In the in-box

We have made it onto the list of a Madrid synagogue. Every couple days we get an email that looks like this:

Interesting to have to use our barely-serviceable Spanish to help guess the meaning of Hebrew words (and vice versa).  

Starhills navigate buses, part XXXIIV

So you’d think that after living here a year (2011-2012), we’d have mastered the bus systems.  If you search far enough back in the blog, there’s an entry around October 2011 about our travails trying to do simple errands - often just get a mile or two from home.  By the end of that year, we’d figured out how to get to point A to point B – mainly by actually walking from point A to point B first, and then seeing which buses went along the route.

This year, things started off auspiciously – after some searching of the nooks and crannies of one of the bus companies' websites, Jon discovered an app that not only listed the next buses for any given stop but also (shockingly!) overlaid the bus routes onto an actual Google map. Score one for the Starhills. Except the app doesn’t work. As in, it often claims there’s no bus arrival data available for a given stop, even as an actual bus glides silently by (electric hybrid, very quiet).

So Nora and I were thrilled upon setting off on yesterday’s shopping adventure (Nora: new fleece; Mommie: new shoes) to see that the app had bus arrival data, and in fact a bus to the shopping center was to leave soon from near our house. Except when we queried the bus driver, he denied that the bus stopped at the shopping mall. As did the next bus driver. Then the app, right before it crashed the iPhone and locked me out for the remainder of the day, told us that a bus we KNOW stops at the shopping mall was coming in 17 minutes. So Nora and I started meandering up the street, intending to get to the next stop to catch that bus – and within five minutes, the bus passed us right by. We walked to the mall.

Things went downhill on the return trip. After waiting at the mall stop for a few minutes, Cousin of Bus That Passed Us By comes along, and we get on. We’d checked the physical bus schedule on the bus shelter, and confirmed that at least hypothetically, Cousin stops in Alcobendas. Except it didn’t. Apparently, there are three different types of Cousins. Cousin A goes to our apartment, Cousin B goes to our apartment but with a slight detour, and Cousin C goes directly to Madrid. We were on Type C.

The upside is that for four extra Euros, we got to see a spectacular sunset over the sierras. And, unlike my past adventures on the local bus system, it wasn’t impossible to understand the bus drivers – mostly because they were telling me simply “no.”

Our kitchen counter, any given day

That's olive oil (tournament still in progress), Montes' crusty bread, chocolate, and wine. Halfway decent IKEA knife on the right.

Things we didn’t realize we missed about Spain*

1. The smell; sweeter air.

2. The local park sounding like school just got out at 10:30 PM on weekend (and some week) nights. Yes, that means hoards of 2-year-olds, out playing in the dark.

3. Hanging the laundry out on the folding rack (Heather only)

4. Coming back in a couple hours and finding that laundry dry (it’s hot and dry here)

5. Better women’s clothes (Heather and Nora)

6. Managing to have a conversation in a different language (Heather and Jon only)

7. Hearing three languages spoken (yelled) by the kids at the pool

8. Having a pool

9. Getting the chills after taking a dip in 99-degree weather (a function of low humidity)

10. The view from the kids’ school:

(mountains more impressive in person)

11. The wild cats that populate Alcobendas

12. Watching west coast baseball games live at breakfast

13. Having friends RIGHT HERE that you can go out and play with without making a play date (Nathan and Nora)

14. More free time (Nathan)

15. "People always think of you as the American person and are easier on you" (Nathan)

16. An apartment small enough that I can clean it in an hour** (Heather)

 * This list is separate from the things we knew we missed about Spain, like our friends, our Madrid cousins:

the olive oil, rioja, weather, kids' school, time with family, and Montes bread.

** With the help of disgruntled children

This is Heather, horning in on the olive oil fun. Background: for those of you who aren't on facebook and don't see my yearly post, each winter we buy either 8 or 16 unique kinds of dark chocolate (thanks, Whole Foods), Nathan creates brackets, and then we have nightly matches between two different varietals. Taza chocolate (Somerville) almost always wins thanks to a 4-1 majority for Mexican chocolate in the house, but the runner-up is always Whole Foods-brand chocolate, usually from Tanzania or Costa Rica. 

In any case, the giant wall of olive oil at the local grocery store...

