzi doing Jewish things around the house during the weekend – lighting the candles, for instance, or saying nightly prayers. Benzi travels with a book in which different families have documented Benzi’s activities; so far this year, Benzi’s been to the park 21 times, slept with the star of the show 19 times, been strapped into a carseat for travel twice (very clever!) and visited the zoo once.

This blog post explains what Benzi did on his weekend with us. I didn’t think other parents would want to really know about these activities, so I’m posting them here, just so there’s a permanent, non-sanitized record of Benzi’s activities.

First Benzi comforted Seth while he suffered from a 102 degree fever:

 Next, Benzi snuggled with Nathan while he got his hair lice-picked:

Then Benzi commiserated with Nana over her "motion sickness" (note Delta airsick bag). 

     

The best part: on our way out the door from Kabbalat Shabbat, Seth’s teacher warned us of something along the lines of “Benzi no se ducha” – or “Benzi can’t take a shower.” So I’m assuming that Benzi’s weekend activities in our house will soon be bringing joy to other children in Seth’s class.

Some additional notes

Nora did a pretty good job of describing our European vacation, but I thought I’d add a few extra notes as well.

- The best way to travel with children is to travel with other people’s children (and their parents) as well. You not only score some friends for yourself, you also have friends for your kids – who will keep them occupied and happy by playing either competitive or collaborative fantasy games. Or just soccer, if you’re Nathan.

- Hearts is a wonderful game. Especially when played with good friends.

- Venice: better than I expected. I’m not really a city gal, but Venice is beautiful and also interesting. Loved the Grand Canal, in particular the UPS and FedEx boats, and the trash boats. Not as enamored of the endless tchotchke shops.

- We stayed in a lovely old / renovated villa in Stra, a city about an hour by smelly bus outside Venice. The villa was large and recently renovated, with a luxurious foam-mattress bed in the master BR. The downside: its recent renovation was somewhat underpowered/unfinished, shall we say. Ants, blown fuses, a crabby dishwasher. Even the clothes dryer, which made Jon so happy upon first seeing it (a clothes dryer in Europe!) didn’t function. With all the decrepitude, it was like vacationing in our own home.

- As Nora noted, the girls in the party slept together on a four-poster, canopied bed. Nathan made himself a little nest on the floor nearby, and happily passed the week sleeping on a 2-inch foam mattress. Like father like son. Poor Seth was relegated back to a crib (it was the remaining bed in the place) and promptly protested by waking before 7 every day of the trip.

- We traveled up to Asolo, where Jon and I honeymooned a decade ago. Nora made us proud by reading aloud the Hebrew tablets embedded in the exterior of the main square -- a memorial to a small community of Jews that lived there in the sixteenth century.

- After 25 years of searching, I finally found a cathedral to my liking: Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The exterior is a mish-mash of styles, though to be hideous by many architects but IMHO, brilliantly brings together a thousand years of Cathedral-building culture. The inside is very simple and geometric. Think the palace from the Wizard of Oz. For a shot of its awesome ceiling, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sagrada_Familia_nave_roof_detail.jpg

Finally, a note on lodging for a “familia numerosa” while on European vacations. With three kids, most hotels won’t let you stay in one room; Residence Inn-type facilities, which often have 2-bedroom suites, are also not common and if found, will cost you all your Marriott points and then some. So we’ve taken to going the vacation-rental-by-owner route. Here’s my observation:

-- Best case: a vacation home owned by the almost-wealthy and advertised on VRBO or homeaway.com. Because the owners themselves stay in it, it’ll be renovated nicely, the beds will be comfortable, and the kitchen will be well-equipped.

-- Worst case: Friendly Rentals, which owns apartments all over Europe. Two strikes and they’re out—the first time a moldy apartment in Lisbon, this time a slightly more acceptable but still downtrodden apartment in Barcelona. Think badly installed fake wood floors, gently coated in grime. The entire apartments in both Lisbon and Barcelona were furnished by IKEA, including in both places a bed named “Hanestad” which is Swedish for “even harder than granite.”

Onward to pruning my neglected in-box. Sorry if you’ve got something stuck in there--I'll get back to you soon.

Nora's trip diary

It’s been another perfect (well, almost) week-and-a-half. First we went to Venice where we had lots of fun, including being with friends who came from the US. Also we went to lots of fun places including going in a labyrinth, having lots of pizza and pasta and most yummiest of all GELATO! Let me introduce you to my favorite kind, Straciatela. Straciatela is a flavor of gelato with chunks of Oreo. They didn’t have Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough so I went with Straciatela.

One of the funniest things was when Uncle Kevin didn’t know how to put the car in reverse and Aunt Libby had to push the car. Another fun part was sleeping with Charlotte.

The first pizza restaurant we went to the pizza was watery! Gross rating: 10. The other most grossest thing in the world was we were in a town called Asolo and a few people had to go to the bathroom. So we looked for one and eventually we found one. We looked inside and guess what? There weren’t even toilets, there were foot prints for you to put your feet in and just go to the bathroom. Gross factor:100,000,000!! But of course, we (the girls) didn’t go there. We went in a restaurant. But SOME boys didn’t.