...inspired Nathan to come up with the idea of an olive oil tournament. In the US, the olive oil section of the store contains usually two different processing methods (virgin, extra virgen) multiplied by location (Greece, Italy, Spain). Here, it's olive oil as far as the eye can see, with different price points (around 4-6 euro for glass bottles, less for plastic) processing methods (virgin, extra virgin), regions of origin (all Spanish, of course, but many different parts of Spain), and types of olive (at least 3-4).  Which, as you can see, results in a whole lot of olive oil choices.

This complexity suggests a tournament structure more sophisticated than the "a v. b, winner advances" bracket system we've used for chocolate. Stay tuned - Nathan is at work on it.

The Olive Oil Chronicles

Sept 2 edition

In the spirit of our family's dark chocolate tournaments, Nathan and Dad and going to try to keep track of our adventures in olive oil. Photo credits go to Nathan. Welcome to the Olive Oil Chronicles - picture above used without permission. 

There are many (easily 20 or 30) different kinds of inexpensive but excellent Spanish olive oil - about $5 per liter - and we are going to try many of them. Look for a picture of the olive oil wall in a future post. But  today's battle pits Ybarra extra virgin vs. Borges arbequina extra virgin.

The Borges was considered by our tasters to be a pleasant and refreshing olive oil. It is quite mild, with a silky and smooth taste that is very olive-y but without bitterness. Very good for dipping bread into, and also good for cooking. If you note at the bottom of the front of the bottle, you can see that this olive oil rates one drop out of three in terms of "intensidad." It is also "suave y afrutado", which means mild and fruity. So a good choice as a basic mild olive oil. 

The Ybarra was very different, in that it is not suave/mild at all. The initial taste of this olive oil is quite bitter, and then after a few seconds the taste is very peppery and spicy. Jon thought it was really good, although on the edge of being too bitter. Other family members thought it might be too spicy for them. Since this is the beginning of our systematic study of olive oils, we don't have a good sense of whether this Ybarra will be among the spiciest that we taste or somewhere in the middle. But stay tuned to find out.

Cyprus travelblog

We’re just back from Cyprus, where we….

1. Visited with our friend Charalambos Charalambous (hereafter, CC). Not just visited with, were thoroughly hosted by CC –

1. In numerous trips around the island to see Greek and Roman ruins, Aphrodite’s birthplace, the mountains, and the capital, Nicosea.
2. At his parents’ house for a wonderful dinner. Where Seth discovered the Mediterranean grandmother he never had – Charalambos’ mother couldn’t keep her hands off him, and Seth reciprocated by basking in the attention and even giving her a snuggle.
3. At a wonderful tavern in the mountains where we ate, and ate, and ate…. 

2. Managed to get some work in (CC and HCH)

3.  Visited the occupied side (North Cyprus to the Turkish) of Nicosea with Jon’s friend Cigdem, who flew in from Ankara to see us. We had lunch in the Büyük Han, a medieval hotel/dining establishment and then saw the Selimiye Mosque/Saint Sophie Cathedral – spectacular and fascinating (see left).

Incidentally, there was recently an interesting NYT story about a nearby town similarly divided:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/01/world/europe/cyprus-varosha-reunification.html

4. Managed to survive 100-degree days with a lot of time in the pool:

On the left is the toddler daughter of a Russian Oligarch, who had a grand old time pushing Seth (in the red and white shirt) into the pool.

A few things we noticed:

CC’s mother fed us two dishes: a walnut dish, with walnuts similar to what you’d see in the US, and “Cypriot walnuts.” Which we’d call pecans. They’re considered native to the island – of interest to Jon, who’s from Pecan Central (Georgia). On the occupied side of Nicosea, Jon also spotted some peas that he also only sees in the south of the US, suggesting that there may be some Cyprus-Greece-Georgia connection.

Lots and lots and lots of Russians. Everywhere.

We also took our usual tour of the local grocery store. Of interest:

Aisle of Greek cheese.

Prawn cocktail potato chips.

Feta potato chips.

Coke (sigh.....)

Finally, Jon actually was in Cyprus on legitimate business -- a conference for educational psychologists. Here's a picture of Jon and his crew of doc students/former post-docs (and me) having a working meeting:

It took us a few days to recover from the intensity of the meeting, as you can probably tell.