Asolo was cool. It also had a castle where we had to walk up ummmm….I’d say about 2,000 steps!

We also went to Murano, one of Venice’s Outer Islands. Murano is famous for making glass and we watched a demonstration on how to do it. We walked around and bought a little glass to take home. Charlotte got me a little glass candy (so cool, so awesome, and cute!). Earlier in the trip I bought her and me a sparkly hat. We also had a seder with them, which went very well. For Afikomen prized, I got a glass heart necklace and one more class candy.

In our almost perfect weekend we also went to Barcelona for half a week. Mostly we went on the tour bus. One huge sight was the Sagrada Familia, which is a Gaudi-designed modern church that isn’t finished even though they’ve been working on it for over 100 years. We had an awesome weekend. We just went to pick up my grandparents (Bebe and Grandoc) and suddenly ding-a-ling-a-ling, and out came 3 fire trucks emerging from the fire station. So cool! So we walked home and opened presents. Mine was a necklace with a Jewish star. It’s so pretty. I’m really looking forward to going back to school.

Strike!

The Spanish don't exactly have a reputation for hard work, or so we've been told. We've found this to be not so based in fact; see our earlier posts about the looonng Spanish work day--and add that to the fact that most Spaniards we know (especially the bread brothers) work incredibly hard. But in any case, the reputation persists.

Based on this reputation, we'd thought that today's general strike would lead to Spaniards taking the day to kick back and enjoy life, mingle in public space, and protest a little bit. But in fact, today carried on pretty much like any other day, except with fewer buses. Metro? Running. Schools? Open. Businesses? Open. Shops? Most open. City services like pooper scooping? Still scooping. Construction sites? Working, although with tighter security than usual. The biggest effect (at least as of noon today) seems to be lots of police overtime.

The strike is partially over changes in labor laws, but also no doubt reflects frustration over Spain's unemployment rate, which is nearly 23%. Other than an incredible number of vacant office buildings and apartments, we don't really see that where we live -- it feels very safe, peaceable, and you generally don't see folks under the age of 65 walking around during the day. Still, nearly one in four out of work is an incredible number, and it's fairly amazing that Spanish society seems to have adapted with minimal disruption. Not sure we'd be so lucky in the U.S.

Space and toys

Americans, they need a lot of space. For instance, in the US we live in 2400-square-foot house, on the large side for Arlington but not on the large side for other American communities. When we were house-hunting in 2007, it became apparent that most newer houses were of this size or larger. One reason seems to be the American necessity to have specific spaces for specific purposes: a living room for entertaining, a family room for the TV, a romper room for the kids to keep their toys in. Americans are also fans, obviously, of huge kitchens and bathrooms, separate dining spaces (usually 2 per household, for “entertaining” and “where your kids eat their meals and thus the floor is gross”).

So when we moved to Madrid last summer, we were wondering how we’d do as a “familia numerosa” (=three kids) in a standard 1000-square foot apartment. Now that it’s March, I feel like I can pretty much say that the answer is that we’ve barely noticed. The biggest ongoing issue has been the kitchen, which is really a bit too small for two parents to be cleaning up or making a meal at the same time. It’s definitely too small for two parents to be making a meal, one child to be writing a blog post, and drying laundry at the same time:

There's also a slight issue when we arrive home from school and all three children announce that they desperately need to go potty at the same time. 3 > 2(bathrooms), so this presents obvious logistical difficulties (as well as dickering about who spends too much time going pooh).

But other than that, we’ve adapted. For instance, it turns out that the kids don’t need big bedrooms. Either they don’t spend a lot of time there, or they spend their time sitting on their beds reading and playing. And other spaces we have are used for multiple purposes. For instance, the main room is used for entertaining, TV-watching, as a study by Heather during the day. It also holds the dining room table, which is used as a craft table, homework spot, and for all meals (note that in Arlington, we had 3 separate spaces for these tasks: a craft table, breakfast bar, and dining room table). And that was considered “downsizing” from a house in Michigan where we had an eat-in kitchen!

It turns out that the same principle is true for toys. In Arlington (and before that, in Michigan), we had rooms devoted to holding the kids’ toys. And we had a lot of toys. Two closets, three toy baskets, two bookcases, a crawl space stuffed with outdoor toys, and miscellaneous piles heaped about the house. Here we have two bookshelves + two bedside tables full—and yet the kids seem about as likely to report “I’m bored” here as when in Arlington. Part of it is that we’ve spent a lot of time outside. But another part is just that the kids seem quite content to play for long periods of time with the toys we do have – snap cubes, games, money from around the world, playdoh, and drawing have all been big favorites this year.

Other than occasionally longing to not near my kids snoring at night (our bedrooms abut one another), I think we could probably stay like this indefinitely. A smaller house is definitely easier to keep clean, and isn't all that much worse in terms of standard of living.

[Let’s see if Jon adds a comment on this one. Not sure he's as enamored of the situation.]